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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-28 2025 Town board Public Hearings Budget and Fire & Ambulance contracts 2026TOWN OF GROTON - PUBLIC HEARINGS FOR 2026 FISCAL BUDGET, GROTON FIRE & AMBULANCE CONTRACTS MEETING MINUTES OF THE TOWN BOARD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2025, AT 7:30 PM Town Officers Present: Town Officers Absent: Also Present: Donald F. Scheffler, Supervisor Don Armstrong, Attorney D. Durrett, Ithaca Times Crystal Young, Councilperson W. Rick Fritz, Code Official L. Shurtleff, County Legislature Sheldon C. Clark, Councilperson D. Carey, AG Advisor Richard Gamel, Councilperson Brian Klumpp, Councilperson E. Moody, ZBA Chair Robin Cargian, Town Clerk Julie Graham, Bookkeeper Ellard Keister, Highway Supt. Mack Rankin, Deputy Highway The meeting was called into session at 7:30 PM, and the legal notice for the Preliminary 2026 Fiscal Budget printed in the Ithaca Journal was read by Clerk Cargian, who added that no comments were received by mail or email. A motion to open the public hearing for the 2026 Preliminary Town Budget was made by Councilperson Klumpp, seconded by Councilperson Gamel. Ayes – Clark, Young, Klumpp, Gamel, Scheffler Motion Passed Nays - Supervisor Scheffler summarized the overall budget, which would be $155,000 over last year due to fixed cost increases and salary support. Salary increas es have been minimal for several years, creating a significant gap, making it difficult to attract and keep employees. He commended the staff for the hard work they do. The board has made cuts where it could, including a significant equipment cut. The local law overriding the tax cap had not been received by the Department of State, so there would not be a vote on the budget that evening. The amount would be an increase of 8.26% or 5.38% over the calculated tax cap. The floor was opened for comments. No one wished to speak. Councilperson Klumpp made a motion to close the public hearing on the 2026 Preliminary Town Budget, seconded by Councilperson Young. Ayes – Clark, Young, Klumpp, Gamel, Scheffler Motion Passed Nays - 2026 Fire and Ambulance Agreements A motion to open the Public Hearings for the 2026 Fire and Ambulance Contracts was made by Councilperson Gamel, seconded by Councilperson Clark, and the floor was open for comments. Board of Wardens Member, Groton Fire Department, Lee Shurtleff: I appreciate you doing the two together. I'm Lee Shurtleff, a member of the Board of Wardens to the Groton Fire Department. With the two contracts together, they support the efforts of one organization, and I wanted to bring you something a little more expansive this year, so that you've got it to read, and it follows what I've got here to show you the overall picture where the two contracts fold together within it. Starting with the proposed budget for 2026, this would be the total budget for the Fire Department all aspects of it. Expenses are at $947,000. Now these numbers show a fairly large change from previous years Town Board Minutes & Public Hearings Page 2 October 28, 2025 because we have incorporated into the ambulance billing revenues that have materialized over the last two years. I've highlighted several of the major categories to try to break it down. Notes and bonds, for instance, are payments on equipment and reserves set aside for apparatus, $195,000. Protective equipment, that's the safety gear we equip firefighters with. If we put somebody into turnout coats and pants, it's about $2,300 for one set. We add in gloves, helmets, boots, everything down the line, are grouped together $29,000. Building and equipment maintenance includes our contributions back to the village for utilities as well as maintenance of the building and of all equipment including apparatus. EMS is the big one $547,000 plus $50,000; that's in the notes and bonds for ambulance replacement on a yearly basis So the true cost of your ambulance service is just a touch under $600,000. And I'll give you some details on it a little further. Fire, police, $1,000. Administration and insurance. That includes $60,000 for liability, workers' compensation, vehicles. The village underwrites the building insurance. Events and community contributions, $25,000 which is about consistent each year and is offset by donations from non- contractual revenue. How do we fund the projects with a $947,000 budget? We have four contracts that are supported by the Town and Village of Groton. Town fire, Town ambulance, Village fire, Village ambulance. The four of them together under the proposed budget would be $671,000. This is an increase to each one of $4,500 proposed to the Town and to the Village, about a 2 1/2% increase, plus or minus, across the four lines. We tried to keep it within a reasonable number to alleviate some of the tax levy burden that Don explained in his previous summary. This year, we also... Councilperson Gamel: Lee, can I stop you right there? Just curious, Town Fire, Town Ambulance versus Village Fire, Village Ambulance, just curious what the discrepancy is there? Board of Wardens