In the words of the State Comptroller; “As is often the case in New York, a broken legislative process paired with misguided priorities yielded little of merit during this legislative session. It seems the 2025 session will likely be remembered more for an obvious lack of productivity and missed opportunities than anything else. New Yorkers deserve thoughtful action but were instead met with political theater and half-measures.”
The following are the major accomplishments of the fire service in the state, less than stellar through no fault of our lobbyists or those who stated our case, but rather that lack of attention of our majority who have much different priorities no matter how much they drool all over us or say how much they need us. They are clueless and could care less.
- EMS Billing has been extended 5 more years, provisioned in the Budget Bill.
- S688A/A5619A The property tax break has been amended, to permit municipalities to adopt a local law or ordinance to allow unremarried spouses of volunteer firefighters or volunteer ambulance workers with between two and five years of service, who are killed in the line of duty, to continue receiving pre-existing property tax exemptions.
- S8011/A8275 & S7852/A8276 The Heart and Lung bills passed in both chambers and have both been extended for another 5 years to 2030.
- S8409/A8657 statewide volunteer firefighter/ambulance worker property tax exemption intended to replace the numerous local bills authorizing such exemptions in various localities. Chapter 670 sets those local exemption bills to expire in 2025. This bill extends the local bills until 2028 to allow municipalities that have not adopted a local law to replace them.
- S779/A596 increases the number of members on the state fire prevention and building code council from sixteen to seventeen with the addition of the commissioner of agriculture.
- S4157/A112 repeals section 3403 of the insurance law relating to anti-arson applications. Recognizing that the reason that this law was originally enacted no longer exists.
- S31/A34 requires the thruway authority to issue emergency services permits to ambulance and fire vehicles, which would exempt such vehicles from paying tolls while engaged in an emergency operation.
- S4328/A3343 permits a municipality to enact, adopt, or enforce any ordinance, resolution, or regulation permitting the imposition of fines on alarm system companies solely for false alarms resulting from deficiencies in the alarm system, errors by the alarm system company, or mistakes made by the central monitoring station.
- S1515/A2177A the purpose of this legislation is to remove emergency medical services from the tax cap for local municipalities in order to support local ems services.
- S2703/A3790 Requires that a written report be submitted to the governor and legislature, on or before February fifteenth of each year, on firefighter training activities. Such report shall include at least the following information: the minimum training hours allocated on a county-by-county basis, the training hours requested by each county, any unfulfilled training hour requests, [and] the number of hours used by each county on a county-by-county basis, and a statewide total of the number of hours allocated to each firefighter. Such report shall also identify the fire department or district providing the training including the number of hours of training and the type of training for each firefighter. In addition, such report shall also list the names of those firefighters qualified to do interior firefighting. The written report shall be prominently posted on the division of homeland security and emergency services website no later than March first of each year.
- S2748/A8485 this legislation will establish a statewide program where veterans or discharged military personnel are encouraged to volunteer (“vets to vollies”) in their local fire department or EMS agency.
- S801/A2400 this chapter amendment requires the state fire prevention and building code council to promulgate standards that would require new buildings with new parking to have electric vehicle charging infrastructure and charging stations.
- S737/A440 changes instances of the term moped to limited use motorcycle in relation to lithium-ion battery safety.
- S5848/A247 requires the state fire administrator to make available a specialized electric vehicle emergency response training program.
- S73/A4641A to provide for the safe collection and disposal of damaged or defective batteries collected by retailers and by government agencies and provides that a battery manufacturer may not sell, offer for sale, or distribute rechargeable batteries in the state unless they are implementing or participating under an approved plan.
- S7501/A8086A establishes an emergency medical services local planning process to provide for counties, cities, towns, and villages to develop a comprehensive plan to provide for a coordinated emergency medical services within their counties.
Note that most of the bills that have passed both chambers now have to go to the Governor’s office for signature. Continue to monitor the ScoreCard for updates. Now that the legislature is out of session, the ScoreCard will be reviewed for activity monthly.