New Castle Explores Options to Replace Mt. Kisco Fire Coverage

This article has been update to include comments from Mount Kisco Village Manager Ed Brancati.

New Castle officials are exploring alternative fire services for the town’s property owners covered by the Mount Kisco Fire Department as those taxpayers brace for a substantial tax hike largely because of the village’s firehouse referendum.

During New Castle Comptroller Robert Deary’s budget presentation last week, it was revealed that the town is studying whether it is feasible to have the 1,385 parcel owners in the Northern Fire Protection District covered by the Millwood Fire Company or the New Castle Fire District.

Another option is for the town to inquire about the possibility of receiving coverage for those residents from another neighboring community’s department such as Yorktown or Bedford Hills, said Councilwoman and Supervisor-elect Ivy Pool.

“It was, quite frankly, feedback that we’ve gotten from our residents who are deeply concerned that Mount Kisco made an important decision regarding capital projects that will have a terrible impact on our residents, and our residents don’t have the ability to vote or weigh in on the decisions being made,” Pool said.

Deary said that for 2020, the district must pay an additional $331,000. The town is using $75,000 from fund balance to offset a portion of that added expenditure, he said.

Still, the average cost per parcel will rise in the Northern Fire Protection District from $493.12 to $690.80, a 41 percent increase, Deary said. By comparison, the annual per parcel cost for 2016 to 2018 ranged from $498.50 to $479.24, respectively.

Mount Kisco is borrowing $10.25 million for the referendum approved by voters in 2017. In the future, another $4 million, passed by the public on Nov. 5, will also be borrowed.  Additional funds were needed for a scaled-down project in large part because the village’s architectural and engineering firm, H2M, bungled the initial estimates. Escalation of construction costs also played a factor.

The two other board members who attended last week’s budget presentation, Supervisor Robert Greenstein and Councilman Jeremy Saland, were also outspoken about the sharp increase.

Saland said that Mount Kisco initially overcharged Northern Fire Protection District residents by $57,000, contending that the village had failed to use the premium to offset the amortization costs of the bond.

He and Pool also voiced their displeasure that the town was formally notified of the increase by the village late on Friday, Oct. 4, after New Castle had finalized its tentative budget and sent the material to the printer.

“Safety comes first, and we recognize the need to modernize older firehouses,” Saland said. “The issue is about fairly apportioning the costs of those upgrades, particularly when the New Castle residents who are being asked to pay substantially more don’t even have the right to vote on how these tax dollars are being spent nor a wharf to dump their tea.”

Mount Kisco Mayor Gina Picinich said the village respects that the New Castle Town Board is looking out for the interests of its constituents. She said that the two municipalities have partnered successfully to bring fire services to that district and hopes the village and the town can continue to work in a collaborative manner.

She referred questions regarding the timing of the notification to New Castle to Village Manager Ed Brancati.

Brancati said that the village supplied New Castle with the numbers soon after official figures were calculated. The schedule called for the apportionment schedule to be calculated in September, then Mount Kisco needed the assessment roles to be finalized, he said. Without those steps, calculations would only be estimates.

“I’m not going to give them estimates or made up numbers,” Brancati said.

He added that the $57,000 premium was mistakenly omitted from the original calculations but that a letter was sent to New Castle in late October with the correct information.

Brancati said if New Castle were to find fire protection services elsewhere it would increase the cost of the bond to its village residents by an undetermined amount but the operational costs to run the department would decrease. He said he understood that New Castle first responsibility is to its constituents.

“Every municipality should always look at what is the most cost effective and efficient way to deliver services,” Brancati said.

Greenstein said the Northern Fire Protection District, which takes in roughly 20 percent of New Castle’s parcels, generally covers areas that are closest to Mount Kisco, including along Route 117 north of Chappaqua Crossing and along Route 133, west of Seven Bridges Road.

He said next year’s Town Board would have to determine whether alternative service can be accomplished. An advantage to including the Northern Fire Protection District parcels for Millwood or the New Castle Fire District, Greenstein said, could result lower costs for existing property owners. But officials will have to make sure the volunteers are not overburdened, Greenstein said.

New Castle Fire District property owners are slated to pay $438.59 per parcel next year while Millwood, which is paying off its new firehouse, will see its average cost at $964.83.

Any change would not be made before