Town Hopes Study Will End Mutual Aid Inequity

North Hampton officials plan to fund an in-depth analysis of fire department costs to determine whether the Seacoast’s 50-year-old mutual aid program needs to be amended in order to eliminate what some believe is an inherent unfairness in the system.

Selectmen spoke in depth Friday with Fire Chief Dennis Cote and other local department heads involved in the mutual aid program to discuss concerns that North Hampton is responding to incidents in neighboring towns at a much higher rate than those towns are providing assistance to North Hampton.

The main town in question is Stratham, and selectmen didn’t hold back during Friday’s workshop session while describing an “outdated” agreement that allows towns with volunteer fire departments to “take advantage” of smaller towns with full-time departments.

“I don’t want you not to respond to calls,” said Selectman Phil Wilson. “I don’t want people put in jeopardy… That to me is ethically unacceptable, but it is also ethically unacceptable that my neighbor who doesn’t have a lawnmower comes over every week to borrow my lawnmower [and doesn’t pay anything to run or maintain it]. It’s at a higher level, but it’s at the same principle of equity as I see it. It appears to me that because the people of the town of North Hampton want to have what I consider is a very good [fire department]… that some of our neighbors are taking advantage of our lawnmower, so to speak.”

More concerns about inequity are outlined in the video attached to this story. In the video, Selectman Larry Miller calls North Hampton a "donor town" for Stratham, which Wilson said is larger, has more residences and businesses, and invests "1/3 or 1/2 of what [North Hampton] is paying" to fund its fire department.

Cote disagreed with some of the selectmen's points, stating that North Hampton can't "pick and choose" what towns to respond to and not to respond to and that mutual aid is "lopsided" for some communities based on the need for unpredictable events like fires and accidents.

Selectmen Jim Maggiore said it's important in the analysis of the mutual aid costs — which selectmen said they hope can help improve the agreement itself — not to "accuse another town of voluntarily not going" to another. He did say, though, that remuneration for an imbalance in funding services should be investigated.

Town Administrator Paul Apple said it's possible that the analysis may not yield numbers that show the inequity selectmen and others in town feel exists in the program, although he said mutual aid is a "very complicated issue" that needs a more modern quantification.

"If we can get someone with a background [in this type of accounting] to put all those pieces into the puzzle, it makes our argument stronger, not weaker," said Apple. "It's OK [if North Hampton is proven wrong]. Let's get the data and figure it out."