HONEOYE FALLS, N.Y. — The Honeoye Falls Fire Department is among dozens of small town fire departments across upstate and western New York that will receive a share of nearly $2.5 million in federal money.

Honeoye Falls will get nearly $105,000 from the grant, says Rick Milne, the mayor of Honeoye Falls and a former firefighter.

“We worked with a grant writer, and they helped us put together a request for 20 sets of fire gear and a new washer extractor, which will be to clean the gear when they come back from fires. The one that we have has been out of commission,” He said.

Milne says this money comes from FEMA but it can’t be used to pay for the per diem firefighters that were part of a recent 9.6% tax increase in the town.

“This grant is really for the equipment. So this does not take away any of the cost of the per diem firefighters that we’re going to be using now,” Milne said.

“So when people see a 9.6% tax rate hike, the tax increase, they have to look at what is the net dollars that that brings in for huge municipalities or cities or whatever,” he said. “That might bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. For us, it only brought in a little over $40,000. That’s not a lot of money. Sets of gear cost $4,800 per set minimum.”

Had it not been for this grant, Milne says the village may have had to raise taxes again in the future.

“This is not going to positively impact the budget directly. However, if we didn’t get this grant, we would still need this equipment and it would have to go into some of our future planning,” he said. “Some of it would have to be bought this year and some of it would probably be put off until the next year. We really needed this now, so it’s really a real positive thing for us.”

While the money is great, Milne says what they really need is more volunteer firefighters.

“If they have an emergency at their home, whether it’s a medical emergency or a fire emergency, an MVA, anything like that, they need our fire trucks to show up. And if without if we don’t have enough volunteers, we’ve got to do something to make sure that we’re getting those trucks out the door and we’re protecting people and property,” Milne said.

The towns of Avon and Lyndonville will also receive funding, getting $34,000 and $115,000, respectively.