Does a fire district commissioner have a conflict if he's a paid firefighter in another city and belongs to the same national union as the firefighters he must negotiate with?

Subject

Fire district commissioner has no conflict from shared national union membership

Plain-English summary

The Eastchester Fire District has five elected fire commissioners who negotiate union contracts with the district's career firefighters. Those career firefighters are represented by International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) Local 916. One of the fire commissioners is, in his day job, a paid firefighter in the City of Mount Vernon and belongs to a different IAFF local. Counsel asked whether the commissioner had a conflict of interest in negotiating with the Eastchester firefighters' union, given that he was a member of the same national parent union.

The AG concluded there was no conflict. The reasoning had several layers.

First, fire district commissioners are unpaid elected volunteers under Town Law § 174(2) and (3). The AG noted that volunteer commissioners typically have day jobs to support their families. Mere outside employment, including union membership in the day job, does not by itself create a conflict.

Second, the AG looked at the structural incentive. The commissioner had no control over union dues set by Local 916, or how the local redistributed dues to the national IAFF. The commissioner belonged to a different local. The national IAFF has many locals. So whatever dues the commissioner indirectly benefited from were dispersed across the whole union ecosystem.

Third, the AG noted a fact specific to Westchester County: cities benchmark firefighter contracts against each other. The Eastchester contract would not necessarily serve as a model for Mount Vernon firefighters. So the commissioner had no clear personal stake in driving Eastchester contract terms in any particular direction to benefit his own local's negotiations.

The AG concluded the incentive to act contrary to the public interest was remote, if it existed at all.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1995. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

What would tip this into an actual conflict?

If the commissioner had been a member of the same local that he was negotiating with (Local 916), the analysis would have flipped: a direct financial interest in Local 916's contract would clearly conflict with negotiating against that local. The fact that the commissioner was in a separate local in a different city is what kept this in the "remote incentive" zone.

Are fire commissioners always unpaid in New York?

Town Law § 174(2) and (3) provide that fire commissioners are elected and receive no compensation. The volunteer model is part of why the AG's analysis is permissive on outside employment: forbidding all firefighters from serving as fire commissioners would shrink the pool of available volunteers in a way the statute does not contemplate.

Does it matter that the parent IAFF benefits from any local contract gain?

The AG treats the parent union's interest as too dispersed to drive individual conflict analysis. Unions of this size redistribute resources across hundreds or thousands of locals; a single fire district's contract has marginal influence on the national organization's finances or strategy. So shared parent-union membership across distant locals is not, by itself, a conflict.

What about local ethics codes and § 806?

The AG opinion does not analyze the Eastchester ethics code specifically. General Municipal Law § 806 requires municipalities to have codes of ethics that address conflicts arising from outside employment. A local code could sweep more broadly than the AG's state-law analysis. Counsel should check the district's adopted ethics code.

Does this opinion apply to police commissioners or other commissioner positions?

The reasoning is portable: unpaid commissioner positions, day jobs in similar fields, indirect union or association memberships, and no direct overlap with the local being negotiated against. The same factors would apply.

Statutory framework

Town Law § 174(2) and (3) make fire district commissioners elected, unpaid volunteer officers. That framework explains the AG's general willingness to read conflict-of-interest rules narrowly for these positions: a strict reading would defeat the volunteer staffing model the statute assumes.

General Municipal Law § 806 (not directly cited by the AG here but always in the background) requires local ethics codes addressing outside employment conflicts. Those codes can supplement the state-level analysis.

The opinion's appearance-of-impropriety framing follows the office's long-standing line of conflict opinions (e.g., 1995-02, 1995-07, 1995-10): public officials must avoid not just actual conflicts but reasonable public perception of bias.

Source

• Landing page: https://ag.ny.gov/libraries-documents/opinions/opinions-year
• Original PDF: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/I_95-24_pw.pdf

Original opinion text

TOWN LAW § 174(2), (3).
A commissioner of the Eastchester Fire District does not
have a conflict of interests as a result of his private
employment as a firefighter where he is a member of the same
national union as the paid firefighters with whom he must
negotiate contracts on behalf of the fire district.
April 26, 1995

Nicholas M. DiCostanzo, Esq.
Eastchester Fire District
P. O. Box 219
Bronxville, NY 10708

Informal Opinion
No. 95-24

Dear Mr. DiCostanzo:
You have asked whether a conflict of interests exists under
the following circumstances. A commissioner of the Town of
Eastchester Fire District along with the other four elected fire
commissioners are responsible for negotiating union contracts
with the career firefighters (paid) in the Eastchester Fire
District. These firefighters are represented by the
International Association of Firefighters, Local 916. The
commissioner in question, in his personal career as a paid
firefighter in the City of Mount Vernon, is a member of the same
International Association of Firefighters but belongs to a
different local. You have asked whether the commissioner has a
conflict of interests in negotiating union contracts on behalf of
the Eastchester Fire District as a result of his membership in
the International Association of Firefighters union.
First, we note that the position of fire district
commissioner is an elected office and that commissioners receive
no compensation. Town Law § 174(2), (3). Persons serving as
fire district commissioners are volunteers who have taken on a
significant responsibility in developing policy on behalf of the
fire district. In light of the voluntary nature of this service,
commissioners will ordinarily have other employment in order to
support their families. Thus, the mere fact that a commissioner
in his paying job is a member of a labor union, should create no
conflict of interests.
The distinguishing factor in your inquiry is that the
commissioner is a member of the same parent union as the paid
firefighters with whom he must negotiate union contracts as a
member of the Eastchester board of fire commissioners. You have
explained that on each of the 26 annual paydays there is a
payroll deduction of $13.50 from each of the Eastchester career
firefighters for payment of union dues, which goes to the local

2
and then the local redistributes a portion of the dues to the
national union.
We see no basis for a conflict of interest under these
circumstances. The commissioners have no control over the amount
of dues going to the local and the portion going to the national
union except through their control of the number of paid
firefighters. The commissioner belongs to a different local than
that of the paid firefighters with whom he negotiates union
contracts. You have informed us that the national union has many
locals. Significantly, you indicated that the cities in
Westchester County look to each other for comparisons of
firefighter terms and conditions of employment. Thus, the
Eastchester contract would not necessarily serve as a model for
Mount Vernon firefighters. His membership in the same national
union under these circumstances creates a remote, if any,
incentive to act in violation of the public interest.
We conclude that a commissioner of the Eastchester Fire
District does not have a conflict of interests as a result of his
private employment as a firefighter where he is a member of the
same national union as the paid firefighters with whom he must
negotiate union contracts on behalf of the fire district.
The Attorney General renders formal opinions only to
officers and departments of State government. This perforce is
an informal and unofficial expression of the views of this
office.
Very truly yours,

JAMES D. COLE
Assistant Attorney General
in Charge of Opinions