Patterson Town Board Signs Off on Fire Department Contracts
After a delay and with an investigation into a missing $1 million from the Patterson Volunteer Fire Department ongoing, the Patterson town board approved a new contract for the Patterson department and Putnam Lake Fire Department last week.
After an executive session near the end of last Wednesday’s meeting, the 2016 contract was approved by the town board and now must be ratified by the two departments. The Patterson Volunteer Fire Department (PVFD) is set to receive $814,000 and the Putnam Lake Volunteer Fire Department (PLVFD) is pegged for $301,000.
Supervisor Rich Williams said the two departments and town recognize the need for “more accountably and transparency” for town taxpayers in the wake of the alleged missing million from the PVFD and “the current contract reflects that feeling.”
During a public hearing for the contracts, Eleanor Smith, the president of the Patterson Fire Department, said the most important aspect of the contract is the fee schedule, where the department would like to see at least 75 percent of the town’s allotment coming in the first payment. The reason for that is a lot of the department’s “heavy” payments are due up front.
The town ultimately agreed to pay 70 percent of the overall allotment and then two payments of 15 percent.
Smith also questioned why the budget put forth by the department was reduced without anyone from the town contacting the department to let them know. She asserted the department had no input.
“All this time has gone by and we never knew that our budget was reduced without any discussion,” Smith said. “We want to be able to have transparency, we want to be able to talk about this.”
Williams said the town fully funded the department’s operational budget to the tune of roughly $565,000 and funded the replacement value cascade fire equipment, as well as other miscellaneous items and events.
But the town only funded one of the two ambulances requested by the department, Williams noted, because the PVFD was “getting out of the ambulance business.”
But Smith shot back, “We never said we were going out of the ambulance business, that was Putnam Lake.”
As of now, the town is still funding just one ambulance, Williams said Monday.
After the meeting, Smith said the process to agree on a contract was lengthier because the town has put more things in place required by New York State. She said the matter of the missing million from the department remains under investigation, but a statement would be made when the time is right.
The town board, in a statement this January, confirmed that an investigation was being done by federal and state law enforcement into money missing from the Patterson department.
Smith insisted that the investigation had no bearing on the contract negotiations. The delay comes down to a change in supervisors and the emergency service issues the town and the rest of the county facing.
Still, she’d like to see stronger communication between the town and department going forward.
“It’ll make things so much easier,” she said, “We’re all volunteers and we spend a lot of time at the firehouse and the less time we have to spend really clarifying things, the better off we are.”
Williams said the delay dates back to last year. In fact, Williams had to get the 2015 contracts approved first, which happened in January 2016.
“Two months later I think we’re in good shape with the 2016 contracts and in another two months I’ll be working on 2017 contracts,” Williams said.
