Mayor Demeza Delhomme has prohibited village employees who are volunteer firefighters from

[SRS131EMTFF 471]

http://www.lohud.com/article/20131204/NEWS02/312040048/Spring-Valley-firestorm-Delhomme-bars-employee-volunteers-from-responding-blazes

Spring Valley firestorm: Delhomme bars employee volunteers from responding to blazes

Mayor Demeza Delhomme has prohibited village employees who are volunteer firefighters from responding to fires or emergencies during working hours, igniting a debate about whether the policy endangers lives and property.

Edited December 5, 2013 by SRS131EMTFF

[newsbuff 286]

He is their boss, he is ultimately responsible for the work they get PAID to do. They have a JOB to do, and that comes before volunteering at an organization. I can't tell my private employer that I want to be paid to go fight fires. That would be considered walking out of your JOB.

I mean hell, if people are going to go on calls while on the clock for the town, why not just PAY them to BE FIREFIGHTERS, not water/highway/parks workers.

Edited December 5, 2013 by newsbuff

[Bnechis 3,961]

Depending on the agreement, that maybe illegal. Many are not with individual depts., but are county wide agreements.

[Dinosaur 844]

Depending on the agreement, that maybe illegal. Many are not with individual depts., but are county wide agreements.

What agreement?

[ryguy12fd 33]

http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/S3305-2011

BILL NUMBER:S3305

TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the labor law, in relation to prohibiting an employer from terminating an employee who also is a volunteer firefighter or a volunteer provider of emergency medical services when that employee misses or is late to work because of an emergency to which the employee was dispatched

PURPOSE: The legislation is designed to ensure volunteer firefighters and EMS responders won't lose their paying jobs simply because they were late or missed work while performing their duties.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS: Section 1. The labor law is amended by adding a new section 202-1 to read as follows:

Section 202-1. Authorized absence. 1. If an employee is absent from or late to his or her employment due to his or her engaging in the actual performance of his or her duties as (a) volunteer firefighter, or ( an enrolled member of a volunteer ambulance service pursuant to article thirty of the public health law, an employer shall be prohibited from terminating such employee solely on the basis of such absence or lateness.

2. The entire period of the authorized absence may be charged against any other leave such employee is otherwise entitled to, and such authorized absence shall include travel both to and from such duties performed in his or her capacity as a volunteer. At the employer's request the employee must provide the employer with a statement from the head of the volunteer firefighter or volunteer ambulance service, as applicable, stating the employee responded to an emergency at the time of such response.

3. In the event that the employee does not have accrued time to offset any time lost in an emergency response the employer must either, at its option: (a) grant at least three hours of authorized absence in any twelve month period to an employee who has engaged in a volunteer response or ( allow its employees without use of accumulated leave time an authorized absence for volunteer response during work hours at least two times per calendar year.

4. The commissioner is hereby authorized to establish any necessary guidelines, including requirements for documentation of the emergency response, validation of accrued leave, and the conditions of dismissal and procedures for an employee to seek reinstatement and reimbursement if dismissed on the basis of an authorized absence.

JUSTIFICATION:

There are numerous examples of volunteers being discharged on the basis of tardiness or absenteeism even though the response was bona fide and in response to a dispatch from the Chief or appropriate person in charge.

The threat of losing a job has a chilling effect on response at a time when more that than 80 percent of New York State's geography is covered by volunteer response. Volunteers are frontline first responders and cannot be replaced without enormous cost to local governments at a time when the State is in the throes of a budget crisis.

The bill has several employer protections. It requires verification from a commanding officer that the volunteer was duly dispatched. It allows for absences to be charged against employee's accrued leave. It allows for verification of the timeline for the response.

Eight states including Ohio, Illinois and California have passed statues to protect their volunteers. Daytime response has become critical and attracting and retaining volunteers has become a daily challenge for local Fire Companies. Volunteers should not have to choose between their job and protecting their community.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: A.9856/S.4988 - Veto #6791 of 2010

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: None.

EFFECTIVE DATE: This act shall take effect immediately.

[10512 214]

That looks like it is a Bill, it does not appear to have been passed into law. If so, than it cannot be any "agreement".

