38ff

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Posts posted by 38ff

  2. Posted

    Fire commissioners report to the taxpayers, and the NYS Comptrollers/ the county DAs office if they really screw up with money. NYS laws authorize fire districts to be political subdivisions of the state of NY. Someone has to be responsible for it. Who else would do that job? -

  7. Posted · Edited by 38ff

    If YOUR fire district that you pay taxes to says "we need to cover volunteers with Obamacare, and your firetaxes are going up XX% to cover it" are you OK with that? And right now no one knows what X% is. Say it is 5-15% on top of the "normal" tax hike? Im just trying to get a feel for what the public may say to that.

  9. Posted · Edited by 38ff

    Antiquefirelt,

    Lots more info here.

    http://www.naylornetwork.com/NFC-nwl/articles/index-v2.asp?aid=234231&issueID=25401

    but this link seems to sum it all up.. http://www.iafc.org/files/1GR/gr_PPACAfactSheet.pdf

    Im not getting into the "is it right/wrong" debate. All Im saying is that fire districts, if this does apply to them, will have to pay for it via either taking it out of fund reserves or raising taxes..... Just another unfunded mandate to be passed on to the taxpayer.....

    antiquefirelt and FFPCogs like this

  10. Posted · Edited by 38ff

    Thats the thing. Say you take a 12 hour "i'll be on call" shift. Do 2 of them a week... Add in a drill, a meeting, and 30 hours isnt too much of a strech for a busy VFD. It's not a bad thing to offer to members, but the district's taxpayers will have to foot the bill. Sounds like another "Unfunded Mandate" our Governor said he wanted to eliminate......

  11. Posted

    I just got this in an email.

    Looks like if you have over 50 people on the rolls and do 30 hours per week, it could be costly. I assume Obama wants us to pass these costs on to taxpayers, as there is no mention of additional funding to pay for it.


    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, also known as "Obamacare") requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance to full-time empoloyees or face a tax penalty. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has determined that for tax purposes, volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel are "employees" of the agencies that they serve. Previously, this determination was only significant with regard to how benefits that volunteers receive are reported to and taxed by the federal government. With passage of PPACA, however, volunteer fire and EMS departments could end up being required to provide health insurance to volunteer personnel who "work" for the agency they serve for 30 or more hours per week on a regular basis.

  17. Posted

    I am looking for a decent deneral purpose TIC. Im not looking for "TV broadcast" abilities, or 200 different colors on the screen breaking down temperatures into 1/10th of a degree for hazmat spills.

    I just want a basic, bombproof and reasonably priced TIC for general firefighting use.. I am checking out the Scott Eagle Attack currently.

    Any suggestions/info?

    firemoose827 likes this

  19. Posted

    All,

    I know every fire dept in the country has a pile of old "junk" they no longer use or radios that are no longer usable on "new" radio systems, but still usable. Does anyone have Motorola Minitor 3/4's (I assume everyone is using 5's now) they aren't using anymore and need a good home for a Fire Dept in Ulster County? We are still dispatched on Low Band, 33.90, and doing our best to stretch the budget. we have an influx of new members, and are down to our last few spare pagers. We do have the ability to program them.

    Anyone have a pile of stuff that needs a new home? I can provide Fire District Letterhead/phone # etc.

    Thanks!

  22. Posted · Edited by 38ff

    I will 100% agree about doing preventative DWI things. Education, demos at High Schools, etc. You want to borrow the light tower, fine, here is how to operate it and please fuel it up before you return it. But thats where FD involvement needs to end. As for having FD people at a checkpoint in any capacity (or none at all), absolutely not. Way too much liability, not to mention "not my job at all".....

    Jybehofd and Bnechis like this

  23. Posted · Edited by 38ff

    My district is in Ulster County. We weren't ask to do such a thing, and even if we were, my fire district, I'm 99.999999% sure would say no, as we are not LE, and I fail to see why LE would even ask FD to assist with this. Very interesting.. My dept has great relations with our local PD/NYSP/UCSO, and we all work very well together. Just the legal "what happens if someone gets hurt, as it wasn't a fire call" could be a huge mess, one that I sure wouldn't want to deal with on the district or dept level.