Bnechis

In order for Towns to take over Fire Districts would take an amendment to the NYS Town Law. When I took Intro to Fire Officer & Fire Officer 1 last year, the instructor pointed out to us that the NY State Town Law does not have a provision for Towns in NY State to form their own municipal Fire Departments. Villages can form their own municipal Fire Departments, but Towns can only form Fire Districts.

This is what the State is proposing. To change the law.

Its not the 1st Time and it wont be the last unless it passes.

The state is also interested in a Calf. version of proposition 13 or Mass prop 2 1/2. As a way to "control" property tax increases. The public thinks this will solve the high property taxes.

If you look at both CA & MA you will see it has forced merging depts in CA (Lots of County "Authorities") and 1 & 2 man rigs in MA. When that goes thru in NY (and it will go thru maybe nt this year, but its coming) it will hurt every FD that does not reorganize. New Rochelle was the only municipality in NYS to experience this (mandated by the state for 14 years) and every year we saw cuts in city services and delays in capital projects (new rigs, repairing stations, etc.)

Well that would effect all the Districts in westchester both paid and volunteer correct?

Yep

Are there any paid Depts that do not have Commisioners?

The 4 city's have an appointed (not elected board) "commissioner" they use the term, but they serve in a diffent role. Mt. Vernon, New Rochelle, White Plains, Yonkers. But as cities they are not affected by this law.

Also Larchmont, Scarsdale and the Pelham's dont they answer to the village board

I know there are some Volunteer that have Commisioners but they are not the funding agent still the town Board does.

Westcheter 2000 called for some of this did it not?

Basically. This is much broader than Westchester 2000.

In Great Britton they had over 500 depts prior to WWII. They consolidated for the war. And stayed that way. Now they run about 50 depts to cover England, Scotland & Wales.

Wow we should have done this under Westchester 1945 and then we would not have to deal with it now.

Bottom line, Mt Vernon obviously wanted to purchase an NFPA compliant unit and couldn't do so with the standard escape ladder.

Based on what I've been reading here the 3 reasons that are available are:

1) Being NFPA compliant

2) Height Restrictions

3) Cost savings

Any other reasons?

Engfire:

Your department-although located in Ohio, is typical of many smaller but active departments in Lower Hudson Valley. With 3 engines and a truck, It is not cost effective to have a full time fire mechanic mechanic on salary. That being said, you mention that your city garage performs the non-fire specific work on your trucks. So the big question is what are best practices to be sure that your aerial and pump specific systems are maintained properly.

Option #1: Send your city garage mechanic(s) to pump and aerial school and follow that up with EVT certification testing.

This is fine, but keeping skills sharp is somewhat challenging due to the small amount of fire related work that this mechanic(s) would perform. Also keep in mind that if you roll into the city yard with a fire truck breakdown immediately preceding, during, or following a major weather event such as snow or heavy rain, don't expect your specialist to drop what he is doing to fix your problem until that weather event has passed. At the height of leaf removal season, the situation can be similiar.

Option #2: Use an outside company to maintain and repair your fire trucks who have mechanics with the training, experience and certifications recommended in NFPA 1071 - Standard for Emergency Vehcile Technician Professional Qualifications. Also see NFPA 1911- Standard for the inspection, maintenance, testing, and retirement of in-service automotive fire apparatus 2007 edition for the procedures recommended. There are several of these companies here in the Lower Hudson Valley.

My company- Rapid Fire Services, L.L.C., is one of such companies and we perform the work at the location of the Fire Department, minimizing out of service time for that piece of equipment.

To address the issue of annual testing, any qualified person (including Fire Fighters) in your department can perform annual pump testing, but an aerial testing company is recommended for ladder test. Try to schedule testing to immediately follow your annual pump and aerial SERVICING, to minimize problems. Also, try to make sure that your mechanic is available when the testing is done so that any deficiencies discovered can be corrected before the testing is completed. There is nothing more frustrating than discovering a problem during testing that can easily be fixed by your mechanic, only to have him on vacation, away at school, etc.

Thanks to the bumper crop of attorneys we have in the brain trust harvest curently, documenting maintenance, repairs and testing is essential especially after a vehicle is involved in a traffic accident or mechanical failure.

