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HomeMy WebLinkAboutIthaca Fire Contract Report-Final-11-11-25Ithaca Fire Contract Analysis Review and Recommendations for Agreement between City and Town of Ithaca October, 2025 www.cgr.org 1 South Washington Street, Suite 400, Rochester, New York 14614 (585) 325-6360 • info@cgr.org Ithaca Fire Contract Analysis Review and Recommendations for Agreement between City and Town of Ithaca October, 2025 Prepared for City and Town of Ithaca Prepared by Paul Bishop, MPA and Kieran Bezila Ph.D. i www.cgr.org Executive Summary CGR was engaged by the City of Ithaca to study the existing fire service sharing agreement between the City and the Town of Ithaca and evaluate two main questions: Whether the total cost of the fire service is being accurately calculated and How the cost should be split between the two municipalities. CGR reviewed the existing contract and previous versions, gathered details on the Ithaca Fire Department (IFD)’s budget, operations, staffing and calls for service, and met with leadership of the City, the Town and the Fire Department to understand current positions, issues and concerns. Observations The study led to the following observations: ∞ In interviews, both the City and the Town communicated a variety of concerns with the current situation and goals they wished to achieve in any future agreements. ∞ Town goals and concerns include: ∞ Avoiding unanticipated jumps in expenses. ∞ Gaining more transparency around certain categories of expense, such as administrative costs. ∞ Achieving a greater role in budgetary review for cost-containment purposes. ∞ Examining whether the cost-splitting formula could be revised to be more proportionate to the Town’s protection needs and/or share of calls for service. ∞ City goals and concerns include: ∞ Ensuring IFD remains properly resourced. ∞ Minimizing micromanaging of decisions or expenditures from outside the department. ∞ Assuring that its contributions from other city departments helping to support the administrative and general operations of IFD are properly accounted for and fairly compensated. ∞ Reducing the complexity of the current contract to minimize process barriers in annual budgetary and agreement approval. ∞ Costs for all fire services both across New York State and nationally are continuing to scale rapidly, typically in excess of the overall rate of inflation. This dynamic is above and beyond any management or decisions taking place locally and does not appear likely to reverse in the immediate future. ∞ IFD’s recent budget increases are significant, but are largely reflective of this overall environment of broad external cost pressure. ii www.cgr.org ∞ CGR determined that IFD’s current costs are reasonable, and the department is, if anything, running lean in comparison to peer departments, with staffing below national standards for delivering a proper emergency response. ∞ IFD remains a value to the Town, as estimated costs to the Town to create and operate its own department exceed the amount the Town currently contributes through the contract. ∞ Both the City and the Town have key actions they can take to enhance cooperation going forward. ∞ The City can commit to greater transparency and better communication processes to ensure that the Town is not faced with surprising bills and unanticipated cost spikes. ∞ This may include an update to the calculation of administrative costs, which could potentially result in a jump in those charges. ∞ The Town should brace for the fact that higher costs are an inevitability that include many factors outside the control of local leaders and the local department. Key Findings ∞ Ithaca Fire Department’s staffing level is below NFPA standards for minimum on scene personnel for a house fire (IFD 11 vs. NFPA 14) and has a lower per capita staffing ratio than five upstate peer cities (1.5 compared to 1.9 and higher). ∞ IIFD maintains a Public Protection Classification (PPC) of 2 from the Insurance Services Organization (ISO). This high rating (top 5% in NY) directly benefits homeowners and businesses through lower fire insurance premiums. ∞ IFD responds to about 15 calls per day on average. 40% of the calls are EMS in nature and only 2% are fires of any type. 76% of the calls are in the City of Ithaca and nearly all of the remainder are in the Town. 2024 was 10% busier than the long-term average call volume and 2025 has been even busier. ∞ IFD’s total costs are increasing with a proposed growth of 25% from 2023 to 2026. This increase is driven by a small increase in staffing, growth in salaries and benefits, more overtime needs, and an increase in debt to fund fire station and apparatus. ∞ The administrative charge from the City is only 4% of the total cost of the contract and it is unclear if it represents the true cost of support from other departments to the IFD. The methodology for estimating the cost has not been updated in several years. ∞ In the last two years (2024 and 2025), the City has asked for significant additional payments from the Town after the contract was signed to help fund unexpected overtime costs and pay increases related to a new contract. ∞ According to the Census American Community Survey, the population of the City is 31,792 and the Town outside Cayuga Heights is 16,236. We estimate an additional 1,600 people are served by the Cayuga Heights Fire Department. This splits the 46,400 population 69% in the City. However, there is a concern about an undercounting of the student population in both communities which calls this data into question. iii www.cgr.org ∞ The cost of the contract between the City and Town for fire protection has grown 44% from 2021 to 2025 with a further increase under consideration for 2026. As noted above, this increase is driven by a small increase in staffing, growth in salaries and benefits, more overtime needs, and an increase in debt to fund fire station and apparatus. ∞ The communication from the City to the Town regarding the rising costs of the fire department has not met the standards set out in the agreement. This shortfall can be attributed to change in personnel in key positions and the shift in governance structure in the City to a manager form of government. ∞ As outlined in the supporting information that follows, the cost of the Town of Ithaca to provide fire service on its own through the development of a fire district would likely cost between $5.1 million and $ 9.0 million in annual operating costs plus the significant capital costs for new apparatus. The dissolution clause in the current agreement would provide some assets, but startup costs would be equal to two or more years of the expected operating costs. The City would likely be able to save on staffing costs, but probably not enough to make up in lost revenue. The two communities would continue to need to provide mutual aid to each other for large incidents. Options for Splitting Costs CGR reviewed a variety of possible options for splitting costs, including by taxable assessed value, by total assessed value, by insurance valuation, by population, by calls for service, and by level of risk. Each of these methods comes with pluses and minuses, both from the point of view of either the City or the Town, and in terms of functionality – for some options, the difficulty in securing accurate data on underlying numbers may compromise their effectiveness. The City and Town should focus on those that have clear objective measurements and are related to the provision of the fire service such as taxable assessed value ( a measurement of the value of the protected property) and the calls for service distribution( a measurement of the activity in the community and a proxy for the share of risk). The options are further described in the body of the report. Recommendations ∞ The current sharing of service is most cost efficient and operationally