Today we will look at the third Point System category in the statute – Sleep-in and Stand-by. Here is the text of the statute:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n(iii) Sleep-in or stand-by\u2014twenty points maximum.
(A) Sleep-in\u2013one point each full night.
(B) Stand-by\u2014one point each. A stand-by is defined as line of duty activity of the volunteer fire company, lasting for four hours, not falling under one of the other categories.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nFirst thing is to note that this is just one category that includes two activities with a maximum of 20 points. We have reviewed some point systems that break this into two categories, giving 20 points for sleep-ins and 20 points for stand-bys. This should not be done – it is just one category with a maximum of 20 points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since there are two different activities in this one category, we’ll break this into two parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sleep In
There is no clarification on what a “full night” is. We recommend that you put some kind of parameter on it, by defining the hours. For example, 10 PM to 6 AM. Something to that effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the audit of the Gardiner Fire District, the report included the following comment: “Participants were not required to be present at the firehouse to earn
points for this activity, but instead could be on stand-by overnight at their homes. District officials told us that participants sign up for a tour-of-duty for the overnight period, but the officials could not provide documentation to support the tours served.” <\/em> One of the issues raised in this audit was that the Fire District included a “Tour of Duty” category, which is not allowed under the firefighter statute (Article 11-A of the General Municipal Law). This comment was in response to that, and the report used the word “stand-by” in the comments. But the context of the comment was in a 6 or 12-hour tour-of-duty, more like a “sleep-in”.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAlthough the report does not specifically state that a sleep-in (or stand-by) must occur at the firehouse (or just not at home), the implication is certainly there. Any LOSAP sponsor should be careful about allowing sleep-ins (or stand-bys) at home – it is essential that good controls are in place to prevent abuse. But we cannot find any legal opinion or court ruling that would prevent a sponsor from allowing an at-home stand-by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stand-by
At least here there is a brief definition – must last four hours, covered by VFBL, and doesn’t fall under one of the other categories. Most fire departments are accustomed to a stand-by for a storm, or at another firehouse during an installation dinner , or perhaps at a sporting event. The key is to ensure the activity lasts at least four hours. If it doesn’t, then it would be considered a Miscellaneous point.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBesides the information in the Gardiner audit, there has not been a lot of guidance from the State on this category, in either a formal legal opinion or an audit report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today we will look at the third Point System category in the statute – Sleep-in and Stand-by. Here is the text of the statute: (iii) Sleep-in or stand-by\u2014twenty points maximum. (A) Sleep-in\u2013one point each full night. (B) Stand-by\u2014one point each. A stand-by is defined as line of duty activity of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,5,6,7,8,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fireflyadmin.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}