If anyone has questions about standards, repairs, or procedures relating to heavy duty fire apparatus, I can be reached at: info@rapidfireservices.com

Stay safe

Well put kevin. The only other issue is sometimes it makes more sense to send the rig out to non fire services (even if you have inhouse mechanics.

We do this for tires, suspension other "truck" components. We find it faster and cost effective to go to the local truck shop for tires, etc. Great to pull in watch them throw it on a lift, have 5 guys start replacing tires and be done before you can finish your coffee.

Anyone who needs assitance should contact RFS. Kevin does a 1st rate job.

Kevin make the check payable to bnechis promtional services inc..................LOL

Do towns want to take over fire districts? Do they want the added responsiblity? Another line in the budget when they like all other levels of government are looking to downsize? Just wondering.

In general no.

The state wants to eliminate as many levels of government as it can. One way to do it is to get rid of "districts" (fire, school, sewer, water, etc.).

It may still cause downsizing, (particularly in towns with multiple districts, ie. 4 fire districts in a town that each have a tower ladder may only need 2 if its 1 dept., saving $2M in replacement cost).

Other downsizing/savings is if town has an in-house attorney (corp. counsel) and each district also retains one, maybe they inhouse can double up and reduce the cost. Same for maintenance, IT, accounting, and other services.

way to turn this into a career / volly thread...congrats

Do any of the contracted companies that use local taxes have career ff's? Most, if any do not have career ff's.

If the state disolves them all the equipment and stations which was bought with taxmoney or public donations will sit idol unless they donate them back to the public that paid for it in the 1st place. THis would also result in increased tax to duplicate equipment that already exists but is sitting idol.

So for the most part since fire protection districts do not have career ff's you stated this is now a career volly thread, when for this example its a private company with vol vs. the best interest of the taxpayers, regardless of weather they continue to use vol. ff's.

Actually what turns it into a career / volly thread is this:

"I did a word search at the above link for "Fire" and came across an interesting proposed bill. Bill numbers A6547/S9105 would amend the Insurance Law to provide five percent of the fire insurance premium taxes (two percent fund?) to be paid to the treasurer of the NYS Professional Firefighters Association. The amount paid to FASNY for the support of the Firemen's Home in Hudson, NY would decrease to five percent from the current ten percent."

The NYSPFFA has been fighting FASNY for years on this. The law requires "all members who provide fire protection recieve equal benefits" but FASNY has been getting millions ($7 million last year) towards the "home" and NYSPFFA has recieved $0.

What happened to "equal benefits"?

Don't you think that you could spend 10k on something else other than a stretcher? I mean how lazy to you have to get? I just don't understand it and I don't want to hear about getting hurt either. If you can't lift correctly then get out OF EMS. Spending 10K on something is RIDICULOUS.

I dont know what it costs to put a lift on the ambulance (most Neonate units have them) but I just spec'ed the top of the line lift for a dept. pick up and it cost $3,500 installed.

I agree you should be able to lift or get out. But it also makes no sense to have to lift the over 300 crowd. If this reduces injuries it saves the agency $$$.

I received an interesting letter template from FASNY recently............. the template then goes on to say that volunteers in NY save taxpayers roughly $7 billion per year.

Its amazing to me that FASNY continues to publish its $7 billion lie.

The FASNY estimated that volunteer fire departments in NYS provide annual cost savings of $7.1 billion, was comprised of $2.8 billion in annual operating costs of paid departments to replace volunteers and $4.3 billion in the total cost for structures and equipment.

a) FASNY assumes that the $4.3 billion for apparatus and stations will need total replacement. In other words all of the vol. rigs and stations would sit empty and all new stations and rigs would be purchased and built to replace them. This is beyond logic.

So instead of $7 Billion. We are now talking $2.8 billion (wow I just saved the taxpayers of NYS $4.2 Billion)

The annual cost savings of $2.8 billion is driven largely by the wages and benefits presumed to be paid to what FASNY estimates is an additional 38,537 career firefighters. This amount is only as accurate as the estimate of the number of additional paid firefighters that would be required to replace volunteers.