effective way to provide fire protection and emergency medical services first response to the combined population and geography of the City and Town of Ithaca. ∞ The Town should not pursue creating a separate fire service because it would be more costly to establish and operate than it will be to continue to share the service with the City. ∞ The City can do a better job of informing Town of forthcoming costs to avoid unanticipated jumps in the cost of the service. Both sides should commit to improving the communication as set forth in the agreement including regular meetings with the fire chief, city manager, town supervisor and financial staff from both. iv www.cgr.org ∞ The current trend of escalating costs in the fire service does not seem to be slowing down as there are increased safety requirements and more expensive raw materials. There is also justification for a further increase in staff. Both the City and to Town can brace for fact that higher costs are an inevitability. ∞ The City should undertake an updated analysis of true costs of the support that other departments give to the Fire Department. This analysis should consider the variability of effort from the other departments that occurs related to business cycles and identify a median cost. ∞ The current cost sharing model of dividing costs based on taxable assessed value has been used for decades. It is used by a wide range of governments to share costs across an area that has variability in service demand. Moving from this model is a political decision and would require renegotiating several parts of the contract. The Town and City share several key services and a change to any of them might cause a cascading effect. ∞ There is a rationale to consider the share of calls for service when considering splitting the cost of the department. For example, if a community contracted with another for road service, they would consider the number of lane miles or if contracting for vehicle maintenance they would consider the number and type of vehicles as well as miles driven. The share of calls has followed a relatively consistent split for nearly a decade. ∞ A compromise would be to establish a hybrid model for funding the department that takes into account several objective factors such as the assessed valuation (a proxy for the property to be protected), the lane miles or square mileage (to consider the additional costs for the larger area to be covered), the share of EMS calls, share of fires and the share of other calls in each community. ∞ Another alternative would be use TAV for dividing the base costs of the department and then use the share of calls for service to divide the costs associated with overtime and additional expenses that are outside the initial agreement. v www.cgr.org Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. v Background ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Town & City Goals and Concerns ............................................................................................ 1 Fire Department Operations .......................................................................................................... 3 Analysis ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Cost of Service ......................................................................................................................... 5 Division of Cost ........................................................................................................................ 9 Options for Sharing Costs ...................................................................................................... 11 Key Findings ................................................................................................................................... 14 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................ 15 Supporting Information ................................................................................................................. 16 Calls for Service Distribution ................................................................................................. 16 Calls for Service ..................................................................................................................... 17 Public Protection Classification Summary ........................................................................... 19 Benchmark Cities ................................................................................................................... 20 Cost of Stand-Alone Fire District ........................................................................................... 21 Standalone Fire Districts Similar to Town of Ithaca ............................................................ 23 NFPA 1710 Summary ............................................................................................................ 24 Cost of Fire Apparatus ........................................................................................................... 25 1 www.cgr.org Background The City of Ithaca’s Fire Department was founded in the early 19th Century to provide fire protection for the City and as necessary to the surrounding communities through mutual aid. Beginning in the 1980s, the Town of Ithaca entered into a shared services agreement with the City to receive fire protection for the majority of the town. The Town contracts with the Village of Cayuga Heights to provide fire response to an area around the village. The City and Town have had a series of agreements that outline the responsibilities of both parties, how the City will provide the services, what assets are owned by the Town, the costs of the service and how much the City will charge the Town for those services. The latest long- term agreement expired in 2024 and the two parties agreed to a one-year extension covering 2025. The City’s fire department budget has grown from $11.3 M to $15.2 M over the last five fiscal years. The base cost of the contract with the Town has increased 44% over the last five years, from $3.4 M to $4.9 M. The Town raises the funds to provide this service through a fire protection fund. The taxes for this fund are levied on all properties outside the Village of Cayuga Heights. The contract for fire service with the Cayuga Heights Fire Department to serve an area near the village is also supported through this Fund. Our approach focused on two distinct questions “Is the total cost of the fire service accurately calculated?” The City of Ithaca provides a calculation of the full cost of the fire service as part of the contract, but there was some concern as to whether it included the appropriate costs. ” The two municipalities have settled on sharing the cost of the department based on the share of taxable assessed value of the entire city and the portion of the Town covered by the IFD. There are several viable options for consideration, with each presenting concerns for equity. Town & City Goals and Concerns Both the City and the Town have legitimate goals and concerns around specific elements of the current contract, how it is being honored in both letter and spirit, and the overall dynamics of the relationship between the Town, City, and IFD. While CGR noted a number of specific grievances and disagreements that were communicated to us during interviews and discussions, we believe that litigating their details will mostly prove unhelpful to the overall goal of producing a new agreement that is fair and reasonable for all parties. Therefore, we are broadly characterizing the primary goals and concerns which we consider most relevant. 