NY Volunteer Firefighters Pushing for Pay for Responding

Syracuse, N.Y. - Volunteer firefighters across the state, including in Onondaga County, are making a push for new state laws to allow volunteers to get paid for their work.

Different ideas are being debated, but the general proposal would allow departments to pay volunteers up to $12,000 a year, said Tony McIntyre, former chief of the North West Fire District, a volunteer department that covers Lysander and Van Buren. That’s about 20% of what a professional firefighter is paid, he said.

It is necessary to pay volunteers to encourage people to join and stay on a job which can be grueling and time-consuming, McIntyre said. Many feel that paying volunteers would make a big difference, he said.

“We feel this is a last-ditch effort to save volunteer fire services in New York State,” McIntyre said.

Departments for decades have had trouble recruiting volunteers with some departments closing or merging, including half a dozen last year. McIntyre said recruiting has somewhat improved, but retaining active volunteers is a bigger problem.

The number of volunteer firefighters has hit a 40-year low, according to fire officials proposing to pay volunteers.

Statewide, the number of volunteers has fallen from around 120,000 in 2000 to 80,000 this year, according to the Firefighters Association of the State of New York (FASNY).

There are 1,800 volunteer departments in New York state and 50 in Onondaga County, according to FASNY.

Volunteer firefighters from across Onondaga County and the state will host a rally at 11 a.m. Thursday at East Syracuse Station 1 at 204 N. Center St. to show their support for paying volunteers.

On Wednesday, Cicero Fire Chief Jim Perrin Jr., who is leading the efforts in Onondaga County alongside McIntyre, went to Albany with other volunteers to meet with lawmakers, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, to ask for support on the nominal compensation push.

McIntyre said volunteers in Onondaga County started having serious conversations about the proposal to pay volunteers in September.

At this point, there is no legislation on the table on how paying volunteers would work or be funded.

FASNY, which lobbies for and represents 80,000 volunteer firefighters, has proposed 14 ways to compensate volunteers which the group believes would be more equitable than allowing departments to pay them directly, said John D’Alessandro, secretary for FASNY. The proposals include increased tax credits, more reimbursement for mileage and other working costs, a childcare tax credit or stipend and property tax credits.

Currently, volunteers receive $200 tax credits and can also pay lower property taxes in some jurisdictions, D’Alessandro said. Some departments also have a pension-like program that pays long-time volunteers small amounts annually.

FASNY wants any proposal to pay volunteers to include a state fund that departments with less money could draw from to pay volunteers.

“We can’t leave anyone behind, or public safety is going to suffer,” D’Alessandro said.

FASNY is concerned that volunteers will leave smaller departments with fewer resources to join larger, wealthier districts that can offer more pay, D’Alessandro said. That could also potentially create tension between departments, the group maintains.

D’Alessandro said the bigger departments need to be thinking about the impact on their smaller neighbors when they support this effort. He said larger, wealthier departments are many of the largest proponents.

McIntyre said many firefighters already leave smaller departments for larger ones because most find the larger departments with more resources better to work at.

McIntyre said that paying firefighters wouldn’t be required, but would just be a tool that departments struggling for retention could use.

Three groups working for laws to pay volunteers with McIntyre’s task force are the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs (NYSAFC), the New York State Fire Coordinators’ Association (NYSFCA), and the Association of Fire Districts of the State of New York (AFDSNY). They have not proposed specific legislation, McIntyre said.

McIntyre and D’Alessandro both said volunteer departments are still the way forward.

Professionalizing the entire state would be very expensive and unrealistic, D’Alessandro said.

D’Alessandro and McIntyre emphasized that they want to pass legislation and that their groups will continue to work toward a resolution.

“Let me be clear, we are not anti-FASNY, I am not anti-FASNY,” McIntyre said. “We just want them to come to the table so we can work on this together.”

D’Alessandro emphasized that FASNY is not against paying firefighters more, they just want to do it in a sustainable way.

“There is no silver bullet here,” he said. “There is no magic solution.”

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