Consolidation of Fire Districts in Victor, NY

[dwcfireman 656]

Quote

VICTOR — On May 22, village and town boards will invite residents to weigh in on whether they want to see Victor Fire Department and Fishers Fire District join forces officially, taking their existing day-to-day collaboration to the next level.  http://www.victorpost.com/news/20170502/single-fire-district-for-victor

 

I know the masses here on EMTBravo love to talk about consolidation, and since I stumbled upon this while reading the news, I figured it could be a fun discussion where consolidation IS moving forward.  So, I'll start us off with some facts and information about the districts.

 

The Village and Town of Victor are located in Ontario County, in the Finger Lakes Region of New York, about a 20 minute drive southeast from downtown Rochester.

 

This article states that on March 20, the joint session of the Village and Town Boards of Victor voted to bring the issue of consolidating the two fire districts, Victor and Fishers, into a single fire district.  Since the two districts are already relying on each other for manpower and equipment, to the point where they purchase equipment together (such as their ATV's), the joint boards have put though the idea to consolidate the districts.  The other reason, in which the article points to, is that a single district would also level out the taxes that property owners are paying (where taxpayers in the Fishers district would see a slight decrease, and Victor would see a slight increase).  Leveling out the tax levy, according to Victor Fire Chief Sean McAdoo, puts more tax burden back onto the taxpayers of the Victor district, as they are currently receiving more services under the current mutual aid and equipment purchasing plans.

 

The Victor Fire Department is based in the heart of the Village of Victor.  The village is tight on space, houses the Victor Central School District, and is heavily congested with traffic along Main Street.  VFD also covers the Victor Fire Protection District, which surrounds the village in the south and west sides of the town.  These areas are generally residential, with multiple subdivisions in the west and some agriculture in the south.  VFD operates with a quint, engine, heavy rescue, brush truck, and two utilities.  The VFD is 100% volunteer staffing.  [http://victorfire.com]

 

The Fishers Fire Department operates out of two stations, covering the north and west sections of the Town of Victor.  Station 1 is in the west side, comprised of mostly residential, some industrial, and agriculture towards the southern end of the district.  Station 1 is also their headquarters, which houses a quint, engine, and heavy rescue.  Station 2 is at the north end, which is a heavy commercial/retail district, including Eastview Mall, the largest shopping center in the Rochester area.  Station 2 houses an engine, brush truck, and two utilities.  The FFD is a combination department with four career firefighters per platoon (four platoons), but relies heavily on volunteers.  I don't know off hand which apparatus they staff, but I believe it is the engine out of Station 1.  I have not talked to anyone within that organization in years, so my knowledge of the career staffing is a little lacking.  The FFD also covers a large section of the NYS Thruway.  [http://www.fishersfd.org]

 

In my honest opinion, the fact that these two districts have already been working together as a single unit through training, response, and equipment purchasing, it makes sense for them to consolidate into a single district.  Although only one of the district's taxpayers would benefit financially, it's better for these two districts to completely join forces to increase the benefit of emergency services to the people they protect.  This has been foreseen by many in the area, and the fact that it may actually become a reality is enlightening.

 

Maybe a trend will start out of this?

Edited May 3, 2017 by dwcfireman
Spelling

[AFS1970 504]

Two things jumped out at me in this article. First it seems to be that these two departments have been functioning as one for some time so this may be a matter of formality to combine. I can see good and bad to this, as it seems to include stretching the career staff pretty thin. However if they are responding into that area already, it might reduce response time depending on their deployment. I think it is a good thing that these departments are starting the talks themselves instead of having them forced upon them by the municipalities and having to start from behind the 8 ball.

 

Second was the idea that this would create 3 organizations. Two VFD's and 1 Career staff (article did not call it an FD) that would all essentially work for the same district. So I am not sure this is really all that much of a consolidation, at least not more of one than they already have. Other than management of the career staff (which might become more complicated) I don't see a big change here. Although much depends on who will be responsible for what, such as apparatus, equipment and stations.

[dwcfireman 656]

18 hours ago, AFS1970 said:

Second was the idea that this would create 3 organizations. Two VFD's and 1 Career staff (article did not call it an FD) that would all essentially work for the same district. So I am not sure this is really all that much of a consolidation, at least not more of one than they already have. Other than management of the career staff (which might become more complicated) I don't see a big change here. Although much depends on who will be responsible for what, such as apparatus, equipment and stations.

 

The plan is to keep the two volunteer fire companies separate, and the two along with the career staff would function as a single department.  Since they already work together on several fronts, like you said these consolidation talks seem to be more of a formality.  It seems to me that they want to create an environment where both Fishers and Victor volunteer organizations would be able to maintain their identities.  But it sounds like the plan is to have the career staff deal with more of the day to day alarms that volunteers tend to have smaller responses for.  I think the wording in the article was off on this, so it may be that the career staff may just be stepping up their non-emergency duties like inspections and fire prevention.

 

On a separate note, and I forgot about this before, is a consolidation that happened in the northeast section of Monroe County in 2004.  The North East Joint Fire District was approved, combining the East Webster Fire District, Penfield North East Fire District, and the Village of Webster Fire Department.  The NEJFD is known as the Webster Fire Department.  [http://www.nejfd.org/content/nejfdhistory/]

[LayTheLine 108]

dwcfireman - Great posts. Please keep us updated.

[dwcfireman 656]

So, I forgot I started this thread so many moons ago, and I seem to have failed to keep it updated.  Well, it popped into my head today while talking about another possible consolidation (with EMS agencies).  I apologize in advance for the long post.