Member, Groton Fire Department, Lee Shurtleff: Well, basically because the Village is supplementing several different lines within their budget as well. So, for instance, some of the insurance costs, some of the building costs, underwriting the bond for the new facilities, that's in addition to what they allot the fire department for the fire contract. We also, with the ambulance, see it reflected that there are reimbursements back to the Village for some of the employee expenses and shared positions that we have over there. Other incomes of $26,000, for instance, are 2% of every fire insurance policy that is sold to an insurance company headquartered outside of New York State. If you're in Delaware and you sell a fire insurance policy in New York, you pay a 2% fee that goes back to help fund your local departments. That creates about $10,000 a year, which is put toward member goodwill. That's one example. We also take in some donations from the ambulance and fire side, as well as about $15,000 in fundraising that we attempt to do every year. EMS cost recovery. When I spoke to you last year, we were just getting off the ground with billing to insurance services for ambulance transports. I think last year I projected to you that we would probably see a net of around $175,000 a year. Well, based on 24 months in, with escalating amounts is Medicaid, Groton Fire Department Proposed Budget Calendar year 2026 Expenses: Notes & Bonds $195,000 Protective Equipment $29,000 Building & Equipment Maintenance $50,000 EMS Supplies & Support $497,000 Cost Recovery Administration $50,000 Fire Police $1,000 Admin Total $100,000 Events/Community $23,000 Misc/Fund Raiser $2,000 Total $947,000 Revenue: Town Fire $167,000 Town Ambulance $188,000 Village Fire $157,000 Village Ambulance $159,000 Total Contracts $671,000 Town Board Minutes & Public Hearings Page 3 October 28, 2025 Medicare and the private insurers have come on board, that number has actually turned out to be about $200,000. The actual billing revenue is in the neighborhood of $250,000 over two year’s time annually. We're taking out of that reimbursements and administrative costs for the billing companies to handle it of about $50,000, 20% of that is part of the process in having it managed through those that are in the billing and cost recovery services. What the fire service has done for the first year and a half to two years, is to build a reserve looking to see where we would appropriate it. There was a provision in the New York State law that prohibited the Fire Department Ambulance Service from being able to assess fees for service. It was finally changed in 2022, which allowed fire departments to begin to be able to bill for ambulance service. Dryden stepped out before that and formed a separate corporation. Trumansburg took their ambulance out of the fire department and created a village department separately. There were a lot of different reasons as to why the structure remained as it did, but since this has been changed, we've been able to establish ourselves and to receive reimbursements from Medicaid, Medicare, Excellus, private carriers, as well as auto insurers. That has helped us to alleviate the increased expenses. Now, the issue with that cost recovery legislation that was passed in 2022 was that it was sunsetting at the end of 2025. And until April of this year, we did not know if that billing would be allowed to continue. The Legislature, through the State Budget, extended the ability to the Departments to continue on a five-year basis. We now have through 2030 before the legislature returns to that sunset clause and determines whether they're going to make it permanent. So we're always under the threat that we may lose the billing capability and either have to cut back service or shift it toward the taxpayers. My hope is, it's like anything else that the State sets a sunset on such as the county sales tax, when it comes up for renewal, they're magnanimously granting you that additional year. It doesn't cost anybody in Albany anything and it helps the local government. Let's hope that continues on. for at least the next five years, six years, including 2026. We have built it into the budget, and we're going to reflect that. What it does now is it puts us into a position where we're going to appropriate a fund balance at the end of each budget year, just the same as the Town and the Village, and the County. We are appropriating $200,000 from that fund balance to roll into next year. And you can anticipate that the number will be consistent, or it will probably increase over time, depending on what they do with Medicaid and Medicare. That's kind of a joke. They haven't increased Medicaid rates since anybody can remember. An average Medicaid ambulance reimbursement starts at a base of about $160. If you consider 80% of your nursing homes over here are Medicaid-funded patients, and for every slip and fall or heart problem that we transport from the nursing home, we see a base of $160. The actual cost of service is somewhere close to $1,000 for that call. You are making up for that with local property tax