Norwich, CT, Budget Includes Money for Fire Companies Suing Them

Norwich — City Manager John Salomone's proposed 2026-27 budget of $152.6 million continues to fund the inactive Yantic volunteer fire department, which has been shut for nearly two months, along with the three other volunteer departments who are also suing the city.

Salomone's proposal allocates a lump sum of $545,087 to the four departments. The money is under one line item, under the category of Fire and Emergency Management Services."

"Ultimately, some of this may depend on a solution to the volunteer fire-city issues," Salomone said Monday. "I'm leaving it in one lump sum. So, we have not cut any volunteer department yet. It is in one place, because we don't know how this is going to shake out ultimately. And their capital requests are there. So, at this point they're made whole like any other year — it's just that it's not itemized by department."

Capital requests for the four departments suing the city, which fall under the city's proposed $3 million capital improvement plan, are not funded under Salomone's proposal, according to budget documents.

The budget also includes a $2.73 million budget for the city department. East Great Plain — the only department that has not sued the city over its August 2025 establishment of the Unified Command policy — is the only volunteer department with an itemized budget. Salomone's plan would allocate the department $183,000.

The Unified Command policy, announced by Salomone and City Fire Chief Sam Wilson and implemented by Wilson using executive orders, established a new command structure for the city's paid and volunteer fire services with Wilson at the top, and standardized training, communications and emergency response protocols. On Feb. 9, the city shut down Yantic over failure to comply with the policy, and took its trucks the following day.

Both the shutdown, and the establishment of the policy, are being challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Yantic, Occum, Taftville and Laurel Hill departments. The city and volunteers agreed to mediation to try to resolve their issues, but the volunteers decided not to continue with the mediation after a single session was held on March 31.

"I can tell you that we're still talking," Salomone said. "Even though we're not in mediation anymore ... we're having kind of back-channel talks right now. So as long as we're talking, there's a chance that we move forward on this thing."

In the meantime, the 10-square-mile Yantic district has been staffed since it was shut down, by city firefighters — one paid lieutenant and two firefighters responding from the Public Works Garage at 50 Clinton Ave.

Wilson initially had estimated the monthly cost of that substation, which included the firefighters paid through overtime and the temporary rental of the trailer on the site where the firefighters are staying — to cost around $100,000, or around $1.2 million annually.

But Salomone on Monday said the city just received payroll records through the first month and a half of the shutdown that show the actual staffing cost, not including the nominal cost to rent the trailer, is closer to $65,000 a month.

"Which is a big deal," he said, pointing it the annual cost is now closer to $700,000.

Salomone and City Comptroller Josh Pothier said the budget was built with the assumption that all five volunteer departments in the city will be able to figure out how to work with the city and remain open.

"I want to assume everybody's going to be on board," Salomone said. "I'm not budgeting for gloom yet. We're working hard to get some kind of agreement that the city can live with, and the volunteers can."

But if Yantic does remain shut down, their portion of the lump sum money could be used to offset the city's operations to staff their district, Salomone said. The substation at that point would still require additional funding.

Salomone said at the new cost figure of $700,000 a year, if Yantic were to remain shut down, the substation would still require additional funding.

"But much easier to fill than if it was a $1.2 million difference, he said.

Under Salomone's budget proposal, property owners in the paid central city fire district would have a tax rate of 39.74 mills, down 0.73 mills, while taxpayers in the five volunteer districts would have a tax rate of 34.80, down 0.1 mills.

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