 

The updates out of Victor, NY as as follows: On March 20, 2018 the Board of Fire Commissioners of the Fishers Fire District voted against consolidation.  One of the main reasons was that it move two of the career firefighters to the Victor fire house and could potentially effect response times to the busier Fishers area.

 

The Victor Fire Department, which is a department under the Village of Victor, convinced the Village Board in June 2018 to pursue separation from the village and becoming a fire district.  This would pave the way for the VFD to hire, at the least, part time paid firefighters to supplement its volunteers.  I don't have any further updates on this, unfortunately, as the process to create the fire district takes approximately two years, and there doesn't seem to be any other news on this subject.

 

BUT, what is happening, and it's big new in the EMS world up here in Rochester, is the continued growth of CHS Mobile Integrated Healthcare.  Originally operating as Henrietta Ambulance, they merged with Chili Ambulance and contracted with the Scottsville Fire Department, all within Monroe County, to become CHS.  About two years ago they expanded once again to cover Caledonia (Livingston County) and the Mumford Fire District (Monroe County).  And, just yesterday, they announced the approval from Greece Volunteer Ambulance (northwest of Rochester) to merge into the CHS system.  Now, this is going on at the same time that Livingston County EMS, located south of Rochester, is growing rapidly and now covering the majority of the county for both BLS and ALS.  Both CHS's and LCEMS's expansion is primarily in response to the closing of volunteer EMS agencies or in savior of closing other EMS agencies.  At any rate, both expanding systems seem to be eluding to a common theme; County Based EMS Systems.  Albeit, CHS is a not-for-profit company, they still continue down the road to creating a county-wide system.

 

I bring up these upstate EMS mergers namely to state that consolidation is happening, and at a rate that will continue to increase.  It seems to be working fairly well with EMS.  Yes, they still have their shortfalls, especially when it comes to staffing, but there is nothing to say that these agencies are going to fail.  So, why is it (consolidation) working so well with EMS but is so feigned when we talk about it at the fire department level?  I mentioned before that it was successful with the North East Joint Fire District in Webster, NY, and I can name another local example with the Hamlin Morton Walker Fire District whose consolidation occurred in 2013 (Western Monroe County).  Why aren't fire departments talking about the "C word" more?  Why aren't we talking about it more?  If fire departments are being requested to do more with less, wouldn't consolidation at least be an option or worth looking into?  There is solid proof that consolidation can be a good thing and have a positive outcome for the emergency services in our communities.  I'm glad that both the Victor and Fishers fire departments at least looked into it.  I may be disappointed about the outcome, but at least there was a motion of well intent.

[LayTheLine 108]

I forgot about this topic as well... over 2 years ago.

 

Here is an opinion about your question of why EMS would be more open to consolidating and not fire. I may not have this right but here is my understanding.

 

Ambulance services are allowed to bill for their services and collect Medicaid & Medicare payments as well as from private insurance companies. So there is money to be saved if you can consolidate the number of rigs in service and the amount of manpower on-duty. Example: Towns A,B,C,D each have their own ambulance service. Each town maintains 3 ambulances. Each town has 2 on-duty members with 2 back-up members for a 2nd ambulance call. If the personnel are paid, including the back-up crews when activated, it can increase your costs. Plus maintaining 3 ambulances both mechanically and outfitted with gear can be expensive.  If you consolidated those 4 town ambulance services into 1, then perhaps you maintain only 8 ambulances (4 on-duty & 4 back-up). When a 2nd call or 3rd call came in, another on-duty ambulance would take it and hence not have to pay off-duty members to respond. If it's an MCI, then of course you'd put all 8 ambulances on the road and call in off-duty members.

 

Fire departments don't charge for their services and can be a burden to a community's budget. It sounds good on paper to consolidate, but then you may have to spread out personnel to cover all the stations. Maybe Town A & B have 6 per shift, Town C has 3 per shift, & Town D has 1 per shift. Now, if all the towns are going to share the tax burden through a fire district you'd have to figure that people will want a certain level of coverage throughout. Perhaps the solution would be to spread out the 16 personnel equally to 4 per station. This would then necessitate a shift-commander for the newly created fire district. That isn't a bad thing, but if it's a combination career/volunteer department the remaining volunteers may lose interest as the responses are changed and the career staff ends up handling the majority of the calls by sending a piece from two stations (1 engine each) to a vehicle fire. The same with automatic alarms. Soon the volunteers would dwindle to the point of being an ineffective back-up force and the district needs to increase the on-duty staff (hire) to handle the call volume.  

 

There is something to be said for self-government where voters keep control of their own destiny.  Conversely, to not be open to sharing equipment and responses doesn't help anyone. In the end there are many issues to be considered. 

Edited August 21, 2019 by LayTheLine

[antiquefirelt 994]

Over the years I watched and read about both Fire and EMS departments merging or consolidation and come to the understanding that this rarely saves money (at least in the short term<10 yrs) and only functions well when it's well received by the "employees". It's easier where the employees are FT paid staff, as the details tend to get worked out. Volunteer organizations have a harder time unless they all want it. I'd think for any mainly volunteer or paid call departments a period of shared training and cooperative buying, along with standardization would set a more stable foundation. 

 

We have both fire and EMS departments "failing" around our area, and generally speaking the taxpayers are not given the whole story. Too often the EMS or Fire Chief and personnel are less forthcoming about their shortfalls with the public, as it seems to admit failure rather than a sign that times have changed and the between run volumes, call types and mandated training requirements have placed a significant burden on the all volunteer/paid call systems.