dollars. A little higher rate for Medicare, private insurers, and donations. Major expenses under EMS, $597,000 total. $50,000, I'm going to come back to that for the ambulance replacement on an annual basis. It used to be $25,000. $547,000 operating costs include salaries for paramedics and advanced life support personnel of $430,000. This number two years ago was $300,000. Last year it exceeded $400,000. This year it'll probably be in the four and a quarter range with the reason being hourly paramedic rates have increased to an average of between $25 and $30 per hour. The County started a rapid emergency medical first response team to supplement the rescue squads in the county. They hired them on as county employees. They rated them as basic EMTs, paying them the same amount as a basic as what our paramedics are getting at an average level of $27. The county is having this discussion about whether they should move to advanced life support. If they did that, they told me today at a public safety meeting, that Other Income: Interest $4,000 Ambulance Donations $2,000 Fire Donation $1,000 Foreign Fire $9,000 Fund Raiser $1,000 Summer Camp $1,000 Misc $1,000 Cost Recovery -Appropriated Fund Balance $250,000 Total Incomes $947,000 Town Board Minutes & Public Hearings Page 4 October 28, 2025 they'd be looking at a starting pay of about $33 an hour for a paramedic. As I was saying, there's where the county is costing more to employ similar people. But the problem is there are so few paramedics going through the courses and there are so many that are aging out in the system that the competition for a job opening is immense. We had a vacancy last year when one of our people left to go to work for the county, which took us almost a year to find a paramedic that was willing to take the rate of pay that we had here versus some of the others. We were backfilling that position with overtime for months, which helped to drive that number up. The daytime driver is a shared position with the Village of Groton. The recreation director gives part of her day to drive the ambulance during those hours in the morning when we don't have volunteers available to do so. We are also looking to hire somebody part-time to supplement the afternoons when that individual's on vacation. We reimburse the Village for a portion of that salary and we're reserving a debt in case we do have to hire a part-time driver to backfill. Billing administration, that's the $50,000 for, I can't think of the name of the company that does our work, but they're the primary one in New York State. Key parts of vital equipment that we have are vehicle defibrillators and heart monitors carried on both rigs. You buy two of them for $60,000 or lease them for $10,000 a year then they're updated or replaced, and you roll into a new lease of $10,000. We are probably under budgeted on vehicle maintenance at $10,000 a year to keep the wheels, brakes and the mechanics happy. You know, Don, how that goes. You hit a deer, and the $1,000 deductible is out the window or out the front hood, usually. But these main areas are about $526,000 of the $547,000 or $597,000. Then in addition to that, you've got two dozen small line items. Oxygen for instance costs us three to four thousand dollars a year. Narcotics probably cost us five or six thousand dollars a year. Supplies such as band-aids for the rigs are a couple thousand dollars a year. So that's the flexibility that we have in our budget is that you've got a few line items that you can move stuff back and forth and when this vehicle maintenance approaches fifteen thousand, we cut back in some of those other areas. From the fire standpoint, major expenses, the stuff before we ever roll out the door is about $300,000. $350,000 for apparatus replacement. We’ve slowly been moving it up to about $85,000 a year. You've got four vehicles that we have in addition to the two ambulances, two engines, one tanker, and one light-duty rescue truck. We used to have a fleet of six fire trucks and two ambulances. We've condensed that over the last 10 to 15 years. We no longer run a ladder truck. We no longer run two tankers. We combined to have one with a larger capacity. The big expense is in all of this is your engines. You must maintain a flow of 2,000 gallons per minute for insurance purposes, which takes two engines putting out 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per minute under the Insurance Services Organization rules. ISO rating number is five for the Village. I think we rank at a number nine for the town. For commercial operations, if there's any movement and you don't meet the criteria, including up-to-date engines and a certain pumping capacity, your insurance rates would go right through the roof. A replacement engine, at a minimum, is now $750,000. We've got neighbors who are buying them for $900,000 to a million dollars. Genoa bought one a few years ago that was right around $800,000. We're trying to keep it at about that level. But when you add together the four vehicles that we've got, it's about $2 million in replacement costs divided by a 20-year replacement plan. We