2 www.cgr.org Town of Ithaca Goals & Concerns The Town has experienced recent sticker shock with rising costs related to IFD. It feels that these costs are not always being communicated in a timely and detailed fashion according to the stipulations laid out in the existing contracts, which were designed with the intent of minimizing such problems. In particular, the Town has expressed concern about the opacity of some expense areas, such as administrative costs, and wants to better understand how these are calculated. Broadly, the Town wants to feel it has a more equitable role in budgetary review to aid with cost containment, better understand the specifics behind spikes in costs, and avoid future surprises. In general, the Town feels that the current formula for splitting costs is not proportionate to the Town’s actual protection needs or the corresponding amount of service it receives, and it is looking for a new cost-sharing approach that aligns more closely with those. City of Ithaca Goals & Concerns Like all other municipalities, the City is being impacted with rising costs across the board, including inflationary pressures and the impact of new labor contracts. The City feels that IFD offers an exceptional value in its service and coverage, but it must continue to be properly resourced, which entails meeting significantly rising costs that are similarly affecting fire departments throughout New York State and nationally. In that light, the City does not want IFD finances or decisions to be micromanaged from outside the department in a way that might complicate or compromise service for the goal of producing minor cost savings. The City believes that its handling of all of the difficult details and management issues related to fire service – such as purchasing, finances–including bonding, human resources issues, and legal matters including contract negotiations – provides a substantial benefit to the Town that is not fully captured in the current administrative charge, which is calculated on a legacy basis. Generally, the City believes that the current cost split represents a fair charge for the value IFD provides to the Town, the supplementary work the City provides to support IFD, and in relation to the hypothetical costs the Town would incur if it were operating its own fire department. The City is looking to reduce the complexity of the current contract in future iterations, believing that this complexity is adding process barriers to cooperation without enhancing service in any practical way. 3 www.cgr.org Balancing Goals & Concerns CGR believes that both the Town and the City have expressed legitimate goals and concerns, and that the focus must remain on providing the best fire protection service at a reasonable cost, net of any other priorities. It is important to note that “reasonable” cost in this context means what is reasonable in terms of what it actually costs to run a quality fire service today, based on what real costs for any department are, and what expected and current costs are for peer departments throughout the fire service. These will continue to be large and climbing numbers, in the millions and tens of millions of dollars. We readily acknowledge the significance of these sums in terms of their proportion of municipal budgets and their impact on taxpayers, but nonetheless these represent the real costs of providing an essential, lifesaving public service. Along these lines, both the City and the Town can take some steps to improve this relationship. The City can do a better job of keeping the Town informed of costs, provide additional detail when possible, and more accurately track administrative costs. For its part, the Town can brace for the fact that higher costs are an inevitability and understand that IFD’s costs do not appear to be unreasonable, meaning that there are likely minimal opportunities for significant cost containment at the current juncture, and a policy of intensive review and exacting efforts to control costs may only produce minor savings that are not worth the aggravation they might engender in the relationships between the Town, the City, and IFD. Fire Department Operations The Ithaca Fire Department has 70 uniformed personnel and two administrative staff. In addition to responding to fire and rescue calls in the City and Town, they are also responsible for conducting fire inspections in both municipalities. There are typically 12 firefighters, 2 lieutenants and an Assistant Chief on duty between the four fire stations. The line personnel work one 24-hour shift on duty, followed by 72 hours off duty. The Central (310 W. Green Street) Station and East Hill (403 Elmwood Avenue) Stations are located in the City. The South Hill (965 Danby Road) and West Hill (1240 Trumansburg Road) Stations are located in the Town. On a given shift, four or five of the line personnel are stationed in the Town. Each station has an engine assigned to it and the Headquarters station also has a ladder truck. 4 www.cgr.org IFD responds to about 15 calls per day on average. There has been a slow increase in the number of calls each year, with the exception of 2020, which depressed the call volume for all fire and EMS agencies. Through October 2025 has been busier than all previous years. Rescue calls, which includes most EMS dispatches, account for about 42% of calls for IFD. IFD only responds to EMS calls that are suspected to be serious emergencies (such as heart attacks, strokes, allergic reactions, and serious trauma) or when Bangs Ambulance makes a special request because of a delayed response or other need. IFD calls are split about three-quarters in the City and one quarter in the Town. A very small share are mutual aid responses to neighboring communities. 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Average IFD Call Volume Rescue Fire and Other 5 www.cgr.org Several of the response categories are self-explanatory; however, we highlight that Good Intent Calls include many calls that are responses where the IFD is canceled while still en route because their help is not needed. These are most often requests from Bangs Ambulance or public safety at Cornell and Ithaca College. Only 20% of calls to the Cornell Campus are for EMS (compared to 40% of City calls outside Cornell being for EMS), due to Cornell’s on-campus healthcare and EMS response handling some of their own calls. Likewise, only 17% of Ithaca College’s calls are for EMS, compared to 57% for the rest of Town. Responses for EMS are a higher proportion of calls in the Town (57%), compared to the City (39%). Fire alarm calls represent 30% of the volume in the City compared to 13% in Town. Other call types were similar between the Town and City. The two colleges were similar to each other, and both had higher chare of cancellations. IFD has received a Public Protection Classification of 2 from the Insurance Services Organization. This places the IFD in the top 5% of the 2,087 fire departments in New York. This high rating (1 is the best and 10 is the worst) benefits homeowners and businesses with lower fire insurance premiums compared to departments with a worse rating. As the only career fire department in Tompkins County, we are tasked with a lot more than firefighting and EMS. We are the county hazmat response team, certified rope rescue team, water rescue team (lake, swift water, and ice water), confined space rescue team, and provide structural collapse response. These specialty types of teams require a large cache of equipment that is expensive, and significant training expenses are required to keep skills current. They result in relatively few calls outside of Ithaca each year, but these calls are labor and equipment intensive. Analysis Cost of Service IFD costs have increased notably over the last several years. The following table is reproduced from the City’s 2026 budget, with minor alterations by CGR. 6 www.cgr.org Two important notes: First, the increase in debt over this period reflects the bonding for the new fire house. Second, the cost for equipment in 2023 was anomalous due to desired equipment not being available until the next year. Overall, trends show a clear increase in costs that is higher than inflation. Excluding the transitory debt increase, Personnel costs have the largest jump, at more than $600,000 between years. Fringe benefit costs rise with new personnel costs and with ongoing retirements. Two driving forces in these increases are a new contract with the firefighter’s union and an increase in the amount of overtime that the department has had to use to cover for long term absences from injuries or childcare leave. Below is a more detailed look at the budget of the fire department from the last three fiscal years. 