Bnechis

Even a multi-million dollar budget with no staffing is not a stretch anymore, Insurance, LOSAP, and buying a rig or 2 or bonding a station can easily do it. Also comparing costs needs to look at services delivered and per capita costs. A few years ago a volunteer district put out a bond proposal to renovate its fire station. They felt the additional $200-$300 per home was reasonable (the voter approved it). I looked at their budget and found the average taxpayer was paying about $700/yr before the addition. Then I calculated my fire cost and found I was at the average tax for my city and I paid at that time $430/yr. So their million dollar budget looks cheap compared to my $26m, but since mine is covering 77,000 people and they are covering 2,000 - 3,000 my $26m is cheaper. What I would really like to see as a comparison is an annual mandated report (to the state comptroller) detailing response info (average times, minimum staffing at different times/days, training, meeting standards, how often each vehicle responded, etc.) Then the PUBLIC would have a way to know if their FD (& EMS, PD) was doing as good a job as they claimed they are.

Yes you can probe further and maybe on a case by case bases figure something's out, but generally without an insiders road map, it is almost impossible to figure out which budgets cover what. And the probing will not occur on EMTBravo, so all it does is make some depts. look good and others bad, when the opposite may actually be true. In fact I know of big discrepancies in multiple depts. in just the short list you listed.

It has been reported many times over the years that Silver is heavily backed by a number of commercial ambulance providers.

They did not change the billing rule. It has been proposed in every legislative session since the early 80's. Its still listed as a priority for the NYS Association of Fire Districts 2013 agenda. The 3 men in a room wont let it even be voted on.

While this looks like a good way to determine what is spent, it is very deceiving. What is in each budget may not include many items. As an example when doing a comprehensive budget comparison of 2 depts. a few years ago: Dept. X had 30 career members and a budget of $16m Dept. Y had 50 career members and a budget of $12.8m Now both pay similar salaries, so in theory Dept. Y's budget should have been about $29-30m. So how is this possible? Dept. Y's budget did not include the following: Pension ( Paid from the HR Budget) Health Insurance & other insurance and medical costs (Paid from the HR Budget) Fuel, Fleet maintenance, Station maintenance, Utilities (Paid from Public Works Budget) Hydrant Rental/Cost (Water Dept.) Fleet Replacement (Capital Budget) Computers & phones (IT Budget) Contract Fees (legal Dept.) Grants (Development Budget) Without understanding the budget its a meaningless number.

So due to a mechanical equipment failure they had an exciting opps.....How would you legislate a new law preventing an oil water separator from failing? Not hard to make this mistake and no law maker can change that.

That's not what we asked for, that's what the city manager sent to council.

The 2014 budget has not been approved by city council yet (must be by 12/31). Don't want to jinx's anything, but we have asked for .........................................

Cogs, I agree with your list except for #1 "Any requirement should be based on a realistic assessment of the practical needs of the department and not necessarily what the NFPA suggests or your neighboring departments are doing" Their are a number of issues here: 1) How can a department perform a realistic assessment of its needs if the leadership does not have the basic training or knowledge to know what they are assessing? I.E. if you have no one trained in interior operations and every fire you pull up to you hit it with a deck gun till it goes out (by collapsing and running out of fuel) how do you know what interior ops levels there are or you should be at. I remember years ago when auto extrication training was learning to cut up cars and not how to extricate people. I can tell you how many scenes I was at (as EMS) that the rescuers did more harm than good in removing the victim. And I am referring to all levels of depts. (vol, career, small, large, urban, rural). 2) There are legal minimum standards, that must be maintained. I know a number of depts. that do not meet these and they use the argument that they cant realistically meet them. If that is true, then you need to tell the public, because if you do not then you are allowing them to believe you can handle the job...in effect you are lying by default. 3) NFPA are not recommendation. They are the standards that the court will use when someone sues. NYS courts have been accepting this as have other courts. FEMA is now using them for grants and this summer ISO got the NYS Insurance Commissioner to sanction NFPA standards for the insurance ratings. One of the 1st things that is taught in EMT is medical / legal / ethical issues and under legal its always taught that the courts look at what surrounding area individuals would do. So you are compared to the neighbors. One reason that NYS has a volunteer & a career standard is because FASNY (which represents volunteers) did an assessment and determined that the lowest training level standards in the country are good enough to protect NYS volunteers and the communities they protect.

Yes NFPA 1901 allows 25 years, but must have a safety upgrade at 15. The cost of the upgrade most likely means its cheaper to sell the rig and replace.

You do not need SCBA for Ops. The definition is Defensive operations, from a safe distance based on the PPE level provided. I would paste the section of the law, but I have not been able to paste anything on EMTB for a week now.

Ok so now we are up to $26.2 million and we are not including any equipment on these rigs, or the insurance, maintenance, fuel or the cost to house them. Now if they were all getting on the road every time there was a call with sufficient (and trained) staffing then we could justify this because we would be providing a great service. But if they sit there and never get out, why are we spending ourselves into the ground? This represents 27 departments, out of 59. So I would bet there are a lot more rigs to go. Good thing our taxpayers are supporting the good folks who have low taxes in Appleton, Ocala, Snyder, Clintonville, Baton Rouge, etc......

In NYS it is required by law for all Firefighters (including scene support) to have Hazmat Ops BEFORE they are allowed to respond to ANY calls.

FLIP's is required by state law for all career members on their 1st promotion. FLIP's does not teach you how to handle calls (since FDNY handles calls very different from say Pelham), you need to know that to score well to get promoted.

See post #9

In my next life I am coming back as a lawyer for a fire insurance company........I think it would be pretty easy to recoup most of the fire loss by going after substandard FD's and their officers.

While, I agree with Antiquefirelt about municipal depts. are better for ensuring essential services. Well written contracts can protect communities that are using commercial services. In our region there are multiple commercial services who could step in with only a few hours notice. We require a very large performance bond that if the commercial provider did something like this, we could call another company and have them in within 12-24 hours. Then we cash the bond (its worth between 4 and 6 months of total cost). Any additional cost for the new service would be covered by the bond. When I look at the issues being claimed in the Arlington under attack thread, I know that many of the communities around Arlington use a commercial contractor and they have no guarantee for anything; response time, level of service, or if they will even respond.

Yes we do and most will fight to the death to keep them, because they guarantee that we can never do thing effectively or efficiently and most important, no one from out side our little response area, school, village, etc. can ever tell us what to do or how to do it. Most of these laws go back to the 20's or 30's and they were designed to protect little communities and districts.

If you go that separate corporation under a fire district, the state comptroller says that all employees must be under the corp. and not the fire district. That means no Fire Pension and no state protection for disability.

Utica NY is a municipal fire dept. not a fire district. Municipal depts. may bill, fire districts may not.

"You get what you pay for"

No they do not bill. It is illegal in NYS for "Special Districts" including Fire Districts to bill for EMS (or almost anything else). The Fire District Association has tried for years to change that law, but S. Silver has never allowed it to come to the floor for a vote.

E-21 & E23 are Spartan/Smeal L-12 is a Spartan ERV. Spartan is the chassis that Smeal uses. Spartan ERV (formally known as Crimson Fire) is owned by Spartan Motors, but run as an independent company. They can produce on other chassis, but its not common.

Add Pelham Manor, Town of Mamaroneck & Rye Brook

Should be here in January