FASNY's study admits that if the "Delaware Approach" were applied to NYS, the result would be an additional 20,900 paid firefighters needed in NYS in areas currently covered by volunteers. The "Delaware Approach" is over $1 billion less then FASNY's original estimate. If the "Pennsylvania Approach" were applied to NYS an additional 17,050 career firefighters would be needed. This approach reduces FASNY's annual $2.2 billion estimate to $973 million.

So FASNY's $7 Billion is actually $973 million.

The $973 million is based on 17,050 additional career ff's. But ISO calculations require only 1 career for every 3 volunteers so the number may actually be 12,846.

This figure does not take into account that the volunteer fire service has a budget that would be used to cover some of this cost. It assumes that what ever money is currently spent for volunteer benefits including 2% funds would not be available to reduce the $973 million. An additional cost thatis not considered is the salary that is paid to "housemen" (1,800 housemen just on Long Island) this money could go toward reducing the $973 million.

Currently $319 million in tax money is spent supporting the volunteer depts on Long Island alone.

FASNY's study admits that its study does not consider that current tax dollars are used to support many if not most VFD's in NYS.

FASNY also does not take into account that ISO ratings would improve in many parts of the state thus saving property owners $100's of millions.

FASNY's proudly states VFD's save NYS taxpayers $7 Billion, when its under $654 million (reduce this number by the 2% funds and the Fire Tax in NYS north of NYC). Then add the property insurance savings and it maybe more expensive to have VFD's than a series of multi county career based fire depts.

Note: I am not suggesting getting rid of VFD's................just that FASNY needs to stop the argument that VFD's save $$.

Another way to perform the rescue and get your dept on the cover of fire house mag........Airbags under the right side of the lift. When the bucket hits the ground remove the crushed worker. Total time 3 min.

But chief I know it will work

Chances are that you can get on the roof (the high parapet is hiding the HVAC & cooling towers). Use a folding ladder or Little Giant ladder to get to the parapet, set an anchor on the roof (Use the base frame of the HVAC). Rappel down using a 6 bar rack and do a pick-off (my preferance is to use a short haul system - as developed for doing mid air line transfer). The worker is already wearing a class III harness so its pretty easy to hook up. If properly trained this can be done in about 30-45 minutes. My only concern is the construction of the wall....might consider a secondary anchor by using the lift prior to adding the extra load.

Yes. You got it. It is the equivalent of a second alarm being transmitted.

Unless the retone is requesting additional equipment,it is not a second alarm. The retone is to update members and in many cases to get members out of bed, to leave work, etc.

The one thing I did not like about 3/4 boots & long coat is when you were crawling around a very critical piece of "equipment" was only cover with a pair of duty pants.

Always supprised me that BFD took so much longer to go to bunker pants, particularly for winter work....brrr I remember many night when the tillerman looked very cold as they pulled up to the dorm across the street from mine (every night x2 or 3).

what happens when you have an inept mayor who is replaced by a former mayor who was a crackhead.

DC has one additional problem, that is beyond the rest of us...........

Most city's budgets must be approved by a city council...........but, DC's actually has to be approved by Congress, and last I heard the majority of the committee do not live in the district and dont get elected by the district, so "saving $$$" looks good to the voters that they answer to.

When i started this post i was hoping it was going to become a educational piece. I am very educated in the difference between ice/cold (still) water rescues to swift water rescues. There are many dangers in using ice rescue suits in moving water and yes there is a current in the potomac river . There are 2 suits to use for swift water a dry and a wet suit depending on temp of the water. Ice rescue suits become a danger when water starts to fill the suit due to no neck seal. If all you have is a ice rescue suit to perform a rescue in moving water you should don a class V PFD with a escape device and be tethered to a life safety rope. In last april's post I encouraged all to take the swift water class thats held in many location by OFPC and the instructors are great. There is great info if you google swift water training. I hope this is a help so we don't lose a brother or sister from using the wrong equipment .

I have some issues with how this thread has defined or not defined "swift water"

After years of coastal and blue water (ocean) sailing as well as water rescue training I would not consider the Hudson River, The Potomic River, Long Island Sound or the Atlantic Ocean to be "swift water". Do they have areas that move swiftly...yes (and its fun going thru Hell Gate on the East River in NYC which I've done in a "gumby suit with NYPD Harbor and SCUBA Units or doing inwater patient packaging at Cape Disapointment).