really should have a figure of $100,000 a year here. We're not there yet, but if we can incrementally see increases in the contract over a few years, we'll get to a point where that replacement plan can be practical. Self-contained breathing apparatus, these are the air tanks that everybody wears. We replaced 15 units two years ago that will equip all of our interior Major Expenses- EMS EMS Operating $547,000 Ambulance Replacement $50,000 Major Categories Salary- ALS $430,000 Day Driver (Rec Directory Part Time) $26,000 Billing Admin (Ambulance Cost Recovery) $50,000 Defib/Monitor $10,000 Vehicle Maintenance $10,000 Total $526,000 Town Board Minutes & Public Hearings Page 5 October 28, 2025 certified personnel. It was a $125,000 project and we’re paying that off at $ 25,000 a year. When we get to the end of that, we’ll have five years where we can buy hose and ladders and whatever other large piece of equipment might be out there. But eventually, we're going to end up into another SCBA replacement to stay compliant with the National Fire Protection Association. I don't want to call them regulations, but there are recommendations that OSHA, the Public Employee Safety and Health, enforce as a standard that you need to keep within a certain number of years. Insurances, $55,000. We spend about $30,000 for liability and auto and other property and about 25,000 for workers' compensation. That's about average for a municipality of the size that includes our population, 5,000 between the Town and the Village. The other thousands over in the McLean area, which falls in their district. Truck maintenance, $11,500. We have some years, we might hit 25 or 30, but by keeping the trucks up to date, that maintenance number can stay reasonable. You have ambulance at $10,000. Councilperson Gamel: What repairs are costing you $10,000 a year for maintenance? Lee Shurtleff: Engine rebuilds, periodically transmissions. They're running all the time. We have got one rig that's approaching 100,000 miles, and the electronics within the rig are crazy. They are getting serviced, well, multiple times a year because of the number of miles that are going on, as well as you do get into body repairs. In the course of the eight years that you hold it, you'll go in and do some kind of painting and adjustment kind of work. They operate at all times of year, heat, cold, and they run at a pretty good speed with a lot of weight on it, so they're expensive to maintain. Building maintenance would be the utilities and custodial part at the new facility, $29,000. We work with estimates to determine the building number, but it's an all-electric building, and the electric rates, even in the Village, are going a little crazy on us. We are also still maintaining the old back station until we can get rid of it as we continue to thin out what's left of the equipment there. We offset the $350,000 fire expense with the fire contracts that total $324,000 plus the additional income of $26,000. Some things to think about that I showed you last year, and I touched on it a minute ago, is that the last ambulance we bought in 2021 was $159,000. We have ordered the next ambulance and have been waiting two years for it to be produced, no different than some of the trucks that you're probably buying. The amount of time it takes to manufacture is significantly delayed. The basic ambulance without radios, stretchers, or the lifting equipment that's been incorporated in it, is $209,000. They would not guarantee that the chassis price would not go up, so in two years' time, from 2021 or three years’ time to 2024, when we ordered this, the price of a basic ambulance went from $159,000 to $209,000. We locked it in so that it wouldn't go up. This means that if we are to resume a rotation of buying one ambulance every four years and using one for eight years, we need to be setting aside $50,000 a year, where we traditionally were doing $25,000 plus donations. We will apply some of those donations to the difference between the $210,000 and the $270,000 in order to make that purchase work this year. But moving ahead, to try to stay on that schedule, we've got to increase that replacement cost. Looking Fire Organization Funding Fire Organizational Funding $350,000 Major Categories Expenses Apparatus Replacement $85,000 SCBA Replacement $25,000 Insurance $55,000 Truck Maintenance $11,500 Fuel $15,000 Building Expenses $29,000 Protective Equipment $29,000 Total $249,000 Fire/Organization Expenses $350,000 Fire Contracts $324,000 Other Income $26,000 Total $350,000 Town Board Minutes & Public Hearings Page 6 October 28, 2025 at that maintenance number, part of the problem is we've tried to keep those ambulances for 10 years instead of eight years, and that is where they start to break down and have problems. So that's one issue. Another problem, moving ahead, is that the two engines that we've got-- and again, these years are slightly off. I think they really should be 2006 and 2016. But the second engine is a 2016. It was bought as a demo unit in 2018. We got a good deal on it, $300,000, $320,000. The one that was manufactured in 2007, 