7 www.cgr.org There is variation between these the totals presented on the previous two tables that were drawn from different budget years and compared to the report shared by the City to the Town as part of the agreement. The amount reported as the approved budget for 2024 was different in all three documents. The document used for management decisions and the agreement is the one issued by the City Controller to the Town. Reasonableness of Costs The costs presented in the budget include all costs related to the functioning of the fire department. These include salaries, wages, benefits, retirement, materials, maintenance of facilities and apparatus, and capital purchases. The expenses include payments to the state retirement fund for current employees, as well healthcare for current retirees. From CGR’s review of IFD’s operations and benchmarking with peer departments, we believe IFD costs are generally reasonable: if anything, the department appears leaner than comparison departments elsewhere. It has the lowest ratio of firefighters to residents (1.5 per thousand) compared to 1.9 to 2.4 for its peers. With 11 firefighters on duty, IFD could not meet the minimum on-scene personnel suggested by the NFPA 1710 Standard for capabilities of a career fire department. The NFPA recommendation is that 13 or 14 firefighters are necessary to be on a fire scene of a residential house fire to properly complete the necessary 8 www.cgr.org tasks in a timely manner 1 without the reliance on mutual aid. It would be reasonable for IFD to expand its workforce to have two additional firefighters per shift to meet the capabilities suggested by the NFPA. The department is currently pursuing a SAFER grant that would support the addition of one more firefighter per shift for several years if they are successful. As part of the management and budgeting process, the IFD has developed a capital replacement schedule for their apparatus which involves bonding on a periodic basis. The cost of fire apparatus has increased dramatically in the last five years, far outpacing the rate of inflation2. With a fleet the size of IFD’s, a new apparatus (engine or ladder) will be needed every two-to-three years to keep enough front-line apparatus up to modern standards and limit maintenance issues. The City and Town funded a new fire station at East Hill, replacing an outdated fire station at the cost of $7.3 million. Administrative Costs One area of concern for the Town has been the opacity of the City’s calculation of administrative costs. CGR learned from the City’s Comptroller that this cost calculation is based on a formula determined at least a decade ago, when a previous comptroller did a detailed survey of annual work and costs other city departments were bearing for the fire department. The amount has been annually adjusted for inflation since that time although it went down from 2024 to 2025. The agreement specifies that a share of expenses from the Mayor's office, engineering, finance, City Clerk, City Chamberlain, information technology, City Attorney, and human resources are appropriate for inclusion as overhead in the agreement. There is no institutional knowledge about how the current cost was determined. Currently, administrative costs are about 4% of the total budget cost, an amount CGR considers reasonable but less than the administrative costs an independent fire district would need to expend to support a similar-sized operation. IFD benefits from the work of many City departments. The City may undertake an evaluation to improve this administrative cost-tracking by more carefully calculating work being done. While this will provide additional transparency to the Town, it is also possible that this will reveal higher actual costs and greater yearly fluctuation in the administrative amount charged, as real costs are more closely tracked. One potential method to more accurately estimate the administrative cost is to undertake a survey of the time spent by the various departments on tasks associated with the fire department. The table below is illustrative of how an estimate could be developed for administrative costs. Using the 2026 Proposed Budget, it considers the departments identified as most likely to be involved with the Fire Department then estimates the amount of 1 See Supporting Information for a more detailed explanation 2 See Supporting Information for a more detailed explanation 9 www.cgr.org effort from that department spent on the Fire Department in a given year. If an employee spends 1 hour per week on fire department tasks, this equals about 2.5% of their workweek. The values use in the table below are estimates made by CGR and would need to be confirmed by the City. Further, additional departments such as police, public works or planning might also be involved in working with the fire department and should have their costs considered as well. Services Effort Share Additionally, the amount of support from the other departments can vary greatly depending on the activities of the department that year. For example, when IFD needs to hire several new fire fighters, human resources is involved in screening the new employees. The amount of hiring varies each year, leading to variance in the effort from those departments to support the IFD. Division of Cost The current contract divides the cost based on the combined taxable assessed valuation located within the Town of Ithaca Covered Area, plus the Taxable Assessed Valuation (TAV) of the City. These figures are easily obtainable from the municipal tax rolls that are published by Tompkins County. Both municipalities have an assessed valuation that is at or near full market value as determined by the NYS Office of Real Property Tax Services. The table below shows that, over the last six years, the share has been relatively consistent, with the City having 68% of the TAV, as the total value of properties has grown by 37%. 10 www.cgr.org The Town of Ithaca contracts with the City for fire service for 3,494 parcels and contracts with the Village of Cayuga Heights for fire service for 882 parcels. All parcels in the Town outside the Village pay an equal amount for fire protection. The table below shows the recent history of the fire service taxes in the Town. $3,325,000 $3,430,000 $3,430,000 $3,635,800 $3,805,808 $4,933,493 $3,216,000 $3,875,000 $3,530,806 $3,318,000 $3,436,600 $4,085,000 $1,247 M $1,291 M $1,301 M $1,422 M $1,548 M $1,759M $2.579 $3.000 $2.714 $2.332 $2.219 $2.322 $2.58 $3.00 $2.71 $2.33 $2.22 $2.32 $250,000 $260,000 $265,000 $289,000 $322,000 $385,000 $645 $780 $718 $673 $715 $893 The amount the Town has actually paid to the City varies from the original contract due to unexpected expenses, such as overtime and equipment repairs, as well as additional revenue from inspection fees or grants. The final cost of the service is not available until the City closes its fiscal year. $2,077 $2,227 $2,240 $2,440 $2,562 $2,795$975 $1,021 $1,029 $1,125 $1,217 $1,375 $0 $500 $1,000 $1,500 $2,000 $2,500 $3,000 $3,500 $4,000 $4,500 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Taxable Assessed Valuation City Town 11 www.cgr.org The contract with the City is the primary expense in the Fire Protection fund. The Town has chosen to use both fund balances and the payment from Cornell University to