The Hudson River's spead is measured in Knots and in the lower section changes direction every 6 hours with the tide change. Swift water is measured by calculating in feet per second or in cubic feet per second.

If the USCG with a gumby suit can jump into 6-8 knots at Woods Hole or cape disapointment or any Ocean then a trained rescuer can go into the (icy) hudson river when its doing 3 knots.

True "swift water" i.e. rapids will get you killed in a gumby or ice rescue suit.

Are EMS runs included in the 600 runs?

The standard does not say, but since it only totals call volume, if the FD is doing the EMS work I'd say yes

Curious whether anyone has the specifics to cite for nfpa or iso - this is one of the newly implemented EMT Bravo policies (reduce the urban myths).

ISO requires 1 "alarm dispatch circut" if your dept. recieves <600 calls/year and 2 if >600.

The horn, pagers, house alarm or PA (for staffed FH), plectrons, tec. each count as 1.

If you are using pagers and do 600+ alarms you need a 2nd way to alert members. This is based on NFPA 1221.

Everyone in NYS receives the same training in Firefighter I, the only difference is one guy gets paid and one doesnt, so who cares how many "Volunteers Vs. Career Staffing" were on scene?

Have you taken the career fire acadamy?

I was trained as a vol, retrained as a career and have been an instructor for a long time and The training is not the same for a lot of reasons. Which would desurve its own thread.

There is a lot more too it than a paycheck or not. It should not be that way but it has been for atleast 30 years and with major changes a few years back it improved but still has miles to go.

Is Consolidation/Regionalization really the answer for Depts.? Maybe for some, and then maybe some Depts. like FDMV should push to increase the number of ffs. on the City Charter from 143 to whatever the number would be to comply with 1710.

Good Luck. If its in the City Charter you will need to go thru a Charter Review, which includes a public referendum. Do you have the public support to even get charter review? Does the public even care? Would the public percieve this as a major tax increase to fund the FD?

Their own Union President stated this not too long ago. It's been at that number for quite a few yrs. now. Maybe things will change for the Vern after the audit comes out and all the wastefull spending is revealed, that could have been spent on F/P.

Dont hold your breath. Nothing has changed in decades. Lets go back 4 or 5 mayors. In the early 1980's I made a complaint that my Amb. (MV Amb #1) got stuck in a snow drift with a 2 y/o child in respitory arrest and needed a plow ASAP to get us out. None was available. But one was sitting on standby in front of the Mayors house 24/7 in case he needed to be rushed to the command post in an emergency. How about the fact that every mayor going back 30 yrs gets a 3 man security team?

Christ, to this day MT.Vernon still has 3 guys on a garbage truck and 2 on a fire truck. Is there something wrong with that picture? Maybe Pace University should be doing a study on all this type of wastefull spending. There's a reason the Feds are involved.

Yes there is something wrong with it, but the public demands service and if they don't believe they will have a fire, but every week they throw out garbage, which one becomes the priority?

Maybe Pace should, but who will pay for it? The state gave the chiefs a grant to pay for this study, because the state believes that this is the way to solve the issue.

The Feds are involved because Fed $$$ (HUD Section 8) appears to be missing. They could care less about waste and how any other money is used.

Personally I feel Consolidation/Regionalization should be the last resort and not looked at as the cure all for providing adequate F/P, until all other means for providing such are exhausted by each municipality. Just because one municipality can't afford it, or so their city officials say they can't, whose word were taking as gospel, doesn't mean their neighbors can't.

Please define last resort? Everyone has been complaining about MVFD manning (both the members of the dept and MA depts) for over 30 years that I'm aware of.

Since every career and combo dept (both in the study and not) are making the same complaint for as long as I can remember, it may not be gospel, but it is reality. Which depts in Westchester have increased manning in the last 20 years?

It's ironic also how MVPD has an astronomical budget, that surpasses by far the FD budget and nothing is said. No problems finding the revenue for the PD. MVPD even increased their staffing by what 30 guys. When it comes to the FD though they blame the tax base and lack of state aid per capita for the cutbacks.

