East Town of Dunkirk Volunteer Firemen take part in the budget and contracts reviews Wednesday evening.

The Town of Dunkirk reviewed and passed the contracts for the two volunteer fire departments as well as their general budget on Wednesday.

In it the West Town of Dunkirk Fire Department asked for a 1.95 percent increase in their contract bringing their budget up to $73,673 and the East Town of Dunkirk Fire Department asked for a 2 percent increase in their contract bringing their budget up to $142,567.

Both passed unanimously, however West Town did get rounded down to $142,000 during the regular meeting of the town board.

“It’s getting tougher every year with the insurances and stuff that are required,” Town Supervisor Richard Purol stated. “Last year they tried passing, at the state level, not to have special districts count towards the tax cap, that unfortunately passed the Senate, but didn’t make it through the House. So they’re going to try for it again this year, but that’s what kills us, is the special districts, especially with the water lines now. If you spend more money than you did the year before than you’re over the cap.”

“They’re putting more and more restrictions on us of what we can do,” Councilman Henry Walldorff added. “Protective gear only has the life of so long and then it’s no longer certified in compliance, it costs $3,000 at least to outfit a guy.”

“I’m hoping that our local elected officials can help us with some of the added unfunded mandates that continue to come down the pipe when it comes to volunteer fire departments,” Councilman Jay Bishop said. “I think that’s another area we should be hammering our local elected officials about.”

In East Dunkirk it was the news that the Cancer Bill had passed the New York State Senate that was of interest; while paid fire departments have had the Cancer Bill for years, volunteers are just now, finally getting it, but with added costs.

“It’s going to cost $137 per person that the department has to pick up,” one fireman said. “Right now we have 15 members that are available for it. There has to be five years of consistent physicals in a row, that’s another $2,055 that we have to pick-up that’s not in the budget.”

Volunteers have been pushing for the bill for years, but the version that was passed was not quite what they were looking for. The departments were hoping the state would pick it up, but that was a no and when that failed they tried to get the county to put it though their insurance in hopes of trying to get a cheaper rate, that also can’t happen, the fire company itself is required to pay for it.

They have to have this in place by the first of the year or they’re not compliant.

The taxes in the town will be going up 7 cents, making the payable amount 66 cents per thousand.

“We haven’t raised it in the time I’ve been here,” Purol said. “But we’ve been using our savings for so long we have to put something back into it.”

The good news was that the sales tax had come in totaling $99,000, the highest Purol has ever seen which does help out considerably for the end of the year.