Bnechis

Fire districts are canaries in tax cap mine shaft ALBANY — Maybe the state’s new property tax cap is working, and maybe it isn’t. But for right now, no one knows for sure. That’s because more than half of all the state’s nearly 900 fire districts failed to meet a deadline to report the tax cap data to the State Comptroller’s Office before adopting their budgets for the upcoming year.

We pay for car insurance because you can not register your car with out it. We pay for homeowners insurance because you can not get a morgage with out it. Lots of people would spin the wheel and take a chance on both if they did not have to pay. We are that homeowners policy and if you support your local FD, you can reduce what the insurance co. will charge you for the same coverage, because they reduce their risk. We have not sold that message.

You misunderstood my point on insurance. I was refering to the investment that each property owner makes on their property insurance. The insurance industry credits each on-duty (in the fire station) firefighter as 1 fire fighter and any on-call (responding from anywhere but the fire station) as 17 - 33% of one firefighter. So you need at least 100 volunteers to equal 33 career personnel. Since premiums are based in part on this, and in a community like Stamford we are talking hundreeds of millions spent on insuring private property, you must consider the potential savings that one staffing method has over another.

So would you say that to save taxpayers money, the stipends are not needed for the volunteers in BFD, since clearly they do not need them, but those in the other depts will need them. Wont this lead to problems in the future and what does this say about the leadership/environment in the other depts.? Could it be that the internal BS is so bad that even stipends may not help? While on paper they look like they offer more bang, they sometimes do and sometimes do not. How many of those 200 volunters actually exist? What if only 100 volunteers become active with incentives? Do they all need to be interior ff's or does a minimum % need to be? I am not talking about did they complete the training to be interior, I am talking about the members who pack up and walk balk and forth in front of the fire building (they are not interior). Now lets say you get 60% of the 100 are true interior ff's. you are paying for 40 hose packers who are not firefighters. So now we should be comparing the cost of 16 career to 60 volunteers. What about the insurance ratings? Those volunteers only count as 1/3 of a career ff by the insurance industry. So lets add to the cost of incentives the cost of insurance. Now even though I am only counting the 60 volunteers, you still need to buy the gear & insurance for the other 40. So its ok to offer incentives to only some of the volunteers? Fair enough, lets rely on federal law to define this. Here is an interesting federal definition: Anhydrous Ammonia is defined by federal law (specified by congress) as a non-flammable gas. Thats what it says in its MSDS, DOT Guild, USCG Manual, Railroad Guild, etc. But Anhydrous Ammonia has a flammable range of 16% - 25% in air. So The laws of the US says it does not burn, but the laws of chemistry says it does. Be careful of relying on the laws written by politicians. Thats true, the current system costs much less, except of course to the people who have suffered because of the lack of performance. Thats only true, if the performance is there. There are many depts. that use incentives and look like they are cost effective, but proof is in the performance and many of them can not perform to the standards that they should

Seth, I agree you need to be proactive, but we are trully shovelling Sh*t against the tide. In the last election, we only got about 6,000 voters out of 80,000 residence (45,000 registered voaters). This kind of turnout sends a clear message to the politicians......we do not care what you decide. We are regularly questioned as to why New Rochelle FD/PD/DPW comes to homes in Scarsdale and these people will not accept that even thought they pay taxes to NR they must live in Scarsdale because the real estate agent told them it was in Scarsdale (and that will cost you an extra $60,000). Love when you ask what school the kids go to...and its a NR school....I cant figure out why? People are so caught up in their own little world and if they are not dialling 911, then they cant figure out why they should pay for it.

Can you imagine what would happen if the State Comptroller Mandated an annual FD report as part of your required budget. Make it available on the Comptrollers, your depts. (if applicable) and your town (city, village) web sites. Required info: Budget breakdown Number of career ff's and training received during the year (if any) Number of volunteer ff's and training received during the year (if any) Minimum career on duty staffing: per shift & per apparatus (if any) Minimum response of career personnel to reported fire (if any) Minimum response of volunteer personnel to reported fire (if any) Average response of volunteer personnel to reported fire (if any) Maximum response of volunteer personnel to reported fire (if any) If above 3 vary more than 10%, list time of day/day of week Number/type of apparatus. Condition of apparatus, equipment, stations, etc. Other services provided. Mutual aid given & received Injury summary ISO rating Even if the community does not react, maybe....just maybe if departments measure their performance, they might try to improve it. Or maybe the politicians will just be embarrassed enough to fund us to the level needed to fix it.

