• Under New York State Law, the maximum years of service credit (i.e., 50 points) that can be earned is 40 years. Since the first year of the LOSAP was 1990, calendar year 2019 is the 30th year of the availability of the program. Including the 5-year buyback, this means that some firefighters are earning their…

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  • The sponsor of a LOSAP can amend the point system. The Board must adopt a resolution approving the new point system. If the change makes it easier to earn 50 points by either increasing the number of points awarded for an activity, or decreasing the amount of activity required to earn points for the activity,…

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  • A question was raised about points for meetings. Here is the applicable section of the statute: ​(v)Attendance at meetings—twenty points maximum.Attendance at any official meetings of the volunteer fire company—one point per meeting. The Office of the State Comptroller has issued two legal opinions about this point system category. Comptroller Opinion 94-25 states that points…

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  • The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines vesting as follows:  the conveying to an employee of inalienable rights to money contributed by an employer to a pension fund or retirement plan especially in the event of termination of employment prior to the normal retirement age The term “vest” or “vesting” does not appear in Article 11-A. Instead, it…

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  • We were asked recently about officer positions, and eligibility of points. In this particular fire department, there are five fire companies. In addition, there is a “rescue squad”, the membership of which is comprised of members of the five fire companies. The rescue squad is responsible for rescue operations – cutting cars, and similar type…

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  • A short one today (pun intended)…. A question came in regarding a “mini-drill” – meaning, a drill that is less than two hours. The two-hour requirement is in the statute, which is written as follows: Drills—twenty points maximum. One point per drill (minimum two hour drill). Therefore, in order for the skills practice event to…

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  • We recently received the following question: A member is an employee for a municipal EMS entity and attends that entity’s EMS related training courses of 4 to 8 hours each and receives an acceptable certificate of completion. The employee is paid while taking the course by the employer. The member then submits the certificates with a…

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  • A question came in today about points for serving as a convention delegate. Here is the applicable section of § 217: There are several things to note about sub-section (B): ​1) The active volunteer firefighter must be elected. The statute doesn’t state how that election takes place, but presumably the membership of the company would elect the…

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  • Yesterday we looked at how to round properly to ensure the software is determining the correct number of calls a volunteer must respond to earn 25 points. Today, we’ll focus on how to actually read the chart. As a reminder, here is the chart from the state law: I added the horizontal lines for readability.…

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  • Under the New York State LOSAP Point System, a volunteer earns 25 points for attending a minimum percentage of the total fire calls for the year. Depending on the services provided by the fire department, it may also be possible for a volunteer to earn another 25 points for attending a minimum percentage of ambulance…

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