LI fire districts propose tighter budgets

Long Island fire districts largely are keeping spending to a minimum next year, according to recently released proposed budgets.

About 70 percent are pitching budgets with less than a 2 percent increase, and 30 percent are proposing spending plans that are flat or lower than the current year, according to 119 of the 127 fire districts whose budgets were made available either through public websites or filings with towns.

All fire districts are required to hold public hearings Tuesday to present proposed budgets. After the hearings, the budgets must be adopted by the boards of commissioners by Nov. 4.

"We tightened up as much as we could," said Deer Park Commissioner Anthony Macaluso, whose district is proposing a flat budget. "We're trying to pinch pennies."

In Selden, commissioners elected to do something unusual among local districts: Refurbishing expensive fire trucks instead of buying new ones.

"It's a possible cost savings of $900,000," Commissioner Robert McConville said of refurbishing two trucks and an ambulance. There is no increase in the proposed $5.8-million budget.

Much like other municipalities, such as towns and school districts, fire districts say they are struggling with increases in mandated costs such as pensions and health benefits that make it difficult to reduce expenses and to stay within the state's new 2 percent tax cap. Sixty percent of a district's commissioners must vote to exceed the cap.

In Rocky Point, the proposed $3.6-million budget represents a 3-percent spending increase and carries a 1-percent tax increase, well within the tax cap.

"We all want to work within the tax cap," said Anthony Gallino, chairman of Rocky Point and president of the Suffolk County Fire District Officers Association. "We talk about it at all our meetings, but the unfunded mandates that we have to comply with are very costly. We try to find common ground to fund the best fire and EMS, but live within a budget."

Unforeseen costs mean a few districts propose exceeding the cap. In the Manhasset-Lakeville Fire/Water District, Commissioner Andrew DeMartin said a hefty 200-percent increase in dispatch services from a neighboring fire district has forced Manhasset-Lakeville to start up its own dispatch center. The cost, mostly for staffing, is expected to be about $350,000, DeMartin said, part of a 13-percent increase over the current budget of $5.6 million. The average homeowner's bill next year will go up about $35, he said.

In the Brentwood Fire District, where the proposed $6.4-million budget carries an increase of $701,200, or 12 percent, officials said in a statement that the increase is due mostly to "uncontrollable costs increases and follows three prior years of budget decreases" totaling $600,000. Among the costs noted: double-digit retirement costs, increases in volunteer pensions and an increase to build up a reserve fund for anticipated equipment purchases. The average homeowner's tax bill would rise $33.

GETTING A BUDGET APPROVED

By law, fire districts must hold a public budget hearing on the third Tuesday in October.

Fire districts are required to post legal notices, information about the meeting, such as time and place, on town websites, their own websites, and on any electronic bulletin boards outside their firehouses.

After presenting the budget, commissioners may make changes, and must vote on it by Nov. 4.

Fire district commissioners are elected each December and are the sole financial officers of fire districts.

Not all fire departments are run by a district. Some are village departments or fire protection districts, which contract out the work.