At this time, most Fire Departments are back to some variation of normal. However, the Governor did extend the State Disaster Emergency through February 26, 2021, which means it could be possible to award more points for cancelled events in 2021. We will continue to monitor and keep you updated.

Read More

On December 30, 2020, Governor Cuomo signed Executive Order 202.87, which effectively extended the State Disaster Emergency until January 29, 2021. Therefore, this means that if fire departments continue to be in a situation where events are cancelled or firefighter responses are being limited, that  points could be awarded for January 2021. Since the statute…

Read More

Anyone who works (or volunteers) in local government understands lines and boundaries. One side of the street pays taxes and receives services from one municipality, and the other side, a different one. Ultimately, at 12:00 AM on January 1, 2021 we cross a boundary into a new calendar year. This means many things – some…

Read More

We’ve now had several people contact us regarding letters they’ve received from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. They are “Statement of Proposed Audit Changes” and were sent because the State believed the subtraction of the LOSAP payments from the payees taxable income was done incorrectly for the 2017 tax year. In  the…

Read More

** EDIT ** – This post was originally made in December of 2020. Due to the changing circumstances of the COVID-19 Pandemic and updates or recissions to relevant legislation, please note that not all of the information below may be completely current. Yesterday, December 3, 2020, Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order 202.79, which continued the…

Read More

**EDIT** This post was originally made in November of 2020. Due to the changing circumstances and updates to relevant legislation regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic, please consider that some of the information below may be outdated. Governor Cuomo has issued Executive Order 202.72, which extends the State Disaster Emergency that was originally declared by Executive Order…

Read More

Governor Cuomo has issued Executive Order 202.67, which extends the State Disaster Emergency that was originally declared by Executive Order 202 through November 3, 2020. This is important to fire departments that may still be operating under restrictions due to the State Disaster Emergency, such as cancelling events or limiting at-risk volunteers from responding to calls.…

Read More

If a village, town, city, or fire district elected to participate in the “State pension” in order to provide a retirement benefit to its employees, that municipality is participating in the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS). This system is actually comprised of two pension plans – the Employee’s Retirement System (ERS) and…

Read More

As a result of the Governor extending the State Disaster Emergency to October 4, 2020, it has highlighted some confusion about the new legislation that allows sponsors to credit up to five (5) points per month during this Emergency. We thought it could be helpful to analyze the statute a different way, with the hopes…

Read More

On Friday afternoon (September 4, 2020), Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order 202.60, which “continued” the declared State Disaster Emergency until October 4, 2020. The original order that declared the Emergency was 202, and there have now been 61 “continuations” of that original order. (There was an order 202.55.1 if you are wondering if we can…

Read More