By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- After a brief executive session, the village board decided on Tuesday to allow the Massena Fire Department to canvas for a full-time firefighter and fire driver.

Several people in attendance, both lawmakers and public, didn’t seem happy with the idea of spending the money in light of yearly tax increases. The mayor said the village is living up to their end of a collective bargaining deal with the firefighters’ union.

“In the last 13 years, the village has raised property taxes 47 percent … We’ve used more than $3.5 million in fund balance to offset expenditures and revenues,” Currier said. “We’re one of the few local municipalities in the economic downturn that did not right size its staff.”

He noted that the tax rate in that timeframe has gone from $10.48 per $1,000 of assessed value to $15.41.

He said the collective bargaining deal “tied our hands.” It says there have to be no less than eight union members and a foreman employed at all times.

The two sides went before an arbitrator, who ruled in favor of the union, Currier said.

“We felt we needed to take some steps to reduce staffing when we could and reduce our expenditures,” Currier said. “In my opinion, the fire department’s services have not suffered in the last several months.

“We will honor that contract, but I think it’s important that my preference and the same preference I’ve heard from every one of the trustees is when we lose staff, we want to … look at attrition. It’s our preference that we do not want to lay employees off.”

Village resident Shawn Gray questioned during public comment if the fire department is actually putting excess strain on village coffers.

“I’m wondering if you’ve done any research to see how much of the increase in taxes and fund balance can be directly attributable to the police and fire department,” he said. “If you look at the facts, nine months ago you had a full compliment of people at the fire department. Now you have seven. They’ve been in the budget and you’ve given no indication of the overtime cost so there’s no way of knowing if it’s more cost-effective to operate two men down.”

Trustee Francis Carvel said with the village government the size that it is, they have a harsh budget season in front of them.

“The 2 percent (tax cap), the way it’s figured is going to be close to nothing. Without a lot of new development in the community, it’s going to be tough to continue as is. There’s going to be tough decisions to be made because the revenue isn’t out there anymore,” he said.