By Renee Fox
syracuse.com
LAFAYETTE, N.Y. — LaFayette voters narrowly rejected a new tax to pay for better local ambulance service, according to results Tuesday night.
With all Election Day and early votes counted, 1,149 people, or 50.8%, voted against the proposal Tuesday. Another 1,113, or 49.2%, voted for it, according to the unofficial Onondaga County election results.
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That’s a difference of just 36 votes.
There are still 34 absentee ballots outstanding, but even if everyone supports the ambulance proposal, they would not be enough to overcome the current margin.
The town estimated the new tax at $1.66 per $1,000 of assessed value. That works out to $332 a year for a property assessed at $200,000, or nearly a 16% increase in town taxes.
LaFayette now has a crew on duty about 100 hours of the 168-hour week. The proposal would raise about $1 million more a year to staff a crew around the clock.
The town has increasingly turned to paid workers as its volunteer ranks have fallen from 16 a decade ago to four emergency volunteers today. But even 24-hour staffing would not guarantee a LaFayette ambulance for every call. The crew could already be handling another emergency or waiting with a patient at a hospital.
The difference in coverage can mean several minutes in an emergency. When a LaFayette crew is working, its average response time is a little more than six minutes. When one is not, neighboring ambulances take about 14 minutes on average to reach calls in town.
Fully staffing the service would cost roughly $1.1 million a year. About $100,000 was expected to come from patients and insurance, leaving taxpayers to cover about $1 million. Most of the additional money would pay for employee wages and benefits rather than ambulances or other equipment.
The vote is advisory. The town board has the authority to create the tax, but Supervisor Bill McConnell said before the election that town leaders wanted residents to decide because of the size of the increase. He said the town would not create the tax if voters rejected it.
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