The state tax credit for volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers goes from $200 to $800. Here is what it means at the Speigletown firehouse.

Every active volunteer at the Speigletown firehouse, and every volunteer on the Hoosic Valley Rescue Squad, is in line for a bigger break on their state income taxes. On Saturday, October 17 Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation raising New York’s volunteer firefighters’ and ambulance workers’ credit from $200 a year to $800, and from $400 to $1,600 for a married couple who both serve. The credit had not changed since the state created it in 2006.

“Keeping New York safe and affordable is my highest priority,” the governor said in the release from the signing at the Village of Hempstead firehouse on Long Island. “These brave New Yorkers put their lives on the line to protect their neighbors.” Donald Farrell, president of the Firefighters Association of the State of New York, put it the way anyone on Route 40 would recognize: “Volunteer firefighters across New York show up at 3 a.m. without asking why.”

Who gets it

The credit goes to a state resident who serves as an active volunteer firefighter or volunteer ambulance worker for the entire tax year. It is refundable, so a volunteer who owes less than $800 in state tax gets the difference back. It is claimed on the state return with Form IT-245.

The bill, A.6790-A and S.6233-A, was sponsored by Assemblymember Karen McMahon and Sen. Monica Martinez. Both of our own legislators signed on as co-sponsors: Assemblymember Scott Bendett of the 107th District and Sen. Jake Ashby of the 43rd, who voted for it when the Senate passed it 60 to 0 on June 1. The Assembly passed it May 14, and the Assembly’s record shows it delivered to the governor October 16. The sponsor’s memo makes the case in one line: “There are 20,000 less volunteer firefighters today than there were in New York State 20 years ago.” FASNY counts about 80,000 statewide, and the governor said she wants “the 80,000 to be 90,000, 100,000.”

The part that is not settled

Two details are worth watching before anyone files.

The first is the start date. The governor’s office says the higher credit “will take effect for the 2027 tax year,” to be claimed on returns filed in 2028. The bill she signed says something different: it applies the $800 figure “for taxable years beginning on and after January first, two thousand twenty-six,” which would mean this year’s return, filed next spring.

The second is whether a volunteer can take the state credit and a local property tax exemption at the same time. Since 2007 the rule has been one or the other. The bill as passed drops that rule for 2026 and later, saying a taxpayer “is eligible for this credit even if they receive a real property tax exemption relating to such service.” The governor’s release says the opposite, that eligible volunteers “may claim either the increased state income tax credit or a qualifying local property tax exemption.”

When the governor’s description and the bill text diverge this way, it usually means the Legislature has agreed to a follow-up amendment as a condition of signing, and the amendment comes in the next session. Sen. Martinez’s statement thanks the governor “for working with the Legislature to make this increase a reality,” which reads like that kind of agreement, but no amendment is posted and neither the Senate nor the Assembly record shows a chapter number yet. Every outlet we checked, from Long Island to Rochester to Utica, carries the governor’s version: tax year 2027, one benefit or the other. Treat that as the likely final rule and check with a tax preparer before counting on both.

The property tax side, here

That local exemption matters because Rensselaer County has it. In 2023 the county adopted a 10 percent exemption from county property taxes on the primary residence of an enrolled volunteer firefighter or ambulance member with at least two years of service, with the exemption kept for life after twenty years. Bendett and Ashby both backed the county’s move at the time. The Town of Brunswick, which covers the Brunswick corner of the Speigletown Fire District, adopted the same 10 percent exemption on town taxes.

Whether the Town of Schaghticoke, the Speigletown Fire District or the Lansingburgh and Hoosic Valley school districts have opted in is a separate question: each taxing body has to adopt its own local law. The town’s published local laws since 2023 cover the senior and disability exemption income scales, zoning changes and the noise law, and we found no volunteer exemption among them. If we have missed one, the Assessor’s office at Town Hall will know; applications go to the assessor by the March 1 taxable status date on state form RP-466-a-vol.

For a volunteer in a $250,000 house, the county exemption takes $25,000 off the assessed value on the county line of the January bill. The state credit is worth $800 flat. Together, if the stacking rule holds, that is real money for people the fire company says it badly needs: the Speigletown Fire Company counts roughly 35 active members, and the Brunswick Town Board, adopting its exemption, called recruiting and keeping volunteers “one of the most critical problems facing” towns in Rensselaer County.

Still on the table

Assemblymember Phil Steck of Colonie has a separate bill, A.10613-A, that would let localities set the property tax exemption anywhere up to 100 percent instead of capping it at 10, and would let volunteers keep both the exemption and the credit. It is in committee and has not passed either house.

If you want to join: the Speigletown Fire Company meets Thursday nights at 7 at the firehouse, 146 Speigletown Road, and the sign-up starts at speigletownfire.org/join. Our fire department page has the rest.

Sources: the text of A.6790-A as passed and the Senate sponsor and vote record for S.6233-A; the governor’s October 17, 2026 press release and transcript; the Assembly’s bill record and sponsor’s memo; coverage consistent with the release from WGRZ, WKTV, the Rome Sentinel and the Orleans Hub; CBS6 for the Steck and Santabarbara statements and A.10613-A; FASNY statements of May 14 and June 2, 2026; Rensselaer County’s 2023 exemption as reported by EMS1 and in Assemblymember Bendett’s February 2, 2023 release; the Town of Brunswick’s Local Law 2 of 2023; the Town of Schaghticoke’s filed local laws as indexed on our local laws page; and the syracuse.com report of October 18, 2026, shared by a reader. The $25,000 example is our arithmetic.