Dear Editor,
The Town of Owego Fire District provides fire protection and EMS for the residents and property owners within the District. To accomplish this, the District employs two not-for-profit volunteer Fire Companies and provides equipment and training for the volunteers. To assure that you have EMS available 24×7, the District also employs paid Paramedics.
The Commissioners of the Town of Owego Fire District recently approved the 2015 budget, resulting in a 22 percent tax increase, by a unanimous vote. If you have prepared a budget for your company or your household, you know that estimating future costs can be difficult.
Recent media reports have implied that this increase is due solely to a decision by the Commissioners to expand the territory served by the Campville Fire Company. This is not true.
This tax is not a Town of Owego tax; the Town Government does not approve nor levy the tax. The Town of Owego does collect the tax for the District; it appears on your tax bill as “Owego Fire”. To put the tax amount in perspective, the increase is about $39 per year for a home valued at $100,000.
The budgeting process involves estimating expenditures and revenues. The law requires that we prepare an annual budget, with no carryover into the next year. Some expenditures we have a history of, such as salaries, vehicle maintenance and vehicle replacement. Projecting those into the next year is not that difficult.
Other expenditures, such as unfunded mandates from the state or state retirement system contributions, are very difficult to predict. Uncertainty in the budget process is a bad thing.
There are areas within the District that our Fire Companies historically have been unable to serve. To meet our obligations, we were forced to negotiate with a municipality outside of the District for fire protection and EMS (the Village of Owego). Today, the Campville Fire Company has the necessary number of qualified firefighters to cover the areas currently covered by contract with the Village. The commissioners decided that it would be in the best interest of the residents and property owners for the District’s own Fire Companies to cover all of our territory.
The contract with the Village cost the District $138,000 for 2014. We have historical data on what the District spent to equip and train our own firefighters, and although not perfect, we can anticipate and budget our own costs for 2015. The problem is how do we project future sole source contract costs? Will the Village ask for $160,000 the next year? We have no say in the Village government, we can only observe. We have a declining tax base and some municipalities are affected more than others. If this stress adversely affects our contractor (the Village), it also adversely affects the District. This is a major source of uncertainty.
On the revenue side, our primary source of revenue is the real estate tax. The other source of revenue is from contracts with adjacent Fire Districts for services. We had a contract with Apalachin to provide paid paramedics, a source of 18 percent of our budgeted revenues in 2014. Apalachin decided not to renew this contract for 2015, a significant loss of revenue and a significant source of uncertainty.
We asked the Campville Fire Company to serve the current contract areas and they agreed. I voted in favor of this change for several reasons. First, we can better estimate the costs. Second, we have control over the expenditures, equipment maintenance, training and fundraising. Third, we reduce uncertainty into the future.
Sincerely,
Bruce Dale
Endicott, N.Y.
