Potsdam mayor suggests town outside village taxpayers help foot the bill for fire department drivers

POTSDAM — Most taxpayers living outside the village have never seen the fire department’s paid drivers pull into their driveway. In fact, they barely see them outside village limits.

But they haven’t had to pay for them, either.

According to the mayor’s newest proposal, however, both of those things could change.

In what he is calling an issue of cost equity for services used by both the town and the village, Mayor Steven W. Yurgartis has suggested village taxpayers no longer be asked to shoulder the entire burden of funding the fire department’s four paid drivers.

Instead, town taxpayers could pay a portion of the costs, he said. In return, the paid drivers would be allowed to respond to any calls in the town of Potsdam.

“I think that if we could get the town sharing some of the cost of those paid drivers, because I think the town already benefits from the service of those paid drivers, that would be appropriate sharing of cost,” Mr. Yurgartis told the village’s Comprehensive Planning Committee earlier this month.

This is not the first time the mayor has introduced a plan to revamp the town’s tax structure. Mr. Yurgartis and a handful of village residents have already suggested the village should be exempt from paying a portion of the town’s highway expenses.

In particular, they wanted relief from paying for snow removal on streets outside the village and equipment maintenance in the tax bill.

Now the mayor has turned his sights toward the volunteer fire department.

The village pays roughly $300,000 a year for the department, much of which goes towards the contracts of the four paid drivers, Mr. Yurgartis said.

Because the drivers are village employees, they do not respond to calls outside the village limits, except in emergency assistance situations.

The responsibility for a large amount of town-outside-village calls fall upon members of the volunteer department.

Under Mr. Yurgartis’ plan, if the town were to contribute to the salaries of the paid drivers, the drivers would routinely respond to calls outside the village, “thereby improving response time for town residents,” he said.

The mayor’s proposal stems from reports completed by the village’s Dissolution Study Committee last year.

In its study, the committee recognized that paid drivers do a great deal of work to train and maintain the entire fire department, Mr. Yurgartis said, including the training of volunteers and clean-up of the fire station.

“Everyone in the town benefits from the work they do,” Mr. Yurgartis said.

While town-outside-village residents have been spared from the extra expense thus far, that doesn’t mean they don’t contribute to the volunteer fire department, Town Councilman Michael J. Zagrobelny said.

Taxpayers outside the village, living within the fire district, contribute $95,790 annually to the department, he said.

That money accounts for most of the funding that goes to the volunteer department, not including the cost of the paid drivers, according to the councilman.

While no amount has been determined by the village as to what the town should contribute, asking the town to provide any additional funding might be too much, Mr. Zagrobelny said.

“They give a pretty substantial number to that fire district,” he told the planning committee.