Great question. This is unfortunate, but it does happen, particularly in smaller depts. often those without a career chief. Basicly, the union must make this an issue. It is critical that they legally document this with the AHJ, showing that this is a failure on the dept. and not a failure of the members to comply. At that point, the AHJ has major liability, for any member injured and for any civilian injury and even for property loss. They may not care, but, they need to publicly know about it. Often, local unions do not make a big enough deal about this. They need to.

There is no way you can meet the training in the required hours, but the same holds true for FF1. Hazmat OPS is a stand alone 15 hours course, that in FF1 they allot 6-9 hours to cover. The sad part is I know depts where members are not meeting the 8 hour requirement and they will not take that person off the line, to justify themselves they state they are short handed and need every available member.

I agree, maybe FASNY should re-examine there anti-training position and lobby for better training. Agreed. FASNY needs to work in the 21st century. It will take an infusion of new blood into the organization. They were thrilled that they got backward hazmat billing legislation passed, luckily the GOV. was persuaded that it would hurt most fire depts and hazmat teams in the state. The best statement was they should work on legislation that benefits the fire service in general and not just the volunteers i.e. the legislation on blue lights that they proposed was for rear facing blue lights on volunteer fire trucks, the legislation was then changed to include all fire trucks.

Yes 100 hours minimum for career 8 hours minimum for volunteers And this is the main reason for the volunteer vs. career debates that crop up here. Note: Before this turns into another war, we all know those numbers are minimums and many firefighters have much more than that.

>> "Twenty-eight firefighters would earn $45,182 each, while drivers would earn $55,917. The new department also expects to hire 10 transfers from Stamford Fire & Rescue at base salaries of $72,500."<< 28 ff's earn $45,182 each. 19 ff's earn $55,917 each. 10 ff's earn $72,500 each. Let me predict what will happen if this comes to pass. At the 1st meeting of the career firefighters, they will determine that the pay scales are unfair and they need a union to fight for their rights. They will either form their own local or will potition to join SFRD's local. I do not know what the labor laws in CT. are, but I suspect the administration will have a hard time defending this practice and very rapidly will need to negotiate a "fair" contract. BTW: if they are all brought up to the $72,500 level, thats an additional $1,079,981 (plus benefits) cost that has not been factored into this "new" dept. Add that to the manpower shortages they have already built into the scheduling and the taxpayers in North Stamford are going to get slammed.

>>"...I was asked to respond to your question regarding required training for volunteer firefighters. Let me preface this answer by saying that PESH does not differentiate between volunteers and career firefighters; both are considered employees under State law." << While PESH does not differentiate between career and volunteer, NYS Law does. NYCRR Part 426 (Minimum Standards for Firefighting Personnel) requires the following: § 426.1 Purpose. The purpose of this Part is to establish uniform minimum State training standards designed to increase competency and reliability of fire service personnel; improve and expand the professional training available to paid fire service personnel by developing uniform minimum standards for basic, in-service, advanced in-service and promotional supervisory training programs, with emphasis on proper subject content and better instruction; §426.7 In-service fire training. (a) Permanently appointed firefighters and fire officers normally assigned to command company operations at emergencies shall annually receive a minimum of 100 contact hours of in- service training in the following subject areas: The 100 hours technically does not acknowledge the "8 hour" OSHA/PESH requirements, but can easily accomidate it under the required subject matter. Each career firefighter/officers training must be documented and submitted to NYS annually. I have seen a number of complaints from the volunteer firefighters that they are no allowed to have MTO (municipal training officers). MTO's are mandated by NYCRR Part 427 to facilitate NYCRR Part 426. So until Part 426 requires all firefighters in NYS to have 100 hours of annual inservice (plus the initial and officer training) MTO's will not be allowed. The NYSPFF fought very hard over 35 years ago to creat this legislation. FASNY fought very hard against it and the result is the above legislation and a divided fire service.

BOTH and yes thats a 4 Letter word....

