East Williston Board of Trustees remind residents to vote

The Island Now

Over twenty years ago, the Village of East Williston adopted a Length of Service Award “LOSAP” Program. Under this program, eligible volunteer firefighters become eligible to receive a service award payment after reaching the age of 65.

The amount of the payment is based on $20 per year for each year of credited service, up to a maximum amount of $800 per month. Each year, in order to receive credit, a volunteer firefighter earns “points” based on his or her response to fire and emergency calls as well as by participating in certain approved fire-department activities.  If the member accumulates fifty points, he or she will receive credit for the year.

Until recently, the provisions of the program were applied so that firefighters were no longer eligible to receive credit after reaching the age of 65, even if they continued to respond to emergency calls and continued to participate in a sufficient number of approved activities.

The Village Board has considered this issue and believes that the age restriction must be addressed out of fairness to those who serve our community.  To do so we need to amend the Program to remove the age restriction. The approximate cost to the Village for this change per year would be $8,550, or approximately $10 per household.

We believe this change makes sense.  Firefighters who continue to do the work each year to provide us protection should receive these benefits regardless of their age.

As residents protected by our own Volunteer Fire Department resident approval is required for this change to be made.  For that reason, we have added a proposition to the election for a referendum to be held on March 18th between noon and 9:00 p.m. at the Village Hall, as part of our regular Village Elections.  The proposed change is included as proposition 1-2020.

We hope this letter has been helpful and urge you to vote on the referendum on March 18.

East Williston Board of Trustees

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