mitigate the impact of increased costs on its taxpayers. For a median household, the cost has increased only about 14% since 2021, while the cost of the contract has increased 44% over that same period. Options for Sharing Costs It is relatively common across the state and country for fire protection costs to be shared across borders that do not match municipal borders. In many cases, the authority having jurisdiction for the fire service also has the taxing authority and typically raises property taxes as necessary to fund the operation. Examples of this would be a city, village or fire district in New York, a county in several other east coast states (e.g. Maryland and Virginia) or a regional fire authority in several western states (e.g. Colorado and Oregon). However, when one municipality is providing the service to another, as in this case, it is a negotiation between the parties to establish the value of the service and ability to pay. For the history of this agreement, the cost has been split by the relative share of the taxable assessed value of the protected. Below there are brief explanations of various options for sharing the costs of the fire protection contract. The July 2025 Tax Rolls have been used for this section of the report. ∞ Taxable Assessed Value (TAV) ∞ This is probably the most common method of dividing costs between two municipalities. Many municipalities rely on it because the tax rolls have been validated to provide a value of real property and there is a method for property owners to contest their assessments if they feel they are erroneous. ∞ However, the presence of tax-exempt properties (government, religious, and higher education) confounds the distribution of cost, as these properties can be significant sources of calls, yet they do not pay property tax. In the case of Ithaca, Cornell University does make a payment to both the Town and City that can be used to offset operating costs. ∞ The service demand does not necessarily follow the distribution of property value. In this case, the Town has only 24% of the call volume, but 32.8% of the TAV in the IFD Service Area. ∞ Total Assessed Value (Total Value) ∞ Total Valuation of a property is also assessed by the assessor and this value includes tax exempt properties. However, we do not believe this should be used for dividing cost as it is not a validated measure. Tax exempt properties rarely challenge their valuation because they are not tax on it and it is unclear if assessors are as diligent in determining a value for properties that will not be taxed. ∞ Regarding this scenario, the share of the Total Value in 2025 was 72.7% in the City and 27.3% for the Town’s IFD Service Area. 12 www.cgr.org ∞ Insurance Valuation ∞ Insurance companies do calculate a value for the properties that they insure. This value is presumably close to the Total Value of the property. However, non-public figures insurance co.’s may not share out the information and it would place a burden on property owners if they wanted to challenge this valuation. ∞ Population ∞ Population could be good tool for sharing costs of a fire department, particularly since a large share of the events are emergency medical responses that relate to the number of people in a community. ∞ To take this a step further, older residents are more likely to call an ambulance. Those over 70 are five times more likely to call an ambulance than those under 50. To devise a method to share costs on a population, the share in different age groups should be considered. Also, a large number of Town and City residents in their 20s live on a campus or have access to campus health care. This further depresses the demand for EMS services in this population. ∞ Another consideration is that there is reason to believe that Census undercounts student population. As an example, the number of students in congregate housing (dorms) is substantially below what Cornell and Ithaca College report as their dorm capacity. ∞ The population of the area served by IFD is estimated to be 31,792 residents in the City and 14,636 in the Town for a total of 46,428. The City share is about 68%. The estimates come from the American Community Survey. The number for the Town removes the population of Cayuga Heights and an estimate 1,600 people from the 882 parcels served by Cayuga Heights FD. ∞ Share of Calls for Service ∞ The share of calls for service has been consistent for about a decade with about 75 percent of calls occurring in the City. ∞ However, it is not known who is served by the calls. The interwoven nature of the City and Town plus their role as the economic and governance center of Tompkins County mean that many of the customers of the fire department may not be either residents or property owners. It might be a resident of the Town or Dryden or Rochester that has a medical emergency or car accident while going to shop at the Commons. ∞ Splitting the contract cost by the calls for service does not account for variation in seriousness and therefore the cost of calls. For example, there are more cancellations in the City -which take very few resources than there are in the Town. The Town has more EMS calls which vary greatly in the commitment of the fire department. ∞ Sharing costs by the calls for service does not incorporate baseline and readiness costs by itself. There is an inherent cost of personnel and equipment regardless of whether or not they are responding to call. The cost of staffing, equipping and operating a fire department remain regardless of whether they are responding to a call. ∞ Level of Risk 13 www.cgr.org ∞ The relative share of risk for an emergency that would necessitate a fire response is reasonable to consider for sharing costs in a community. However, to do so requires a thorough risk assessment which has not been conducted. ∞ Historical call distribution can be used to extrapolate the risk in the community, but does not take into account very low frequency, but high impact events such as widespread natural disasters or hazardous materials events. ∞ IFD is proposing an Emergency Manager position, shared funding by City & Town, to conduct risk assessments & update pre-plans for risky sites. The risk assessment could consider what risks are in the Town vs. City In summary, there is a long history of using the Taxable Assessed Value to divide the cost of the IFD between the City and Town. Of the options discussed above, only calls for service and taxable assessed value have independently verifiable values that should be consider for dividing costs. Using Calls for Service as the cost sharing model would shift a larger share of costs to the City than previous agreements. The table below estimates the share of the fire department operations that the Town would be responsible for under the different methods of cost-sharing. The City’s budget has not been approved for 2026; therefore, we are using an estimate based on past years and the draft budget. The assessment values, population and calls for service are using the most recent data. The current method (Taxable Assessed) has the largest dollar increase, as the City’s cost of operating the department has increased; all other methods would represent a decrease from the 2025 contract cost. IFD from 2025 Diff. Each half-percentage-point change in the town share equals a $76,500 difference in the contract cost. 14 www.cgr.org Key Findings ∞ Ithaca Fire Department’s staffing level is below NFPA standards for minimum on scene personnel for a house fire (IFD 11 vs. NFPA 14) and has a lower per capita staffing ratio than five upstate peer cities (1.5 compared to 1.9 and higher). ∞ IFD maintains a Public Protection Classification (PPC) of 2 from the Insurance Services Organization (ISO). This high rating (top 5% in NY) directly benefits homeowners and businesses through lower fire insurance premiums. ∞ IFD responds to about 15 calls per day on average. 