Arlington Fire District Under Attack

[x635 4,066]

[Dinosaur 844]

Hardly an attack. That's nothing more than a campaign ad for fire commissioner.

[Danger 160]

Hardly an attack. That's nothing more than a campaign ad for fire commissioner.

Nope, it's under attack. Don't judge the situation by one letter.

[Dinosaur 844]

Nope, it's under attack. Don't judge the situation by one letter.

Who is attacking?

Obviously there is dissent among the fire commissioners. Does that constitute an attack?

[Bnechis 3,961]

One candidate for commissioner is backed by both the career & volunteer members. The other one is a save the tax payers from the evil board of commissioners, who will spend all of your money cause they don't care. Note: #2 has failed to acknowledge that the board has actually kept under the tax cap.

1 rumor is that #2 will eliminate the ALS Ambulances & go with a commercial service.

[FDNY 10-75 640]

Does Arlington bill for their ALS & transport services? If they do, aren't they making money on it?

[Bnechis 3,961]

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.

[STAT213 332]

Aren't there agencies that have found a way around this? While the ambulance I lettered for the FD, you are in fact being cared for and billed by a separate corporation of sorts.

[38ff 250]

If the Fire District is providing the ambulance service, they cant bill. Any Fire District that has a separate corporation set up is in a legal minefield.

[STAT213 332]

Utica, NY provides ALS transport with FD ambos and bills for it, to the tune of almost 900,000 a year.

So, someone has figured out how to do it.

[antiquefirelt 994]

Does Arlington bill for their ALS & transport services? If they do, aren't they making money on it?

Maybe it's just our medicare "banding" but I can tell you that providing decent emergency only ALS care and transport is not profitable. Our municipal FD takes in less revenue from EMS than it costs. It's a little murky as we're a FD that uses it's personnel to staff the buses, but I know one could not maintain 3 buses, a place to house them, and the staff to ensure they could cover 95% of the calls with the actual EMS revenue we take in.

[Bnechis 3,961]

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

[Bnechis 3,961]

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.

[STAT213 332]

Interesting. Thx for the info.

BTW, y'all have way too many messed up rules in your state.

Edited December 10, 2013 by STAT213

[Bnechis 3,961]

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.

[Remember585 815]

It sounds like the vote didn't go as hoped for by the AFD. Good luck guys.

[x635 4,066]

This is the problem with 5 year terms. If the public doesn't like what this guy has done after a year, then there's still 4 years left on his term.

[thebreeze 194]

This is the problem with 5 year terms. If the public doesn't like what this guy has done after a year, then there's still 4 years left on his term.

Well you're not taking into the account that he's only a member of the Board, he doesn't have the power to do anything unilaterally, and if the public doesn't like his views then at next years election they can come out in support of someone who opposes his policies. There is no problem with a five year term, as long as there are checks and balances, in this case those being the other four commissioners. You can't just turn everything into one or two year terms, nothing would get accomplished, as it is now politicians spend too much of their time trying to get re-elected, if you shortened their terms then that's all they would focus on. You even sometimes see this with fire chiefs in a one year term, if they want to make any changes they have a few months to try and get things done before they have to start worrying about getting re-elected all over again or bounced out by the old guard who don't like change.

[Jybehofd 85]

they changed the fire district billing rules a couple of years ago i wish i still had the website but i am pretty sure they can bill

[Bnechis 3,961]

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.

[16fire5 693]

I wonder if any other state forbids fire districts from billing for ambulance transportation. There are a number of instances where the EMS operation broke off fire departments for billing purposes.

[Dinosaur 844]

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.

I wonder why not. It's not like it affects any of their pork barrels or special interests.

[Bnechis 3,961]

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