| With the support of the community this past November, the OFD & the Village is now able to offer LOSAP (Length of Service Award Program) to our members. Again, this would not have been possible without the support at the poles by all of YOU (our Village of Ossining Taxpayers). This process has been a long, meticulous, and overwhelming one for many of the members that have dedicated countless hours to this. From learning how it works, establishing by-laws, entering data, the list goes on. This has also been a task that was assisted by the services of the Village’s IT department, we thank them for their part in this as well especially Christina & Vince.
We wanted to give you all an update on what exactly has happened to get this up and running. So, LOSAP officially started on January 1st of this year. Everything has been “counting” so to speak toward our members 1st years official earnings of points and percentages. This will be the basis of qualifying for the 3-Year buy back that was agreed upon in the proposal. With any institution of a new project, system, or program, things do take time. A Department wide presentation/in-service was held explaining in detail the laws & specifics pertaining to the program to our members in early March. Many aspects of LOSAP are set-forth by law, so all l’s are most defienetly dotted and all T’s are crossed.
Our facilities had absolutely nothing in them to support any type of servers or infrastructure for technology that is necessary to use in 2026. This is now not the case, we are set for the future and our current needs. As of last month, the Kiosks/biometrics have been installed and are fully operational & online in all of our 7 stations. With this, the OFD is now pretty much and on the way to being a paperless agency when it comes to many aspects of the departments reporting/record keeping. Attendance & accountability both pertaining to LOSAP and in general is being done through this system and these units. The next phase in bringing us up to speed in technology is the installation of tablets (iPads) and biometrics in all of our frontline apparatus. This will ensure full accountability and immediate tracking of attendance of responding members as well as bringing immediate live information to our vehicles on scenes for Incidents.
Along with the introduction of LOSAP, was also the system that does all of its tracking. This actually was a win-win for us. Our original electronic reporting system that we began to use 14 years ago was discontinuing its services. This all worked out indirectly perfect as we needed to obtain new software for reporting, attendance, and accountability. Fire Rescue Systems or “FRS” was chosen to be that software. This also communicates with the now national required way we as an agency enters our incident reporting to the state/government (known as NERIS). We are now seamlessly obtaining data from our now primary dispatch agency of 60 Control and at the end of a call, almost everything is completed automatically.
As we stated in the public campaign, full transparency is necessary for this all to work, we feel that this reassurance is one of the most important factors in obtaining LOSAP. We are in a position now and for the future of the department. Your votes on Election Day made much of this a reality. We are privileged and humbled to have finally gotten to this point, and looking for more to build off of this in the future.
We need to specifically thank our Company LOSAP Coordinators in this effort, and especially our Department Coordinator Michael Aurora. Mike has been the biggest driving force in completing this project and handling many if not all of the aspects of this. It is indeed a group effort, but every group effort needs that 1 person, Mike has been our guy.
We thank you all in your continued commitment into investing in your Volunteer Fire Department. |
