{"id":30399,"date":"2021-12-02T16:36:32","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T21:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30399"},"modified":"2021-12-02T16:40:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T21:40:07","slug":"fire-services-to-continue-cost-recovery-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/fire-services-to-continue-cost-recovery-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire Services to continue Cost Recovery Program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A pilot program to help the Central York Fire Services recover the costs for several types of calls ranging from vehicle collisions to false alarms will become permanent in the New Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The details of the pilot program\u2019s formal adoption were outlined at Council last week by Rocco Volpe, Deputy Chief with the Central York Fire Services (CYFS), which covers the Towns of Aurora and Newmarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CYFS rolled out the original pilot in 2019 with a specific focus on cost recovery related to vehicle collisions. The pilot began with a 24-month program and in its second year was expanded to include burning complaints, false alarms, natural gas leaks, hydro incidents (such as downed wires), and matters relating to grow-ops and \u201cclandestine labs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once adopted as a permanent program effective at the beginning of 2022, these cost recovery programs will be further expanded to include elevator rescue and issues related to smoke and carbon monoxide alarms \u2013 along with the expansion of a part-time employee role to run the program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am proud to announce to all of you that after paying our expenditures, the total net recovery for the pilot\u2026for 2020 and 2021 was $120,000,\u201d Volpe told Council. \u201cIf my forecast is correct at year-end we should be just south of about $140,000. We surpassed the budget figure and met our target and I am delighted to let you all know that the [Joint Council Committee, which oversees CYFS from both Aurora and Newmarket] approved the report to move forward and to make this a permanent program\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upgrading the cost recovery program to a permanent part of the CYFS was supported by Aurora Council, including Councillor John Gallo who previously served on the Joint Council Committee (JCC). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I looked at this project (while on the JCC) I didn\u2019t want just another burden, tax or fee to the taxpayer solely to generate income,\u201d he said. \u201cI think, to your credit, that is exactly what has not happened. While we\u2019re generating income, most of the income is generated from areas that we expended resources and we never recouped them. Some are recovered by insurance companies, some of the others are given multiple chances to correct any issues\u2026before there are any charges and I just want the public to know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Wendy Gaertner noted that when the program was first brought into place, she expected \u201csome anger and some push-back\u201d from residents who might be impacted by it, \u201cbut from what you said it seems like, at the end of the day, there was a reasonableness in responses, or at least acceptance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volpe replied that it was important for the CYFS to \u201cdemonstrate there was a lack of due diligence or a negligence\u201d on the part of those being charged before any enforcement was considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat has been the case,\u201d he said. \u201cUsually we offer programs where there is a three-strike rule, three chances to correct your behaviour, before we would proceed with any enforcement. Some of the programs like our cost recovery for motor vehicle collisions, there is no three-strike rule because of a motor vehicle collision happens and\u2026what happens is we look at the fault driver and that is where we seek our financials through their insurance companies, which we haven\u2019t had any resistance from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pilot program to help the Central York Fire Services recover the costs for several types of calls ranging from vehicle collisions to false alarms will become permanent in the New Year. The details of the pilot program\u2019s formal adoption were outlined at Council last week by Rocco Volpe, Deputy Chief with the Central York […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7Uj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 14:47:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}