Unless this agreement is based on something else, it does not appear it is actionable based solely on a Bill

Edited December 5, 2013 by 10512

[99subi 121]

"TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the labor law, in relation to prohibiting an employer from terminating an employee who also is a volunteer firefighter or a volunteer provider of emergency medical services when that employee misses or is late to work because of an emergency to which the employee was dispatched"

Doesn't say anything about leaving work. IMO the mayor is right.

Edited December 5, 2013 by 99subi

[FireMedic049 597]

Additionally, if the law is like the one we have in PA, it would not be applicable to the situation described in the article. The protections only apply to situations in which the response occurs before reporting to work, not when you leave work to respond (especially when you leave without the employer's consent). It protects your employment if you are late or miss your shift entirely due to an incident. From a quick read of the bill, it strikes me as being the same way.

However, I would imagine that the employer could terminate employment if a pattern of "abuse" can be proven. Stuff like being several hours late to work, when you could've only been slightly late or skipping work altogether when you could've reported to work.

[v85 212]

I know that the Orange County 911 center allows or at one time allowed dispatchers to leave from work or come in late for structure fires or HAZ-MAT incidents

[Bnechis 3,961]

The mutual aid agreement.

My point was how many depts. have 1 to 1 agreements vs. county or regional ones?

[Bnechis 3,961]

And the bill says fiscal impact to state or local governments: None.

But in this case their is a local gov impact.

[FireMedic049 597]

"TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the labor law, in relation to prohibiting an employer from terminating an employee who also is a volunteer firefighter or a volunteer provider of emergency medical services when that employee misses or is late to work because of an emergency to which the employee was dispatched"

Doesn't say anything about leaving work. IMO the mayor is right.

"Legal" and "right" are not always the same thing. The mayor may be legally allowed to restrict the town's employees from leaving work, however it may not be the right decision.

When you consider that the municipality is ultimately responsible to ensure the provision of fire protection within that municipality (which oftentimes means using a non-municipal VFD to do so), the decision to prohibit municipal employees from responding to emergencies within the community during work hours is not necessarily the wisest of decisions.

Additionally, if the issue is ultimately paying the employee for time not actually spent at work (lost productivity), there's a couple of pretty simple solutions available. Allow them to respond, but they don't get paid for the time they are absent. Allow them to respond, but have them "make up" the lost time in some fashion. At only a 1000 or so calls per year, these employees probably aren't missing a substantial amount of time.

Edited December 5, 2013 by FireMedic049

[EMT111 149]

He is their boss, he is ultimately responsible for the work they get PAID to do. They have a JOB to do, and that comes before volunteering at an organization. I can't tell my private employer that I want to be paid to go fight fires. That would be considered walking out of your JOB.

I mean hell, if people are going to go on calls while on the clock for the town, why not just PAY them to BE FIREFIGHTERS, not water/highway/parks workers.

Exactly, and I can imagine that there are a lot of people out there, such as tax payers in spring valley who agree with the mayors stance. How many times have VFDs and VACs and other tax funded.public agencies been turned down lately in terms of purchasing new equipment and vehicles? Can you imagine the uproar in the community if it had been leaked that public employees were leaving their jobs to go on fire calls and getting paid at the same time?

"Legal" and "right" are not always the same thing. The mayor may be legally allowed to restrict the town's employees from leaving work, however it may not be the right decision.

When you consider that the municipality is ultimately responsible to ensure the provision of fire protection within that municipality (which oftentimes means using a non-municipal VFD to do so), the decision to prohibit municipal employees from responding to emergencies within the community during work hours is not necessarily the wisest of decisions.

Again agreed. I think the best option in this situation is for whatever union to get a clause or something put into their next contract that would allow village employees to go on unpaid breaks to respond to fire calls.

[FireMedic049 597]

Exactly, and I can imagine that there are a lot of people out there, such as tax payers in spring valley who agree with the mayors stance. How many times have VFDs and VACs and other tax funded.public agencies been turned down lately in terms of purchasing new equipment and vehicles? Can you imagine the uproar in the community if it had been leaked that public employees were leaving their jobs to go on fire calls and getting paid at the same time?

You might be surprised at the reaction. It's a pretty common thing in my area and in some of the communities, the daytime response would be very poor if it wasn't happening.

