Published: April 30, 2008 01:10 am            

CAMBRIA: Fire companies scrambling for dollars

CAMBRIA — Officers of the two fire companies serving the town are asking the town board to consider seriously how they might defend a fire district tax increase in the 2009 budget.

Members of the Cambria and Pekin Volunteer companies met with town board members informally Wednesday to air their concerns about the private companies’ ability to keep up with equipment and training mandates.

Both outfits are experiencing significant burdens. They need to replace aging fire stations and equipment and meet miscellaneous, new and frequently expensive training and outfitting mandates from the state and federal governments. At the same time, they’re under pressure to raise significant money charitably in order to stave off operating deficits, because what the town pays them is not covering costs.

In fact, Cambria company officer Billy Schreader said, spending trends in the first three months of this year suggest the company faces a $50,000 gap between expenses and income by the end of the year.

“To ask somebody to raise $50,000, it’s a heckuva lot of money,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to do this, we should have the budget for it.”

The fund-raising that Cambria company is doing is to meet day-to-day “survival” expenses, not pay for luxuries, President Mark Printup added. Within the next few years, he said, it will have to replace large equipment pieces including its aerial truck. That’s a $750,000 proposition. Insurance standards require some equipment pieces be replaced after a time regardless of the shape they’re in.

At the same time, Cambria’s 70-year-old main hall is crumbling and there’s no money on hand to upgrade it, Fire Chief Dale Heiser said. The price of constructing a needed substation at Diller Road and Route 31 — a basic steel shell with minimal utility outfitting — is about $250,000.

And ISO, the risk assessor whose ratings of companies’ response preparedness drives homeowner insurance rates, suggests Cambria needs a fourth substation at Lower Mountain and Budd roads. It won’t happen any time soon because the money simply isn’t there, Heiser said.

Pekin Volunteer Fire Company faces a similar struggle. Its budget for a major upgrade of its main hall this year is “off considerably” thanks to rising costs, President Rodney Hogg said, and it’s not an expendable expense. Two new trucks won’t fit in the current hall and the garage must be extended.

Pekin Company’s $367,000 budget, which reflects both operations and debt payments, “probably is a little low for what we actually spend,” Treasurer Ed Beutel said. “We’re not getting ahead with (cost-of-living budgetary) increases, we’re just meeting the status quo.”

Town Supervisor Wright Ellis last year identified the fire companies’ fiscal struggles as one of the town’s most significant challenges. The companies last year asked for significant increases in their approximately $160,000 contracts. They ended up receiving 4 percent increases, causing a 10-cent bump in the district tax rate, to $1.21 per $1,000 of assessed value, but that wasn’t enough to put the companies on better footing.

Beutel researched the fire tax rates in some surrounding towns and found Cambria is about 20 cents behind. He suggested the town should learn the rates in every Niagara County town and raise Cambria’s rate to the average to help support fire and rescue service.

“I am a taxpayer also,” he said. “I don’t think our taxpayers would get upset if we’re comparable with the rest of the county.”

Fund-raising for the difference between income and expenses is a terrific challenge, volunteers said, because the revenue stream is unpredictable from year to year. Direct-mail solicitations from Cambria company don’t get a good return, despite the fact it runs a free, full-service ambulance and offers freebies from CPR training to home fire inspections, according to Heiser.

“Unless people need to call us, they don’t care,” he said.

About an hour before the Wednesday evening meeting, Cambria company responded to an accident on Lower Mountain Road involving a Modern Disposal truck. One of the company’s newest vehicles, a used model, provided needed lighting at the scene and volunteers cared medically for the injured driver, who was taken by ambulance for further medical care, and a passenger, also hurt; the scene was prepared for Mercy Flight transport of the passenger. No bills will go out for any of the services.

“The public doesn’t see the extent of what our companies do,” Beutel said. “Their fire insurance is based on what we do. We can’t get any lower a rating without going to a paid department. ... If they don’t want to pay it in taxes, they’ll pay it on the other side — and it’ll be about five times higher.”

The onus is on the town board as well as the companies to figure out how to keep fire/rescue service financially solvent, by tax hike and/or other “creative” means, Ellis said. The sides will return to the conversation in three months, they agreed, shortly before preliminary work starts on the 2009 town budget.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.

        

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