Lewis officials broker deal to maintain Harrisburg fire coverage

COPENHAGEN — While the town of Harrisburg still has no fire-protection contracts for 2012, Lewis County officials have helped to create a deal intended to maintain coverage until formal ones are signed.

“Hopefully, we’ve got them on the right track,” said James M. Martin, Lewis County’s emergency services director and fire coordinator.

Mr. Martin and several other county officials on Tuesday morning met with representatives from the Lowville and Copenhagen fire departments, which historically have split primary coverage of Harrisburg, then brought in town Supervisor Stephen N. Bernat.

That led to a tentative deal in which both departments would accept $26,500 apiece in fire-protection funding, as the town included in its 2012 budget and the Lowville Fire Department had requested, with the intent to begin negotiations for 2013 relatively soon, Mr. Martin said.

“Both chiefs are saying it’s a workable agreement,” he said.

Committees from the two departments and the Harrisburg Town Council still must agree to the deal before contracts are signed, but it is hoped that will happen by the end of the week, Mr. Martin said. In the interim, dispatchers and firefighters will continue to handle incidents in the town as if the 2011 fire contracts were still in place, he said.

Mr. Bernat said he is fairly optimistic that the deal for 2012 will be in place soon and negotiations for 2013 will advance.

“I hope so,” he said. “We don’t want to do this many more times. We don’t even want to do it once more.”

Harrisburg’s fire-protection funds historically are split evenly between the Lowville and Copenhagen departments, with the latter typically accepting whatever the town offers.

Along with half of Harrisburg, the Lowville department provides primary fire protection to the village and town of Lowville, plus Montague and 90 percent of Watson.

At issue is a longtime Lowville Fire Department practice of splitting costs among the municipalities based on full assessed values, including tax-exempt properties.

Harrisburg used to have a very low value, but that changed several years ago with construction of the 195-turbine Maple Ridge Wind Farm. The 80 turbines in Harrisburg represent about 85 percent of the town’s value.

While the wind farm pays for fire protection on top of its annual $900,000 payment in lieu of taxes, the 15-year PILOT agreement specifies that it will pay no more for fire protection per tower than it did during the initial year. Harrisburg’s cap amount is about $41,600.

The town over the past few years set its fire-protection rate at the minimum level needed to receive that amount from the wind farm, leading to a roughly $2,000 budget shortfall for the Lowville department in 2011.

Harrisburg officials had agreed to pay the $26,500 requested for 2012, but only if the department would change its fire-protection distribution formula to allow for lower payments in future years. Department officials did not agree to those terms.

Town officials inquired with the Copenhagen department about covering the whole town and with seven other departments about taking over Lowville’s portion, but to no avail.

Copenhagen fire officials signed off on a contract with the town but rescinded it Monday when they discovered it was to cover the whole town, not just their half, Mr. Martin said.

The Harrisburg supervisor said he never received that document.

“It has never been our intention to shortchange any department,” Mr. Bernat said.

However, town officials are trying to protect their residents from hefty fire-protection tax increases in upcoming years, he said.