Again agreed. I think the best option in this situation is for whatever union to get a clause or something put into their next contract that would allow village employees to go on unpaid breaks to respond to fire calls.

This assumes that all of the employees are unionized. If they are, it may have to be done more than once if multiple bargaining units are involved. Regardless, the employer would have to agree to the provision and considering that the Mayor would likely be the one to have to agree to it on the employer side, it may not happen.

[EMT111 149]

This assumes that all of the employees are unionized. If they are, it may have to be done more than once if multiple bargaining units are involved. Regardless, the employer would have to agree to the provision and considering that the Mayor would likely be the one to have to agree to it on the employer side, it may not happen.

It seems to me that the Mayor's two main points are that people are getting paid to leave work to go on fire calls and that the other employees have to pick up slack. If the union is okay with the other employees picking up the slack, and the employees aren't getting paid for going on fire calls, I don't see what the argument would be.

[ltx17 19]

this is payback for when a previous chief had him locked up for interfering with fighting operations at several structure fires about 10 years ago

[RANDY45 11]

Exactly, and I can imagine that there are a lot of people out there, such as tax payers in spring valley who agree with the mayors stance. How many times have VFDs and VACs and other tax funded.public agencies been turned down lately in terms of purchasing new equipment and vehicles? Can you imagine the uproar in the community if it had been leaked that public employees were leaving their jobs to go on fire calls and getting paid at the same time?

Again agreed. I think the best option in this situation is for whatever union to get a clause or something put into their next contract that would allow village employees to go on unpaid breaks to respond to fire calls.

Are you kidding me, volunteer departments only survive because employers let the employees respond to fires/ems calls. Can you imagine the uproar in the community when those public employees no longer go on fire calls and instead the village has to PAY a fire department to respond, and the community has to pay for that. This is not about pay vs volunteer, but municipalities have to set an example and allow there employees to respond to calls if they expect other businesses to do the same. This is vital to the sustainability of the volunteer service.

[res6cue 67]

Delhomme said if there is a serious fire — and Spring Valley calls top 1,000 annually — other village volunteers can respond and the village-funded department can depend on other departments to provide mutual aid.

So, he will not allow his village workers to respond with the village dept to calls within the village...but he's perfectly fine with town and county workers who volunteer with surrounding depts responding mutual aid into the village to bail them out? Ridiculous.

“Every five minutes we have a false alarm,” Delhomme said Wednesday.

When you start to exaggerate that badly to make your point, you lose credibility. SVFD averages 1,000 calls per year, which works out to 2.7 calls per day. Taking into account that a number of these calls come in at night and on weekends, the percentage that come in during weekday working hours starts to dwindle. Then take into account how many of those weekday working hours calls are not false alarms, but are instead legitimate calls, and the number dwindles even more.

Of the 929 calls they've responded to so far in 2013, 414 have occurred between 0700 and 1800 hrs Monday through Friday, which is a pretty generous 11 hour workday (there were only 328 calls between 0900-1700 M-F). 150 of those alarms were not in the automatic alarm, telephone alarm, or alarm sounding category; they were legitimate calls to varying degrees. That leaves 264 that were most likely false alarms, which works out to be about 1 per weekday. "Every five minutes"? Hardly.

They are also at the top of the chart as far as legitimate fires and incidents are concerned, so they're hardly chasing 1,000 false alarms each year. Yes, 534 of their alarms this year have come in as an automatic alarm, telephone alarm, or alarm sounding...so assuming that all of them were false/nuisance alarms, that's a 57% false alarm rate. It's probably a little bit lower than that assuming a few of those turned out to be legitimate causes, but it's still over 50%. However as broken down above, less than half of those types of alarms have come in during weekday working hours.

The bottom line is that these numbers matter. It matters how many calls come in during normal working hours, and it matters how many of them are BS alarms vs legitimate alarms. If the mayor wants to make a stink about guys lollygagging at BS calls for "3 hours" while on the clock, then let him back that claim up with some data.

this is payback for when a previous chief had him locked up for interfering with fighting operations at several structure fires about 10 years ago

Instead this guy wants to settle old grudges, that's really what this is about. Anyone familiar with this guy's history understands this is not about him "doing good for the village", it's personal.