40% of the calls are EMS in nature and only 2% are fires of any type. 76% of the calls are in the City of Ithaca and nearly all of the remainder are in the Town. 2024 was 10% busier than the long-term average call volume and 2025 is on track to be the busiest. ∞ IFD’s total costs are increasing with a proposed growth of 25% from 2023 to 2026. This increase is driven by a small increase in staffing, growth in salaries and benefits, more overtime needs, and an increase in debt to fund fire station and apparatus. ∞ The administrative charge from the City is only 4% of the total cost of the contract and it is unclear if it represents the true cost of support from other departments to the IFD. The methodology for estimating the cost has not been updated in several years. ∞ In the last two years (2024 and 2025), the City has asked for significant additional payments from the Town after the contract was signed to help fund unexpected overtime costs and pay increases related to a new contract. ∞ According to the Census American Community Survey, the population of the City is 31,792 and the area of the Town served by IFD is estimated at 14,636. This splits the 46,000 population 69% in the City. However, there is a concern about an undercounting of the student population in both communities which calls this data into question. Also, the Town share has an estimated value related to the area served by Cayuga Heights. ∞ The cost of the contract between the City and Town for fire protection has grown 44% from 2021 to 2025 with a further increase under consideration for 2026. As noted above, this increase is driven by a small increase in staffing, growth in salaries and benefits, more overtime needs, and an increase in debt to fund fire station and apparatus. ∞ The communication from the City to the Town regarding the rising costs of the fire department has not met the standards set out in the agreement. This shortfall can be attributed to change in personnel in key positions and the shift in governance structure in the City to a manager form of government. ∞ As outlined in the supporting information that follows, the cost of the Town of Ithaca to provide fire service on its own through the development of a fire district would likely cost between $5.1 million and $ 9.0 million in annual operating costs plus the significant capital costs for new apparatus. The dissolution clause in the current agreement would provide some assets, but startup costs would be equal to two or more years of the expected operating costs. The City would likely be able to save on staffing costs, but probably not enough to make up in lost revenue. The two communities would continue to need to provide mutual aid to each other for large incidents. 15 www.cgr.org Recommendations ∞ The current sharing of service is the most cost efficient and operationally effective way to provide fire protection and emergency medical services first response to the combined population and geography of the City and Town of Ithaca. ∞ The Town should not pursue creating a separate fire service because it would be more costly to establish and operate than it will be to continue to share the service with the City. ∞ The City should do a better job of informing Town of forthcoming costs to avoid unanticipated jumps in the cost of the service. Both sides should commit to improving the communication as set forth in the agreement including regular meetings with the fire chief, city manager, town supervisor and financial staff from both. ∞ The current trend of escalating costs in the fire service does not seem to be slowing down as there are increased safety requirements and more expensive raw materials. There is also justification for a further increase in staff. Both the City and to Town can brace for fact that higher costs are an inevitability. ∞ The City should undertake an updated analysis of true costs of the support that other departments give to the Fire Department. This analysis should consider the variability of effort from the other departments that occurs related to business cycles and identify a median cost. ∞ The current cost sharing model of dividing costs based on taxable assessed value has been used for decades. It is used by a wide range of governments to share costs across an area that has variability in service demand. Moving from this model is a political decision and would require renegotiating several parts of the contract. The Town and City share several key services and a change to any of them might cause a cascading effect. ∞ There is a rationale to consider the share of calls for service when considering splitting the cost of the department. For example, if a community contracted with another for road service, they would consider the number of lane miles or if contracting for vehicle maintenance they would consider the number and type of vehicles as well as miles driven. The share of calls has followed a relatively consistent split for nearly a decade. ∞ A possible compromise would be to establish a hybrid model for funding the department that takes into account several objective factors the assessed valuation (a proxy for the property to be protected), the lane miles or square mileage (to consider the additional costs for the larger area to be covered), the share of EMS calls, share of fires and the share of other calls in each community. ∞ Another alternative would be use Taxable Assessed Valuation for dividing the base costs of the department and then use the share of calls for service to divide the costs associated with overtime and additional expenses that are outside the initial agreement. 16 www.cgr.org Supporting Information Calls for Service Distribution The map below is a heat map showing Ithaca Fire Department calls for service in 2023. The more red areas indicate dense pockets of calls. 17 www.cgr.org Calls for Service Every call for service is categorized into a specific type of call and then a grouping. The table below shows the summary grouping of natures that IFD has responded to over the last decade. 2024 was the busiest year in the last decade and 10% busier that the average of the previous ten years. 2020, the first year of COVID, was particularly slow for fire departments and EMS first response agencies across the country. The following table shows the incidents responded to by IFD through June 30, 2025. The geographic distribution is very similar to the distribution of 2024 shown in the body of the report. The call volume has averaged 15.4 calls per day. In 2024, the busiest year to date, it was 15.1. The long-term average is 13.9 calls per day. 18 www.cgr.org 19 www.cgr.org Public Protection Classification Summary The table below is the summary of the PPC Review conducted in 2016 on the Ithaca Fire Department. In New York, a Class 2 department falls in the top 5% of fire departments and is a score typically only held by departments with a substantial paid staff. For more information on the rating system, go to the link below: https://www.verisk.com/resources/faqs/public-protection-classification-ppc-program/ 20 www.cgr.org Benchmark Cities CGR compared the fire departments of several peer cities to IFD. There are several features that inhibit a precise comparison. Both Binghamton and Utica operate ambulances as part of their fire department which accounts for some increase in staffing and call volume. The mix of calls varies by community, although all of them respond to some EMS calls. Also, the budget comparisons are not precise because the other cities do not typically include the cost of benefits at the department level and may not include all capital expenses. (TOV = 14,636 City = 31,792) City+ about 24 in Town Service Area The above table benchmarks the Ithaca Fire Department to other comparable fire departments. The departments were chosen in conjunction with Ithaca Fire Department leadership based on the size of the population served and the size of the fire department. Benchmarking Takeaways ∞ Of the comparison cities shown above, Ithaca has the lowest number of Firefighters per 1,000 residents, at 1.5 firefighters. The next lowest rate is in Utica, at 1.9 firefighters per 1,000 residents. ∞ Ithaca Fire Department has a lower number of career firefighters than the comparison fire departments at 70, except the much smaller Cortland. Auburn Fire Department (with the second-lowest number of firefighters at 76) has more career firefighters than IFD even though it serves less than half the population and covers much less square milage. 