by Robert Lynch; September 3, 2025
Long, long ago in an apparatus factory far, far away, somebody forgot how to paint a fire truck. And because of that forgetfulness—more likely, cut-corners negligence—Enfield taxpayers may need to spend $10,000 out of next year’s budget to repaint it.
Tuesday night, September 2nd, the Enfield Board of Fire Commissioners adopted its first draft of a 2026 Enfield Fire District Budget. The preliminary $644,631 plan would increase spending (costs minus increased revenues) by a bit over $24,000. The budget’s tax levy would rise by 3.89 percent over that for the present year. The 2026 tentative tax rate computes to $1.95 per thousand of assessed valuation.
By standards set in recent Enfield fire budgets, the 2026 spending proposal isn’t sexy. It lacks glamor and inflicts minimal pain. No new fire trucks would be bought; no staggering new bond obligations incurred. In fact, given that its purchase principal is gradually being repaid, annual financing for Enfield’s once-controversial $830,000 pumper engine would actually go down a little.
But if one looks for a budget line item to which your precious tax dollar would notoriously fly, the proposed 2026 budget assigns “bumper sticker” prominence to Tanker 621 and to its peeling paint.
The Enfield Volunteer Fire Company (EVFC) purchased Truck 621 in 2007. As part of Enfield’s transition to fire district governance for the town’s emergency services, the EVFC gifted the truck to the Enfield Fire District last year. The truck’s expected service life is 25 years. It’s not due to be traded off until 2032.
There was “some lack of attention in the preparation of the metal,” Board of Fire Commissioners’’ Chair Greg Stevenson remarked after Tuesday’s meeting. The truck’s red paint has peeled in many places away from the stainless steel to which it’s supposed to adhere. Volunteers have at times touched up the blemishes with a paint brush. Stainless steel shouldn’t rust, but the EVFC takes no chances.
Fire officials say it’s possible that a local paint shop could remedy 621’s problem with only a professional touch-up. Yet they have doubts. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a collision place wouldn’t want to sand down some of the existing paint,” Stevenson told the board.
Fire trucks are customarily made in two places and by two companies. First, a major truck manufacturer, like International or Freightliner, manufactures the chassis and cab. Then the chassis goes to an apparatus specialist to install the firefighting equipment.
Think of it like placing a camper on the back of your pickup.
Paint on Tanker 621’s cab is fine. But it’s the apparatus paint that’s flaking off. A company named “KME” caused the problem. The truck’s warranty has long expired. There’s no known recall. And what’s more, Stevenson says, KME got swallowed up by the mega-conglomerate, the “REV Group.”
While it’s convenient to blame the peeling truck paint for the tax increase, the assignment of blame may prove unwarranted. Had the commissioners not earmarked $10,000 for Truck 621’s partial repainting, it would likely have assigned the same new money to the equipment or apparatus reserve accounts.
As the proposed budget stands now, $20,000 will be assigned to the pair of reserve funds in 2026, the same as for the current year. Had the repainting issue not arisen, commissioners would likely have put $30,000 into reserves.
During the nearly two hours of budget deliberations Tuesday, commissioners had considered putting that added $10,000 into reserves and then drawing it out for the painting only if needed. But they feared complications.
“Taking it out could be difficult,” Stevenson warned concerning a reserve withdrawal. Doing so, he said, might require a referendum.
“If the money’s hanging around, you’ll spend it,” Fire Commissioner Barry Rollins, Enfield’s Highway Superintendent, cautioned. If it’s locked away in a reserve account, Rollins concluded, it’s harder to raid.
The preliminary 2026 Enfield Fire District Budget passed the Board of Commissioners by a vote of four-to-one. Commissioner Donald Gunning quietly voted no. Gunning did not explain his opposition.
The fire budget won’t become final until after an October 21 public hearing. Commissioners have until early-November to make any final revisions. The Enfield Town Board no longer holds any control over how much the Enfield Fire District spends or on what.
In October of last year, the Board of Fire Commissioners approved a record budget that carried a whopping 28.3 per cent tax increase. First-ever bonding payments for the $830,000 pumper got the blame then. This time around, because the ten-year bond’s principal is slowing getting retired, the truck’s bond scheduled payback, principal plus interest, has shrunk from $126,576 to $115,744.
Truck 621’s repainting may be unavoidable, but there’s another budget sticking point that Commissioners created for themselves. Affirming a tentative decision made at a budget drafting session two weeks earlier, the board set aside funds to potentially award the Fire District’s Secretary and Treasurer each 50 percent raises.
The preliminary budget assigns money to raise each appointed officer’s pay from its current $5,000 to $7,500. For perspective, the Fire District had only paid the Secretary $2,000 in 2024.
Both Secretary Amanda Walrad and Treasurer Jenna Oplinger are recent-hires. Each replaced former officers who resigned earlier this year, each resigning staffer citing the job’s pressing workload. Walrad and Oplinger each volunteer with the EVFC. Former District Treasurer Cortney Bailey did not.
“I don’t think that obligates us to make that expenditure,” Stevenson said of the boosted budget lines for Walrad and Oplinger. “It enables us. It does not compel us.”
The commissioner’s chair had said at the board’s August 19 meeting that the raises for the Secretary and Treasurer would be negotiated with each officer.
“We’re on the low end,” Stevenson said of the Secretary’s and Treasurer’s compensation during the mid-August meeting.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Commissioner Robyn Wishna remarked at the time concerning the raises.
By law, the fire commissioners, themselves, serve for free.
Still another spending change within the Enfield Fire District’s proposed budget may initially raise eyebrows, yet allow them to relax a bit upon a closer look.
By a three-to-two vote, Commissioners Tuesday approved a continued one-year lease with the EVFC for use of its fire station, a structure kept in the fire company’s possession for legal and financial reasons. Notable in the new lease, Fire District compensation to the EVFC would rise from its current $75,000 to nearly $100,000.
But Commissioners make clear that the 33 percent increase deceives at first glance. Upon the advice of attorneys, the new lease would transfer to the fire company a host of obligations; from buildings and grounds maintenance to pest control and trash removal to buying water and soda for volunteers.
The fire district would still pay to heat and light the fire station. But when the redirected costs all got added up, the lease carried with it only an inflation-reflective 2.7 percent rental increase.
Barry Rollins had problems with the rounding-up that Chairman Stevenson had attempted for simplicity. Instead, Rollins nickeled and dimed every adjustment line in the proposed lease. After doing so, the amended document reduced an initially-rounded one-year lease payment of an even $100,000 to a precise $99,639, a mere $361 less.
After he’d performed that sharpened-pencil refinement, Rollins joined Gunning in voting against the lease altogether.
One lingering point that the Enfield Fire District’s proposed 2026 Budget failed to resolve Tuesday was how and where firefighter physicals will be performed long-term.
In March, Commissioners deferred moving physicals from Trumansburg Family Medicine to an on-site provider arguing that their budget lacked the money to underwrite the change. But under the 2026 proposal just drafted, it still wouldn’t support the transfer. The same $6,000 would be set aside, no more.
“If we’re ever forced by OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to go to a medical director, it’ll cost us more than $6,000,” Stevenson warned. But, he added, “I don’t see that happening immediately.”
And with that, the Board of fire Commissioners kicked the can of medical migration down the road.
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