Requires thruway authority to reimburse for police, fire and emergency services rendered on the thruway

2 Co-sponsors

• Ruben Diaz
• Liz Krueger

Title of bill

An act to amend the public authorities law, in relation to requiring the New York state thruway authority to reimburse municipalities, volunteer fire companies or volunteer ambulance companies for certain expenses

Summary of provisions

Amends section 360 of the Public Authorities Law to provide for Thruway Authority reimbursement to local government for certain services rendered as a result of an accident or incident on the thruway. Reimbursement would only be required where costs are in excess of two hundred and fifty dollars.

Justification

The purpose of this bill is to alleviate ever increasing cleanup and traffic problem costs to municipalities by placing reimbursement responsibilities upon the Thruway Authority for services rendered by a municipality's police and fire departments as well as other emergency services as a result of accidents or incidents on such a thruway. This legislation would compel the Authority to not only be responsible for operation and maintenance of the Thruway in the past, but also to reimburse the municipality for police, fire or other emergency services rendered by a municipality. Such occurrences may be the result of accidents or various incidents at which time reimbursements will occur when services needed are in excess of, two hundred and fifty dollars; statement claims must be submitted to the Authority within ninety days of occurrence thereof. As the law stands now, some of the costs of paying for cleanup of various accidents and incidents on said thruway lies with the property taxpayers of abutting municipalities. At present, problems such as fire fighting traffic flow blockage, as well as various hazardous waste cleanups have proved to be very costly to the residents of these communities. The Thruway Authority should be responsible for these costs rather than local governments.

Legislative history

03/07/07 REFERRED TO TRANSPORTATION 01/09/08 REFERRED TO TRANSPORTATION

Fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.