21 www.cgr.org ∞ Ithaca Fire Department has fewer calls for service than any of the comparison departments. This is likely due to IFD’s internal policy decision to run fewer EMS calls than most departments. For example, of Utica’s 12,500 calls for service, about 10,000 of them are EMS calls. Cortland, with its smaller population, is an outlier. ∞ Binghamton and Utica both operate ambulances with their fire departments. ∞ Regarding costs, the peer cities do not include the costs of healthcare, retirement and other benefits in their departmental-level budgets, preventing a clean comparison. ∞ Binghamton, Cortland and Utica all have college campuses that are served by the fire departments. Niagara Falls has both a large tourist attraction and a significant industrial base that influence their staffing levels. Cost of Stand-Alone Fire District The most likely alternative to contracting with the City of Ithaca would be for the Town to create an independent fire district to serve the area outside of the Village of Cayuga Heights. To create a fire district, the Town would need to follow the process outlined in Town Law Article 11. A fire district is a separate, autonomous political subdivision with its own elected governing board (Board of Fire Commissioners) and the independent power to levy taxes and incur debt. A Town Board can act as Board of Fire Commissioners, but this is a rarely used form of governance. The typical steps to create a fire district in a Town (or towns) are outlined below. CGR does not provide legal advice and the information below should be reviewed with capable counsel. ∞ The process begins in one of two ways: ∞ Petition of Property Owners: A written petition must be submitted to the Town Board, signed by the owners of at least 50% of the assessed valuation of the real property located within the boundaries of the proposed district. ∞ Motion of the Town Board: The Town Board can initiate the proceedings on its own motion without a petition if it deems the creation to be in the public interest. ∞ The Preliminary Requirements are that the Town must: ∞ Define the Area: Prepare a map defining the area of the proposed district, usually drafted by a licensed engineer or surveyor. Existing district boundaries such as the current fire protection district could be used. ∞ Seek Legal Counsel: It is strongly recommended to seek legal counsel to ensure all statutory requirements are correctly executed. ∞ The Town Board must schedule and hold a public hearing: 22 www.cgr.org ∞ Give Notice: Publish a Legal Notice in a newspaper of general circulation in the proposed area and post it on the Town signboard. This must be done not less than 10 days and not more than 20 days before the hearing date. ∞ Conduct Hearing: All interested parties, including those inside and outside the proposed district, are given an opportunity to participate and express their views. ∞ Following the public hearing, the Town Board must make at least four formal determinations by resolution: ∞ Verify the petition (if applicable) is properly executed and contains the required signatures/assessed valuation. ∞ Determine that all properties located within the proposed district will benefit by its creation. ∞ Determine that all properties which benefit from the district have been included. ∞ Determine that the creation of the fire district is in the public interest. ∞ If the Town Board resolves to establish the district and proposes to finance an expenditure for the district by issuing obligations (e.g., bonds for a firehouse or equipment), it must apply to the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) for permission. ∞ The OSC reviews the application and determines if the public interest will be served by the creation of the district and that the financial plan is sound. ∞ If OSC approval is not required, a certified copy of the notice of hearing is still filed with the Comptroller. ∞ Once all requirements (including OSC approval, if necessary) are met: ∞ The Town Board passes a final order establishing the district. ∞ The Town Clerk must file a certified copy of the order with the County Clerk in which the district is located. This recording formalizes the district's creation. ∞ A certified copy must also be filed with the Office of the State Comptroller in Albany within 10 days of the adoption of the final order. ∞ After the district is established, it needs to be organized as follows: ∞ Town Board Appointment: The Town Board must appoint the first temporary Board of Fire Commissioners (five members) and a Treasurer within ten days. ∞ First Election: The first election of fire district officers must be held on the second Tuesday in December next succeeding the district's establishment, at which time the Commissioners (for staggered terms) and the Treasurer are elected by district voters. The fire district then becomes virtually autonomous in its day-to-day operations. ∞ After the district is established, it would need to contract for services with an existing department until it was able to establish one of its own. ∞ The new district would likely take possession of the two stations in the Town. ∞ It would need to select and hire fire protection staff. Given that the new district would have similar population, although much larger land area than the city of Cortland, it 23 www.cgr.org would likely need between 25- and 35-line firefighting staff. Using round figures, the costs of salary and benefits for a firefighter would be about $150,000 each. ∞ 25 firefighters would yield a staffing of four firefighters and a lieutenant on the line each shift plus some additional staff for training and leadership. With a force this size, the department would rely on mutual aid and recall of staff for any large incidents. ∞ The new district would likely need to acquire 2 or 3 engines and a ladder truck to meet the minimum requirements of waterflow in the district. This would be several million dollars in expenses. ∞ The equipment and operations costs of the department would be about an additional 30% over the personnel costs. ∞ For a 25-person firefighting force, the personnel costs are estimated to be $3.75 M and the total operating costs of the department would be $4.88 M. This does not include one-time start up costs and apparatus acquisition. Standalone Fire Districts Similar to Town of Ithaca A fire district to cover the portion of the Town of Ithaca currently covered by the IFD would be responsible for about 16,000 residents in about 20 square miles. While the new district would presumably have two existing fire stations at its creation, the road network is such that a town fire district would need its apparatus to go through the City on a regular basis while responding to calls. To model the potential costs of operating a fire district for the Town of Ithaca, CGR gathered information on five existing fire districts that had roughly similar size populations and served a suburban community. None of the comparable districts had the same size geography as a new Town of Ithaca district would have. All the comparable districts have a volunteer component to their operations that work side by side with the career staff in firefighting roles. The least expensive department and closest in population is the