2008 cost us $405,000. The estimated replacement now is &$750,000 for a no frills vehicle, which means that we have got to continually bump up the apparatus contribution so that it either funds it or can fund borrowing and bonding it over a period of time. I talked about the sunset. This is the one caution that I got out there about the ambulance budget moving ahead as I had mentioned to you the fact that we were looking at $175,000. We're hoping to be able to maintain $200,000 in ambulance recovery money to help fund this budget moving forward. So those are the highlights. There are 78 different line items that our fire department board has, which includes fire police equipment that's $250, and fire police vests, maybe $250. We don't put all of this into what we present to you, but what we do is pick out the top 14 to highlight, and then we've put together the other 14 to 28 of the 72 that really capture over 90% of the expenditures. Our Fire Chief has a discretionary amount to work with of about $92,000 out of $947,000. So, less than 10% is not already allocated in the first part of the year when he goes into working with it. So that's where we're at. I just want to mention your fire contract. I notice in here, it's 73 cents per thousand. When I was Chief 30 years ago, and I came and made these budget presentations, my advisor was a guy named Bob Walpole. He had been Chief and worked on the budgets for decades himself. Bob always told us our goal should be to keep the fire tax rate between 95 and 99 cents. Don't ever break a dollar, but don't ever let it go below 95 cents. Keep it there so that you can build with the times. Well, we've allowed it to decline to 73 cents. You know, the increase in the tax base did help with that. But if you were to do a comparison with just about any other department in Tompkins County, you'd find that 73 cents per thousand is probably the lowest or close to the lowest fire tax rate you're going to find. Dryden is in excess, I think now, of $1.20 per thousand. Lansing is somewhere in the dollar range. Danby and McLean districts are somewhere in the $2 per thousand range. I think McLean's is $1.93 if I was reading the paper correctly. You know, we've been blessed that we're able to maintain the contracts between the Town and the Village, and the Ambulance does add quite a bit to it. I think it is probably the most reasonable fire tax rate you're going to find. And the other thing is, we have consolidated the equipment in order to make all these things work together. So that's the presentation. Councilperson Gamel and Representative Shurtleff briefly debated the new building’s financing, current budget constraints for all governments and agencies involved in the contracts, and the necessity to maintain expected levels of service. It was suggested that the Town Board could speak with the Village Board if they have further concerns. The point conveyed was that of budgetary stress felt by all. Clerk Cargian asked if there were any grants available to the department, and if the Town were to help, what needs the department might have? Representative Shurtleff agreed they are in a better Fire Organization Funding Fire Organizational Funding $350,000 Major Categories Expenses Apparatus Replacement $85,000 SCBA Replacement $25,000 Insurance $55,000 Truck Maintenance $11,500 Fuel $15,000 Building Expenses $29,000 Protective Equipment $29,000 Total $249,000 Fire/Organization Expenses $350,000 Fire Contracts $324,000 Other Income $26,000 Total $350,000 Town Board Minutes & Public Hearings Page 7 October 28, 2025 position to receive a grant than in past years, and the greatest need would be for future truck replacements. Clerk Cargian also asked if he was aware of the outcome of the legislation aimed at removing fire/ambulance costs from the tax cap count. Board of Wardens, Groton Fire Department, Lee Shurtleff: There have been several pieces of legislation that would exempt, and one in particular with EMS that would incentivize municipalities to take on a stronger role. EMS and emergency medical services workers are not considered, under the law, as essential employees, but we know they are; somebody has to respond. Fire and Police are essential. And they have actually had legislation proposed that would allow counties to take a stronger role in EMS, but they're hesitant to move forward with incorporating it into the county tax levies. I questioned that at a meeting today, just because it would add so much to the tax levy that you would exceed that cap. The potential of being able to exempt that from the tax cap is part of what they're considering in Albany to entice local governments to fund it more strongly than they have. With everyone having been heard, a motion to close the public hearing was made by Councilperson Gamel, seconded by Councilperson Clark. Ayes – Clark, Young, Klumpp, Gamel, Scheffler Motion Passed Nays - No one wished to speak during the privilege of the floor. There being no further business, Councilperson Gamel moved to adjourn, seconded by Councilperson Young, at 8:12 PM, Unanimous. Robin Cargian, RMC Groton Town Clerk