Chris Gaige
The Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, N.Y.
(TNS)
TUPPER LAKE — At the Tupper Lake Village Board’s regular July meetings, things appeared to be moving toward a new fire truck purchase.
Now, that appears to be out the window. That realization came on Thursday when village Mayor Mary Fontana, village Trustee and Deputy Mayor Eric Shaheen and village Treasurer Kyle Fuller were meeting to review potential purchase options for the new truck.
“We’re shifting our focus now from a brand-new truck to possibly a used truck,” Fontana said. “We need to make sure that we’re still protecting this community, but we need to do so in a financially responsible way.”
The village is in the midst of trying to replace the Tupper Lake Volunteer Fire Department’s Unit 165 — a pumper truck that was built in 1995 and was purchased second-hand from the Peru Volunteer Fire Department for $30,000 in 2015. The truck remains in service, but is starting to show signs of deterioration, according to a letter from TLVFD that was presented to the village board on May 19.
On Thursday, Fontana, Shaheen and Fuller were trying to figure out how much money the village could put down at signing, then determine how to finance the remainder and what interest rates the village would likely be facing before taking any possible board action to enter into a purchasing contract.
However, the “fire truck fund” — a specific fund meant to provide a reserve for the future purchases of new fire trucks. That’s when Fontana said the three of them realized the $330,000 number was incorrect, and furthermore, that the truck fund had never been formally established in its own account.
Instead, that money was left as part of the village’s general fund. During that time, they were used for a slew of purposes that, while legitimate expenditures in accordance with the general fund’s purpose, resulted in less money being available for truck purchases — as some of it is currently being used to fund other projects.
Instead of the $330,000, Fontana said there’s currently $193,000 that could be used toward the purchase of a new truck. She added that’s not enough to purchase a new one in a financially responsible way. The E-ONE proposal was for $889,287 — the cheapest of the three proposals that the truck committee recommended, and moving forward with that would result in too much being financed and subject to interest payments over time than would be responsible for the village to subject its taxpayers to.
As a result, the village board will not commit to buying a new truck at this time. Instead, Fontana said the village will look to replace Unit 165 with another second-hand purchase, while taking steps to formally create the restricted fund and continue to add to it.
The difference in fund balances stems from previous withdrawals. The full $330,000 is a figure that would have been the fund’s balance if there were no previous withdrawals since its inception in 2016. But there were — $100,000 for a down payment on TLVFD’s Unit 163 pumper truck in 2017, $45,000 for purchasing a used fire truck for TLVFD’s Santa Clara substation in 2019 from the Keene Volunteer Fire Department and $32,000 or a Jaws of Life unit in 2021.
While those withdrawals add up to $177,000, the truck fund deduction isn’t quite that much, as a portion of Unit 163 was paid for from the sale of the old fire station on High Street, and the town of Santa Clara has been paying $5,000 back per year for the substation truck. They will continue to do so until the full $45,000 has been repaid.
Part of the confusion stems from these appropriations being taken from the general fund, since there was no restricted truck fund. However, since they pertain to trucks and equipment, that’s what brought the current truck fund’s inaccurate o