Study: Volunteer Firefighters Save NYS $3 Billion Annually

ALBANY — The 100,000 volunteers fighting fires across New York save taxpayers more than $3 billion annually, according to the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York.

The association says its new economic impact study, “Tax Savings and Economic Value of Volunteer Firefighters in New York,” is the most in-depth of its kind.

The savings are realized not only because the volunteers aren’t paid wages but because fundraising by volunteer departments reduces the need to levy taxes for equipment and operations.

The report also found that fire response times across the state are getting better because of the recent addition of more than 20,000 volunteer firefighters through a federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant.

Study highlights

Highlights of the study include:

An additional 30,822 career firefighters would be necessary to convert to an all-paid service

The annual cost of an all-career service would be $3.87 billion

There would be a one-time cost of $5.95 billion to acquire existing stations/structures, vehicles and equipment

Approximately 1,300 stations would have to be built new or reconstructed

Property taxes would rise between 3.3 and 123 percent, with an average increase of 26.5 percent

As a result of increasing the number of volunteers in recent years, average response time was reduced by 2.5 percent