I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears tonight at the Hamburg Town Council Meeting. It seems that the residents who live in the Lake Shore Fire District will be picking up the tab for $325K+ in benifits for the fire fighters in their district. As well as 22K per year from now on. It appears it will be dished out as about a $54K increase in fire tax payments over the next ten years, and then 22k per year after that. Why do you ask? Because these firemen want to collect their fire pensions at 55 instead of 60 years of age. They also want to continue to accrue service points past 55 if they continue serving in the fire department. It all was very confusing but that is what I got out of it. Of course the town Council fell over backwards to accomodate them in this all important election year. Not one of the council Members had the balls to say,” no” lets look at this deeper.
So if you live in the Lake Shore Fire District you can expect an increase in your fire taxes for ten more years unless the fire Company decides to cut somewhere to accomodate the tax payers. Yea Right.. bet on that one!
They can collect them at 55 right now. What they want to do is stay active after the age of 55 and still get service award points for doing it. The cost to the taxpayers will not increase the Lakeshore fire co. budget that is givin to the town. The town funds the service award programs for the fire company’s.
The way I understood it was that the majority of the town fire districts are at 60 years old for the service awards points and that when they say the town pays the difference it really means those in the fire district in the town actually pay it. People from other fire districts don’t pay for Lake Shore Fire stuff.
Lets take a look at this post and break it down:
1. You specifically asked at the meeting if this would result in an increase in taxes and were told by the town attorney that this money would come out of the fire halls overall budget and would not result in a tax increase.
2.The number that you quoted as $28K per year was closer to $22K per year and, again, would not result in a tax increase.
3. This was so firefighters over the age of 55 could continue to serve and receive service points towards their pension. This was not so they could retire at 55. It was actually mentioned in your presence that because some fire districts are having a difficult time recruiting new members, older members are remaining with the districts longer.
I, for one, feel that the fire districts in the town of Hamburg need to be further scutinized to protect the taxpayers. Consolidation of services is something that needs to be seriously considered. Having said that, your outright lies muddle an already complicated issue that needs to be further researched.
Let me answer your comment Ron.
1.) Yes the Town Attorney said that it would come from the fire companies overall budget but he also said it would be up to the fire hall to submit budgets that are reflective of this money. He left the room with the assumption that the Town Council would never approve an increase of fire company money but we all know the reality of that. Fire Companies ask for increases in budget money every year and this isn’t going to stop them.
2.) $325K divided over 10 years is 32.5K and on top of that their was quoted an increase of 22K per year. I was mistaken in my math because the number is closer to 55K a year increase for the next ten years and then a 22K increase from then. The 325K increase was because the town decided to give them money all the way back to 1991. That’s BS!
3.) Nothing ever stopped fire fighters from continuing to serve after 55. It simply said that they accrued enough service points up till then. That wasn’t good enough. They want to accrue until they stop serving and ultimately breaking the proverbial bank. I believe as far as the retirement goes. This plan allows the fire fighters to collect the pension at 55. Most other companies are at 60. This plan allows the other companies to also change their status to 55 as Kesner wanted to quickly inform them all of the change. This was not explained very well and a lot of questions went unanswered.
By the way, don’t Cops have to quit at 60 unless they are in a command position? Why should Fire Fighters be allowed to continue in the fire company past 55 or 60 if they aren’t in a command position? Also there are age limits to becoming a cop. Why not a fire fighter. Their was a fire fighter at the meeting last night whose belly was so big he could never carry a full length of hose up ten flights of stairs. I think these fire companies have a bit of a double standard to begin with.
All of this is very muddy. No-one really explained any of it adequately and I expect that’s because they know they are giving away the farm. The Town Attorney even declined to answer several questions because he is afraid the town is going to get sued over all this. That says a lot to me.
I updated the post a little to accomodate your comments Ron.
While I agree that fire companies need to be kept in check, I also found your post extremely misleading and biased. The corrections you made following my post(I wonder if they would have been done otherwise) state the facts slightly more accurately, yet still paint a very biased position. I commend your fiscal responsibility mantra, but feel you would be better served and taken more seriously if you took the rhetoric down a notch and posted more factual information. The fire companies budgeting will be a scrutinized area in the upcoming election and your hard stance against these groups and the way you present it makes you appear anti-volunteer fire company as opposed to being pro-taxpayer.
I am anti tax increase for everything! I have a single basic philosophy. I think you may have heard of it before. It simply states: Government is to big, government is to expensive and government is way to inefficient. All this comes back to tax dollars.
The first, biggest, most outrageous expense out town pays out is for fire coverage. These companies were formed back when the fire carts were pulled by horses and that’s why we have so many fire companies. It was needed because it took so long for a horse to pull a buggy a mile.
Now we are way past that but we continue to pay for excessive services because our elected leaders heed the fire vote. I’m out to consolidate the town down to four fire districts. That’s all we need. A north, south, east and west fire districts will cover this town adequately. We can decrease money paid out to them by 50% or more. All this extra stuff is just so our town council leaders can try and get re-elected.
The biggest, most outrageous expense any municipality pays out is to entitlement programs like medicare/medicaid, welfare, social security/disability, etc.