Lakeshore Fire District (LSFD) in the Town of Greece. The total staffing for them includes 12 full time firefighters and 10 part 3 The population of the fire districts are estimates based on a similar census designated place or collection of census blocks. There could be a significant variation from the numbers presented here. 24 www.cgr.org time staff to keep a daily minimum staffing of four firefighters. LSFD typically draws its part time firefighting staff from nearby paid fire departments. LSFD relies on automatic aid from neighboring paid fire departments to assist it in the case of a large incident. Their volunteers also respond to serious calls and take duty shifts to ensure adequate coverage. It would be difficult to establish a new volunteer firefighting force in 2025. The trend across New York, including the Finger Lakes, is a declining number of volunteers. However, Tompkins County does have several successful volunteer fire departments that could provide best practices to a new department. The presence of two educational institutions in or adjacent to the Town gives an opportunity for recruitment from their student body. An active volunteer workforce could serve to help reduce the need for career firefighters but would not eliminate it. A new fire department could expect at a minimum to have an operating cost of close to $5 million annually and a substantial start up cost associated with acquiring the necessary equipment and apparatus. When fully operational, the department would still need to rely on the City and other neighbors for aid on all but the simplest of events. Additionally, it would be a regular occurrence for the Town District’s fire department to traverse the Town/City border to respond to calls. Impact on the City If the Town of Ithaca separated from the IFD, the department would need to reevaluate its staffing and equipment needs. It might be possible to reduce staffing by two to three firefighters per shift or 8 to 12 total staff. The call volume would drop 25% and the geography would be reduced by about 80%. The IFD would lose two of its fire stations and a share of its apparatus to the new Town District. The City would lose the revenue from the contract. NFPA 1710 Summary The NFPA 1710, Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments, 2020 Edition, establishes the minimum criteria for the organization, deployment, and performance of emergency services by career fire departments. The standard is designed to specify the minimum criteria addressing the effectiveness and efficiency of the fire suppression, emergency medical service, and special operations delivery in protecting citizens and ensuring the occupational safety and health of fire department employees. The requirements cover the functions and performance objectives of emergency service delivery, resource management, and response capabilities. The standard mandates that fire departments create an Organizational Statement to set forth the legal basis, structure, training, and specific services the department is authorized to perform. Central to this is the requirement to establish measurable performance objectives for service delivery, particularly focusing on alarm handling, turnout time, and travel time. For instance, the department must aim for an achievement rate of not less than 90 percent for its set time objectives. The fire department must conduct an annual evaluation of its level of service and deployment delivery, providing a written report to the Authority Having Jurisdiction 25 www.cgr.org (AHJ). This report must define any deficiencies, explain the predictable consequences, and detail the steps necessary to achieve or maintain compliance. Chapter 5 outlines the specific minimum deployment and staffing requirements for Fire Suppression Services across different types of incidents and occupancies. It defines the necessary personnel, equipment, and resources for an initial attack and the full alarm assignment capability, establishing benchmarks for various settings. The standard covers the resource requirements for a typical single-family dwelling. The guideline establishes that 15 firefighters need to be on the scene to effectively fight a fire. It provides additional staffing and deployment levels for more complex and higher-hazard occupancies, such as garden-style apartments, open-air strip malls, and high-rise buildings. The 2020 edition incorporated new requirements for the deployment and capacity of mobile water supply tankers/tenders and expanded the requirements for wildland fire suppression services. The document also provides specific requirements for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Special Operations response. For EMS, all members responding to emergencies must be trained to at least the first responder/AED level. Finally, NFPA 1710 requires the implementation of essential support Systems to ensure safe and professional operations. These include a Safety and Health System compliant with NFPA 1500 and an Incident Management System (IMS) compliant with NFPA 1561, which is required to form the basic structure of all emergency operations, regardless of the incident's scale. The IMS must be robust enough to manage diverse incident types, including structure fires, wildland fires, and medical emergencies. The standard also mandates effective Training Systems to maintain member competency, robust Communications Systems to support emergency response, and detailed Pre-Incident Planning for various risks, ensuring that all aspects of emergency service delivery are systematically organized and deployed. Cost of Fire Apparatus The cost of fire apparatus has increased significantly over the last five years, driven by a combination of factors. Some key points on the change in cost and contributing factors: • Substantial Price Hikes: The average cost of a new pumper fire truck has seen a major increase. For example, some reports indicate the average cost was around $700,000 in 2020 but has risen to over $1 million more recently (as of late 2025 reporting). Ladder trucks can now exceed $2 million. • Inflation and Material Costs: Global economic factors like inflation, supply chain disruptions (including the shortage of microchips), and tariffs have caused the cost of raw materials (like steel and aluminum) and components to rise rapidly, directly impacting the final price. • Increased Demand and Backlogs: There has been an unprecedented surge in orders for new fire apparatus, with one industry association reporting an increase of 26 www.cgr.org approximately 43% in orders from 2021-2023, compared to the prior decade's average. This high demand, combined with production constraints, has led to significant backlogs and extended delivery times, which can also contribute to price uncertainty (manufacturers may add buffers for future cost increases). • Regulations and Technology: Evolving regulations (such as new EPA engine mandates) and the demand for more advanced, custom-built vehicles with integrated modern technology (like telematics, electric propulsion options, and complex control systems) add to the engineering, manufacturing, and material costs. • Industry Consolidation: Concerns have been raised by firefighter associations and others about market consolidation among major fire truck manufacturers, suggesting a lack of competition may be contributing to higher prices and prolonged delivery delays. Another factor to consider regarding costs of apparatus is the difficulty to maintain them with the City’s staff. As apparatus age, they need more maintenance and several key systems (transmissions and brakes) wear more rapidly in the hilly topography of Ithaca, adding to overall costs. Qualified mechanics for fire apparatus are difficult to recruit and retain. This leads to extended times to repair the apparatus, or it necessitates sending them to an outside shop to make necessary repairs.