 Volunteers wanted
Towns, school districts woo them with tax breaks
The plea plays like a broken record: Volunteers needed for local fire and ambulance services.
To woo recruits, towns and school districts across the state have adopted new property-tax exemptions. In most cases, after five years of service, a volunteer can receive a 10-percent exemption on the assessed value of his home, not to exceed $3,000, multiplied by the latest state equalization rates.
Translation: It's not much off the tax bill. Assessor Cheryl Clinton in the Town of Montgomery received about 100 applications from volunteers. Crunching last year's numbers, she said most households will be looking at less than $100 in savings. That buys a couple extra pizza nights, not a new addition on the house.
"We're volunteers. We get paid with pride," said 30-year firefighter Bob Reynolds Sr. "This is a little bit of appreciation from your community."
As the assistant chief of the Montgomery Fire Company, Reynolds rallied with neighboring departments on behalf of the tax break. The volunteers argued that their personal savings would have little impact on the rest of the taxpayers they serve.
Especially when you consider the alternative: If the volunteers walk away, people would have to pay others to put out fires and drive ambulances. That tax bill would be catastrophic.
Nearly three-quarters of the nation's fire and emergency services are manned by volunteers, reports the National Volunteer Fire Foundation. The volunteers' service is put at $36.8 billion annually. In New York, volunteers man the majority of the state's 932 towns. It's a long-standing tradition, but one that's rapidly fading. "When we were younger, the fire department was the center of the community," said Maybrook Safety Officer Matthew Thorp Sr. "It's not like that anymore."
It's a scene replayed around the region. The population is growing, but people don't work where they live anymore, so their bosses don't care if there's a three-alarm in the town they commute from.
Families need those out-of-town jobs to afford their in-town homes. That makes it tough to recruit men and women to work haphazard hours in risky environments, for free.
"There's nothing better than waking up at 3 a.m. out of a dead sleep and rolling out into zero degree weather," said Coldenham Deputy Fire Coordinator Tony Trapini. "You might be out five minutes or five hours."
Then there's all the post-9/11 training standards.
"Cleanup and investigations and paperwork and heaven forbid somebody gets hurt," said Coldenham Chief Michael Keenan. "The easy part is putting the fire out."
"I always said I would never be as active as my father," said Reynolds, whose company answered nearly 550 calls last year. At age 80, his father is still answering calls. Reynold's 21-year-old son serves, too. Even so, Reynolds doesn't know if an all-volunteer company can survive. "I question myself every day on why I keep doing this," he said. "It's about self-satisfaction. Helping your neighbors."
Reprinted with Permission for the Times Herald Record
March 15, 2006
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