He should've sat down with the FD to come up with a policy that made sense, such as limiting the types of calls they can respond to initially. You know, hang back for automatic alarms unless it turns out to be a legitimate call, then they can respond if a request for additional manpower is transmitted.

Here's the breakdown of their incidents in 2013 so far, for those interested in raw numbers:

929 Calls in 2013 as of Dec 4th

416 AUTOMATIC ALARM

69 ALARM SOUNDING

49 TELEPHONE ALARM

45 BRUSH/MULCH/RUBBISH OUTSIDE

36 SMOKE/ODOR OF BURNING - INSIDE

32 STRUCTURE FIRE

30 HAZMAT

27 ELEVATOR RESCUE

25 VEHICLE FIRE

24 ELECTRICAL OUTSIDE/WIRES/POLE

21 OVEN/APPLIANCE/COOKING FIRE

20 NATURAL GAS - OUTSIDE

18 HAZMAT

16 CO W/ SYMPTOMS

15 SMOKE IN THE BUILDING

14 SMOKE/ODOR OF BURNING - OUTSIDE

14 ELECTRICAL INSIDE

11 UNKNOWN TYPE - OUTSIDE

9 UNKNOWN TYPE - INSIDE

9 DUMPSTER FIRE

8 FLOODING CONDITION

6 ASSIST POLICE/EMS/UTILITIES

3 EXTRICATION CALL

3 BOILER/FURNACE

3 BARBEQUE GRILL/OUTSIDE EQUIPMENT

1 WASHDOWN

1 STANDBY

1 RUBBISH FIRE INSIDE

1 PUMP OUT

1 COLLAPSE

1 ACCIDENT - NO EXTRICATION

[res6cue 67]

The mutual aid agreement.

My point was how many depts. have 1 to 1 agreements vs. county or regional ones?

Rockland County has a longstanding countywide Mutual Aid Plan that all 26 depts participate in. There are no "1 to 1" agreements per se, although some depts do establish AMA arrangements for certain types of calls, e.g. a dept might have one particular neighboring dept dispatched automatically for a FAST to all reported structure fires within their jurisdiction. These arrangements still fall under the overall countywide plan, however, and are established in the county's CAD system. 44-Control is the single point of dispatch for every fire dept in the county; there are no other PSAP's that dispatch fire anymore.

https://rocklandgov.com/files/5213/4211/7836/Mutual_Aid_Plan_Revised_2011.pdf

[Bnechis 3,961]

res6cue that was my point. thanks.

Others made it sound like you could just break the MA deal with 1 dept.

[velcroMedic1987 330]

That looks like it is a Bill, it does not appear to have been passed into law. If so, than it cannot be any "agreement".

Unless this agreement is based on something else, it does not appear it is actionable based solely on a Bill

That is just a bill. I can't find anything in the current labor law relating to that and it is from last year's assembly so its not even pending.

[efd184 59]

Looks like it's time for another recruiting drinking party

[velcroMedic1987 330]

Bottom line is they are village employees and he is the mayor. Their employer. We can complain about it all day long but in the end it is his prerogative to deal with his employees and their budgets. Whether it is 5 calls or 500 calls really doesn't matter really.

He may be making this an issue to force an apathetic FD to take action to correct its own staffing problems that have been ignored because they rely on village employees.

[velcroMedic1987 330]

So, he will not allow his village workers to respond with the village dept to calls within the village...but he's perfectly fine with town and county workers who volunteer with surrounding depts responding mutual aid into the village to bail them out? Ridiculous.

When you start to exaggerate that badly to make your point, you lose credibility. SVFD averages 1,000 calls per year, which works out to 2.7 calls per day. Taking into account that a number of these calls come in at night and on weekends, the percentage that come in during weekday working hours starts to dwindle. Then take into account how many of those weekday working hours calls are not false alarms, but are instead legitimate calls, and the number dwindles even more.

Of the 929 calls they've responded to so far in 2013, 414 have occurred between 0700 and 1800 hrs Monday through Friday, which is a pretty generous 11 hour workday (there were only 328 calls between 0900-1700 M-F). 150 of those alarms were not in the automatic alarm, telephone alarm, or alarm sounding category; they were legitimate calls to varying degrees. That leaves 264 that were most likely false alarms, which works out to be about 1 per weekday. "Every five minutes"? Hardly.