The volunteers did not respond to 1 call in over 30 years. It was a social club. THey have no converted it into a CERT team. Since, they have never called "all" career members back, what would be the point of having volunteers that will never be called.

At least 4 previous Governors wanted to use the pension fund to "solve" the governor’s budget issues. Each time the Comptroller has said that under the state constitution the only legal way for the Governor to access the money was for him to borrow it at the same interest rate any other entity borrowing money would be charged. Once that was on the table, the governors tend to back down. I also recall 1 comptroller who commented that anyone in the state would have standing to sue the governor if he just "took it" and since he swore to uphold the constitution of the state, it would be grounds for impeachment. Now can the pension system invest in a new TZB....yes, as long as there’s a fair market return on the investment.

Do you know that a 100% countywide consolidation will actually solve this? I know it will cut the number of apparatus and other costs, in some of the career depts it will spread crews out providing better coverage at the same cost. The big question in a countywide consolidation (vs. multiple regional ones) is if some depts. have true staffing problems, that they have managed to keep undercover (and we all know who they are), then once the "county" goes in and see's it, they might actually have to address the shortages. This could cost $$$$, but the communities will be safer. Cant be determined without studying the problem.

We gave back to keep them on in 2010. The city kept them in 2011 because it was an election year. We are currently out of contract since Jan 01, so nothing to give back till they come to the table.

Minimum of 2ff/1of on 5 engines (eng 21 get 1 additional ff). Minimum of 2ff/1of on TL (cross mans Rescue 4 & 54) Minimum of 3 (either 2ff/1of or 3ee) on Ladder 13 and up until a week ago on ladder 12. Chief & aide

I'm sure the tax payers in Hartsdale and in most districts do not know or care about the FD until they are dialling 911. Then they pray that the dept is well staffed, well trained, well equiped, and not committed to another incident.

They run paramedic engines & trucks along with FF/EMT (BLS) Ambulances. They are the primary transport agency.

We looked in to this and if they recieve any money from the Feds, for improvemnets (paving, signs, lighting, etc.) they county. In New Rochelle they include: North Avenue, Main St., Huguenot St., Pelham Rd., Weaver St., Webster Ave., Pinebrook Blvd., Eastchester Rd., Quaker Ridge Rd., 5th Ave., Stratton Rd., Baurad Rd., Wilmot Rd. Union Ave., Weyman Ave., Kings Highway, Palmer Ave., etc. Plus many more. So basicly if your on a primary local road.

Chris, I understand the issue of the potential for it becoming tactical, but from a risk vs. benefit, what are the numbers of officers injured/killed on the highway by a criminal action vs. being struck because they were not seen? Chris, no need to answer......I saw the follow ups.

I think you may have this reversed. If the customers were not ordering them, the manufacturers would not be spending money to develop them.

I am quite confident that there will not be a unified Westchester County Run Fire and EMS Operation during my career or even my lifetime. Everyone knows I am convinced that consolidation is needed, but for the county to unify as one the following hurdles (in addition to the ones you listed above) need to be overcome: 1) The politicains at the state level will need to rewrite County Law, City Law, Town Law and Village Law. They have had no interest in even looking at this, even thought many groups have been asking for it. 2) The politicains at the County Level are unwilling to add services that will increase county tax, even if it will reduce the overall tax being paid in Westchester. While consolidation will save some money in the long run, the seed money needed is huge and its not there. Note: Cutbacks force Insurance Rating to go up not down.

They would reduce our fire response manning even more than what we are at now. Plus, it would require replacing stations as there is not 1 inch of space...so add millions to the cost. Then pay for maintenance & insurance, Plus if you are going to send them on "minor" fire calls, we would need to not only buy them ($200,000 plus)then equip them. hose, nozzles, EMS gear, SCBA. SO I figure to get 1 and house it would cost us about $6 - $8 Million. If we lay off another 45 ff's or so, it might break even. Thanks, lets leave it in Fl. where they do mostly medical (85%) and almost no fire (some of the remaining 15%). Now if we had the space and the manning to cover fire, rescue, hazmat, etc. it might not be a bad idea to add capability (rigs & personnel) to help cover additional EMS calls. Anyone else want to discusse it?