TUPPER LAKE — The upcoming five-year Tupper Lake Joint Fire Protection Agreement between the village and the town is now signed, sealed and delivered.

It had already been unanimously approved by the town board, and the village board unanimously voted to do so at its Monday meeting. Following the vote, the document was formally signed by village Mayor Mary Fontana and Tupper Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief Royce Cole, making it official.

The agreement goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, after the one that’s currently in effect lapses. This new agreement will stand through Dec. 30, 2030, with a possible 90-day extension in the event that the two governments are unable to come to a new agreement by then. It calls for the town to make an annual payment to the village in exchange for TLVFD providing fire protection townwide.

Besides the annual payments increasing, a result of inflation and rising costs associated with firefighting, there are no language changes from the current agreement, which began on Jan. 1, 2021.

Under the new agreement, annual payments are to be made in one lump sum on or before Feb. 1 each year. It calls for the town to pay the village $210,907 for 2026, the same total as 2025. That will increase to $217,235 for 2027, an increase of $6,328, or 3%. The annual payment will remain fixed for 2028 before increasing to $223,751 for 2029, an increase of $6,516, or 3%. The annual payment will remain fixed for 2030.

Fontana said she plans on introducing a resolution at the village board’s December meeting that would put a portion of the fire protection agreement money into a dedicated truck fund, as well as moving about $193,000 that’s currently in the general fund into the fire truck-related expenses fund. This was money, Fontana said, that was always meant to go toward the truck fund, but since a dedicated fund had not been established, it ended up going into the general fund.

There’s no language in the joint fire protection agreement stipulating that any money specifically be set into a dedicated truck fund. That became an issue in August, after the village discovered it did not have enough money set aside to purchase a new fire truck it had been considering. More on that is available at tinyurl.com/3f2pxew2. Fontana said that she had sent the joint protection agreement to the town in May, since the village’s fiscal calendar starts on June 1 each year.

“We always want to make sure that it is their intent to renew the contract, as we (prepare our) budget,” she said. “That was before the fire truck decision.”

Rather than revising the contract’s language, Fontana feels this resolution would solve that problem. She plans to double-check this with the village’s attorney before doing so, but is confident that this would not require any additional action from the town. That’s because the village ultimately controls how it’s used for fire protection once it’s paid by the town by Feb. 1 each year. If town action is ultimately needed, Fontana said she believes it’s something that town Supervisor Rickey Dattola and the town councilors would be on board with.

“I know that if I asked the town board to adopt a resolution for that purpose, they wouldn’t have any issue with that,” she said. “If legal advises that’s what we need to do, that’s what we’ll do.”

Historically, the unwritten agreement was that $20,000 from the village and $20,000 from the town would be put toward the truck fund. Since the joint agreement gradually increases the contributions every two years — to account for the continually increasing costs of firefighting — Fontana thought a percentage of the overall annual payment, rather than a continual flat fee, is more fiscally responsible.

She intends the resolution to stipulate that 10% of the money each year received from the town under the agreement — along with an equal matching contribution from the village — be put toward the dedicated fund. That would amount to about $21,091 for 2026, or $42,182 when the village’s matching contribution is included.

Cole also gave TLVFD’s monthly report at the village meeting. This included 26 total calls. Of those, there were 15 calls in the village of Tupper Lake, eight in the town of Tupper Lake outside of village limits and three in the town of Santa Clara, which TLVFD also responds to under a separate fire protection agreement.

There were eight fire alarm activations, two water issues, two motor vehicle crashes, two carbon monoxide alarm activations, two power line down calls, two grass fires, one structure fire, one chimney fire, one smoke investigation, one EMS assist, one tree down, one illegal burn, one electrical issue and one cellphone that caught fire. Cole added that the cellphone fire occurred when the device was allegedly thrown on the ground at the Sunmount Developmental Center.

The average call attendance was 14 firefighters. The total time spent on these calls was 19 hours and 46 minutes.