November 16, 2005.
CORRECTION: The Southampton Fire Department had a 32 percent decrease in its budget from 2003 to 2005. A graphic that ran on Nov. 16 incorrectly reported an increase of 227 percent because the town portion of the budget was not included in the 2003 calculations. pg A17 NS 12/01/05And three years in between, the Fire Chiefs’ Council of Suffolk County chose to do its training by the pink sands of the Bahamas.
Every October from 2002 to 2004, chiefs and commissioners jetted off to four-day training seminars at the Radisson Cable Beach resort. After spending each morning learning about building codes, national fire standards and incident command, many of them adjourned to the main pool to enjoy complimentary drinks with their wives at the swim-up bar under the hot Caribbean sun.
At other times, they were able to take advantage of the all- inclusive resort’s amenities: golf on the hotel course, windsurfing on the private beach, meals at one of the six restaurants, karaoke at Islands Bar, late-night dancing at the Goombay Lounge.
Taxpayers footed the bill for some of the chiefs and commissioners at a cost of up to $325 a night plus air fare and conference fees.
“It’s training for you and a little vacation … If you make the experience pleasant, they tend to pay attention more in class,” said Greg Anderson, the former Nesconset chief who helped lead two of the Bahamas trips and said he didn’t attend at taxpayer expense.
Reaping the benefits
Long Island volunteers have become known in fire circles for the remarkable breadth of the perks they receive. Trips in the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean, sometimes for training, sometimes for pleasure. Ten-course annual banquets. Firehouse rec rooms with fully stocked bars. Tournament racing teams with costly high- performance vehicles. Members-only parks, pools, docks, party rooms and picnic pavilions.
“They have more money than they have stuff to buy,” said Bill McGreevy, an assistant chief in the upstate Wilmington Fire District.
Paid for with taxes, donations from the public and 2 percent surcharges on most fire insurance policies, those benefits come on top of the various “recruitment and retention incentives” that lawmakers have worked to expand at a time when volunteer numbers nationally continue a steady decline. Those include pension benefits, supplemental life insurance policies, tax breaks, tuition aid, fee waivers at government-owned parks, beaches and golf courses, and discretionary grants from benevolent associations.
While some volunteer leaders eschew the more expensive trips and lavish meals, even they say that it’s shortsighted for the public to begrudge volunteers small rewards for the hours upon hours they give to protect their neighbors.
“When people just come in here berating us about, in my opinion, small amounts of money that we’re supposedly wasting, I have to ask: What do I give that kid here – a jacket?” said James McCann, president of Roslyn Highlands Fire Company. ” … Always keep in mind for the fire service that you have to make it attractive to them. You have to give them something.”
Volunteers shoulder burden
Yet the number of volunteers has remained stagnant at about 20,000 on Long Island for a decade as incentives have increased.
Carroll Buracker, a Virginia consultant who has advised dozens of Northeastern fire departments, said more stringent training requirements in the age of the two-career family “have placed enormous burdens on volunteers.”
“I don’t believe that perks or incentives will necessarily satisfy the public-safety requirements as it relates to fire or EMS,” he said.
Many Long Island fire officials, like Roslyn’s McCann, contend that the fringe benefits are scant compensation for the lost sleep, missed holidays and countless hours they donate to their communities.
Taxpayers “don’t see the individual sacrifices that people have made throughout their lives,” he said. “All those personal sacrifices are really money that you have saved the taxpayers.”
But some firefighters say they are embarrassed by some of the spending.
“I think when you volunteer to do a job, you volunteer – you don’t do it for the benefits,” said Anthony Frangipane, a Middle Island volunteer who has been repeatedly disciplined after bitter arguments with the fire commission. “Everybody wants something these days.”
Volunteer fire departments have always seen themselves as social as well as public safety organizations. North Lindenhurst’s 1957 incorporation certificate, for example, lists its purpose as protecting the public and providing “for the mutual enjoyment, entertainment and improvement of its members socially and physically.”
Smithtown’s firehouse has a bowling alley. Two of Freeport’s firehouses have swimming pools. Wantagh’s Hook, Ladder & Engine Co. No. 1 owns a 129-acre Adirondack hunting camp where members can take their families to shoot, fish and ride all-terrain vehicles. The Wyandanch firefighters benevolent association owns a vacation lodge in the Poconos.
“I’d say the volunteer fire service is 90 percent social and 10 percent fires,” said Joe Fox, a Middle Island commissioner. ” … People say, ‘Why do the firemen have to have a hall?’ What’s going to draw them there? Something has to be there beyond just the idea of fighting fires.”
Policy-makers have always understood that you can’t hold volunteers to the same standards as paid civil servants. Allowances for social and ceremonial spending of tax money, such as for parades, annual banquets and recreational facilities, are explicitly authorized in state law.
Certainly volunteer fire agencies elsewhere send members to conferences and buy their chiefs cars and have annual banquets. But Long Island chooses to do it all on a grander scale.
In Middle Island, commissioners bought matching handmade wool- and-cashmere business suits for themselves, all four chiefs, the board secretary, the treasurer and their lawyer. Each cost $925, along with a pair of $125 custom-made shirts and a $100 tie-and- pocket-square set.
“This way we all look the same when we go somewhere,” Commissioner Marc Rosenfeld explained. Fellow commissioner Fox said that they consider the suits uniforms, which the law allows the district to pay for.
In East Meadow, officials bought five $2,500 and two $1,500 laptops for training committee members so they would no longer have to come to the firehouse to plan Power Point lessons for fellow volunteers.
In North Babylon, the fire company budgeted $222,000 for parades, drills, a chiefs’ installation dinner, an annual banquet and other ceremonial events in 2003, records show. That’s more than the total annual budget for most New York fire districts. It spent more than $100,000 on the dinner and banquet.
“Think about the number of people we have: You’re comparing them against other departments that may have 50 members, 75,” said North Babylon’s president, Frank Obremski. “When you’re talking 200 members, you’re talking a big department.”
A $43,855 banquet bill
A Long Island banquet usually costs taxpayers $90 to $100 per person and lasts for six hours. Some departments also book hotel rooms for some members to spend the night after the banquet, paid for through public donations to their annual fund drives.
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