How many fire deaths does MV have annually? How many shootings and homicides? The public does not see fire as a threat, but they are scared to death of crime.

That budget difference is the norm nationally. Is it right? Dont know, but it is reality.

How many FFsin MV or anywhere are n the Federal Dime?

Berfore SAFER there where none. At the same time there where over 110 fully paid cops in Westchester alone (mostly housing cops and the COPS program). Now with SAFER, there are 12 partially (20%) Federally funded positions in NYS.

When the Northeast Chiefs, Westchester career chiefs and the Task Force asked for 100 Federaly funded task forces, which would have provided 110 additional paid ff's in Westchester (with 12 going to MV). Where was the union? The IAFF was against this proposal and killed it.

If the local union wont fight for 12 additional positions at no cost to local tax payers what makes you think they will fight and win for solving your manning without outside help.

How is that hypocrisy that Volunteers get some benefits? Sounds like you dont like this idea because it is helping retain the Volunteers and keep the Voulunteer system alive and well in many many places.

Is it really helping to retain the volunteers?

Had to take that County shot didn't ya?

Aviation Fuel $$$$$

The city of New Rochelle's budget for '08 is $147,000,000 for complete city services. The city of New Rochelle's school budget for 08/09 will be $222,335,393. There are about 77,000 people who live in New Rochelle and about 10,700 students in the city schools. The problem is not with the city tax it is with the school tax. This is a problem everywhere so please stop complaining about taxes when it is the schools out of control not the cities.

20 years ago the school tax was 50% of the tax, now its over 60%. So while the City has been holding the line, the school has been running wide open.

And lets no forget to add the county tax.

What I will dispute is the age standard. I do believe in NY ( expect for NYC) there is no age limit to take the firefighter exam. Maybe there is a pension issue that I am not aware about but when I took the exam 4 years ago there was no age limit. I do not sense an anti-volunteer sentiment in your post. I have seen the anti-volunteer sentiment. It is usually ugly and without merit.

Some career depts (FDNY & YFD) have maximum age for hiring (29 ?). Pension system says 62 is manditory retirement (with some exceptions for those already on the job). So if you are over 42 you will not recieve a full pension.

as a being on the job in a combo dept which career far out numbers vollies in dutchess county we have constantly struggled with our dept with nfpa 1710 or 1720 as far as manning . what are the exact qualifications for 1720 and how does that apply to some of the depts mentioned here . aside from NewRo and Mt Vernon and Yonkers if a tought fight when this issue comes up along with a raise in taxes . at waht point does 1710 apply and not 1720

The dividing line for 1710 / 1720 is majority. If the majority of the dept is career then its 1710.

The real argument is: If a combo dept has 12 career and 25 vol it would be under 1720, but what if that same dept responds with 3 career on duty but the average turnout is 2.5 vol, then I believe its 1710, but I think that would be a fight in court to sort that out and NFPA has not clarified this issue.

In most of the combo depts in the study, they have more career than vol or the average career response is higher.

Barry... clarify something for me. Eastchester FD has 14 firefighters min. per shift. To get 16 to a fire you need 2 more X 4 groups, about 10 more spots with time off. Where does the # 75 come from?

The 16 is in 8 minutes, additionally you need to pet the 1st engine on scene in 4 min. Because of eastchesters size you need all 6 or 7 companies staffed with 4 (24) plus 2102 (2) = 26 x 5.25 (4 shifts plus contractual time) = 137 plus staff, so thats an additional 62 plus staff for 6 companies & command or 83 for 7 and command.

These #s are off the top of my head, the actual numbers are detailed in the study, but thats the basis of how we came to them.

A simple way to look at it, If you have 75 men and are riding 2 per rig you need to double it to ride 4.

1) they do not produce revenue

While FD's do not produce revenue, they can save property owners way more than they cost.

In NR for example the average property owner pay about $325/yr for FD. If we had no FD (and he gets his $325 back) his property insurance goes up by $1,200/yr so the savings are about $875 x every building in town.

The Fire service is not good at "sell" its economic value. What is the true cost of fire protection? Its not just the FD Budget.