They are also at the top of the chart as far as legitimate fires and incidents are concerned, so they're hardly chasing 1,000 false alarms each year. Yes, 534 of their alarms this year have come in as an automatic alarm, telephone alarm, or alarm sounding...so assuming that all of them were false/nuisance alarms, that's a 57% false alarm rate. It's probably a little bit lower than that assuming a few of those turned out to be legitimate causes, but it's still over 50%. However as broken down above, less than half of those types of alarms have come in during weekday working hours.

The bottom line is that these numbers matter. It matters how many calls come in during normal working hours, and it matters how many of them are BS alarms vs legitimate alarms. If the mayor wants to make a stink about guys lollygagging at BS calls for "3 hours" while on the clock, then let him back that claim up with some data.

Thanks for the data. I can't speak to the assertion that this is a personal grudge but looking at the data you provided there are some other viewpoints.

From a management perspective, if I have an employee leaving 328 times during the year, that is more than once per work day (260 work days). If they are all just routine calls that lasted an hour, I've lost an employee for 328 hours. How many of us get that much vacation or personal leave time? That's 17% of their total work time being spent not doing their job.

Now if I'm the DPW foreman and 3 of my guys leave a job to go on a fire call, there is an impact. There is also the morale and productivity issue for the employees still on the job-site.

If there are 10 guys in the village who are FD members, that's 3280 hours a year of lost productivity. How does the village board reconcile that while trying to live under a 2% tax cap? Why should the village bear that responsibility? Shouldn't the FD have to address their problems?

[efd184 59]

Does the bank teller in town get to run out the door when the pager goes off at 11am? How about the teacher who is teaching a lesson in the elementary school? I do t think they do. If your job is dpw get then that's your job not being a ff. When your done at work then you can play ff. But when the town is paying you to serve the town get to work!

Would you still go if your job stopped paying you?

Stop crying

Edited December 5, 2013 by efd184

[JackEMT 77]

It's a tough situation, but I side with the mayor on this one (as long as he is within legal bounds).

1) They are on the clock as employees, they were hired to do a job and be at the job. Yes, they might be late because they are at a structure fire, fine. But leaving the job for an alarm? I would consider that "off the clock" and they don't get paid.

2) Liability, if they respond to an alarm during their normal working hours, they get injured, is that considered "on the job" since it's during their work shift, they are getting paid and they got permission to respond to the alarm?

3) Do they have to respond to the alarm in their POV or do the DPW employees take the town vehicles to the alarm and in essence out of service?

4) If they are able to do this for fire and EMS personnel, then someone who volunteers at the school as a tutor, crossing guard or with Salvation Army, American Red Cross, DMAT, physicians without borders can sue for paid time off to volunteer also. Just opening a can or worms.

I understand the need to staff volunteer emergency services. I did it. When I was working at home and the pager went out, if they couldn't staff the rig on the first or second set of tones, I left my paid job to take the call. I had an understanding manager that allowed me to do this, but he had the right to tell me that I could not do that and I would have had to comply.

[Reliance 29]

In Nova Scotia, Canada it is up to the employer if as a volunteer firefighter you can leave. Also in my the department the employer will sign the rookies application as to if he can leave or not.

I used to work at a place that had 5 volunteer firefighters there and we would alternate for working fires and not leave for basic alarm calls and he paid us for it. We were on a punch clock at work with time cards.

[FirNaTine 370]

I would hope a School Teacher would not Volunteer at all. After all why would somebody in a Union be a Hypocrite and Volunteer for anything if not getting Paid! Right fellow Union Brothers? Yeah Right!

[efd184 59]

I would hope a School Teacher would not Volunteer at all. After all why would somebody in a Union be a Hypocrite and Volunteer for anything if not getting Paid! Right fellow Union Brothers? Yeah Right![/quote

Nooo that never happens lol

[Jybehofd 85]

this is nothing new in Westchester numerous towns have told there DPW and highway workers they can't respond any more.. unless they go back to the office and punch out. Typical they didn't and were still on the town clock while on the fire engine or ambulance.