LIVERMORE — Selectpersons voted Tuesday night to approve an agreement that would set billing rates for nonemergency fire services provided to Livermore Falls, pending additional language per the town’s attorney and approval by Jay and Livermore Falls.
The agreement is retroactive to Oct. 1 and would run through March 1, 2023. Livermore and Jay would alternate every two weeks in covering nonemergency calls from Livermore Falls.
Administrative Assistant Aaron Miller said he met with Amanda Allen and Shiloh LaFreniere, town managers of Livermore Falls and Jay, respectively, last week and examined a short-term arrangement for providing fire services to Livermore Falls. The agreement’s billing rates are based on cost recovery measures Livermore Fire Department has initiated but not used yet, he noted.
Livermore Falls has seen low turnout for calls. The three towns have been meeting to discuss the resulting increase in mutual aid calls. Livermore Falls Fire Rescue Department’s emergency medical services license has also been terminated.
“These (fees) are half of what we charge,” Miller said. “It would be a flat rate fee.” He noted personnel fees increased because minimum wage will increase Jan. 1.
“What is being discussed and how the arrangement has been proposed is these are for nonemergency calls,” Miller said. “When there is a structure fire, an extraction, a pretty heavy situation requiring all hands on deck that would be no cost.” Carbon monoxide alarms, trees down, lift assist, those types of calls would be billed, he noted. “This is one way to help out your neighbors in Livermore Falls and recuperate some of your costs.”
Miller said he had spoken with Livermore Fire Chief Donald Castonguay who was OK with the agreement. The town attorney would like to see a much more robust type of agreement struck, Miller noted. Liability, deployment, invoices, any disputes and payments were some aspects the attorney wanted included.
Selectperson and firefighter Scott Richmond asked if LaFreniere had been informed of the attorney’s concerns. Miller said he had, that she prepared the agreement.
Proposed billing rates are:
• Fire engine $125 per call
• Ladder truck $150 per call
• Utility/rescue truck $75 per call
• Foam $150
• Cleanup of debris/fluids $50
• Personnel $18 per hour, per firefighter
The agreement also states, “All calls will have a 1-hour minimum charge and will be charged in whole hour increments thereafter. The responding department shall provide Livermore Falls with a monthly invoice by the 15th of the following month and such invoices shall be paid within 30 days.”
Higher fees were wanted but the ones proposed were probably acceptable, Selectperson Brett Deyling said.
“The firemen are a lot nicer than I would have been,” Selectperson Randy Ouellette stated. “(Livermore Falls) got themselves into this pickle, they ought to be appreciating us a lot more.”
Livermore personnel will be going farther away, spending more time in Livermore Falls and town equipment gets beat up, Deyling said. “You have to drive it further than you would in town,” he added.
Conditionally approving the agreement would get the ball rolling, Miller said.
“At the end of the day for me, it is just putting an additional strain on people that are volunteers here in town,” Deyling said. “To go service a larger town that can’t get their own fire department in that situation where they can take care of themselves . . . risks us losing people in the long term if they get burned out going to calls all the time in a town they don’t even live in. I just don’t want to see that.”
“That’s why we came up with this, alternating with Jay every two weeks, and gave (Livermore Falls) until March 1 to come up with a plan,” Richmond said. “(Livermore fire personnel) have talked about it, we couldn’t keep going the way we were. It wasn’t going to work, was going to get burn out. If Jay covers two weeks then we cover two weeks back and forth, it is not ideal but doable until March.”
It is a scary proposition to send community resources to Livermore Falls and risk losing firefighters because they are not interested in doing that anymore, Deyling said.
“That was one of my concerns,” Richmond said. Give (Livermore Falls) until March 1 to come up with something, he stated. “I don’t have high hopes. I am not extending (the agreement), they have got to have a plan.”
During the two weeks when Livermore is to cover Livermore Falls calls priority would be given to Livermore calls, Richmond noted.
If that should happen, Turner or Wilton would come, Selectperson Jeremy Emerson, a firefighters, said.
Livermore has mutual aid agreements with Jay, Livermore Falls, Wilton, Canton, Turner and Leeds, Richmond said. Engine II, which stays behind when the department is called out to Livermore Falls, can be used as a pumper tank if another call comes in and someone couldn’t make it to the first call, he added.
Selectpersons Mark Chretien, Deyling and Ouellette voted to conditionally approve the agreement. Emerson and Richmond abstained.
“I don’t want to see Livermore Falls fall flat on their face,” Ouellette said. “My loyalty is to Livermore.”
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