Norwich — An ongoing rift between the city’s paid fire department and the five volunteer departments flared again recently in a dispute over how to handle an appeal of the insurance rating of the city's fire protection services that could affect insurance rates of properties.

Norwich Fire Chief Kenneth Scandariato launched an appeal to improve the city’s rating issued in a 2013 assessment report. But most of the volunteer chiefs claim they were never informed of the effort, and are refusing to turn over department personnel training records needed for the appeal hearing on Oct. 21.

The chiefs say they will present information from their own departments in person at the hearing, rather than provide the documents to Scandariato, who also serves as the citywide fire marshal.

“My concern is, if we don’t approach this professionally in a unified manner, we may not get as good an opportunity (to improve the rating) as we would if we show we have our act together,” Scandariato said last week.

But volunteer chiefs said the information requested is confidential and part of individual firefighters’ personnel files.

Yantic Fire Engine Co. No. 1 Chief Frank Blanchard said his officers voted specifically not to turn over the information to Scandariato. He said the full membership agreed at a recent meeting, although did not vote on the matter.

“I or my designee need to speak on behalf of the Yantic fire department,” Blanchard said. “There’s absolutely no way Chief (Scandariato) can talk about the Yantic Fire Engine Co., because he has absolutely no idea of the training we do.”

Laurel Hill Volunteer Fire Chief Aaron Westervelt said his department’s policy is that personnel records are never to leave the station and he, too, would not turn over the records to Scandariato.

Tensions between the city's one paid fire department, which covers the urban core, and the five surrounding volunteer departments have existed for decades, fueled at times by budget and tax disputes over the much higher property tax rate paid by property owners in the central city fire district.

Efforts to restructure the tax system often are seen as threats to the volunteer fire departments, while some politicians advocate reducing the paid department in favor of more volunteers.

The latest rift comes a Scandariato is appealing a 2013 fire protection analysis that gave the city low scores for fire training. The fire protection rating is one of several variables used by insurance companies to set property insurance rates.

The issue became heated at a recent City Council Public Safety Committee meeting, and the three aldermen who serve on the committee sought to resolve it by appointing Taftville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Timothy Jencks as the volunteer departments’ liaison to the Oct. 21 appeal meeting.

But Jencks, who was not at the meeting, later said he couldn’t represent any other department, and suggested all volunteer departments and the city’s paid department represent themselves at the meeting. Occum Chief Robert LaChapelle and Westervelt agreed.

“I don’t think it should be going out to another chief who is not from that department, who doesn’t know the paperwork,” LaChapelle said.

Some of the volunteer chiefs also complained that they were never made aware of the appeal request until late August, making it difficult to compile detailed training records, still kept in paper form as all departments transition to a new computerized system.

Scandariato countered that he was not withholding information from the chiefs. While he repeatedly has requested an appeal of the 2013 rating, the appeal was not granted until late August. On Aug. 26, he sent an email to all fire departments, police dispatch and Norwich Public Utilities seeking the specific information needed from each agency.

The issue revolves around the 2013 Public Protection Classification report done by the Insurance Services Office Inc., ISO, an independent company that provides information about fire risk to insurance companies. ISO conducts a detailed evaluation of the city’s fire suppression capabilities every 10 years, evaluating fire training, firefighting equipment, emergency communications and availability of water for firefighting.

The 2013 report gave Norwich a middle grade rating of 4 in its 1-10 scale for properties within five miles of a fire station and within 1,000 feet of a hydrant or water supply and a lower rating of 4X for properties within five miles of a station, but beyond 1,000 feet from a water supply.

The grade is applied citywide, not for each fire district.

Fire department information accounts for 50 percent of the grade, water supply 40 percent and telecommunications 10 percent, with each category broken down into several criteria.

Fire training, which is part of the overall fire department score, ranked low in the 2013 report — a score of 18.75 out of a possible 100 points. Norwich received no points out of a possible 35 for one category evaluating whether firefighters receive 18 hours per month of training for certain structure-fire-related subjects defined by the National Fire Protection Association. Norwich received only 2.65 points out of 25 possible points for another category that calls for 16 hours per month of training for certain structure-fire-related subjects.

Norwich scored well on water supply, 32.23 out of 40 points, but NPU General Manager John Bilda said he welcomed the appeal of the ISO rating, because NPU was never consulted during the 2013 evaluation.

“This was the first time we were not involved in the evaluation,” Bilda said. “NPU was not spoken to at all in the process. I learned about the report. Someone at the office has looked at it. In the past, the Norwich water system had a high ranking in terms of ability to supply high water pressure to the portion of the community that has fire hydrants.”

Scandariato said the appeal hearing will include a tour of the emergency police and fire dispatch center at the Norwich Police Department. The city received only 50 of a possible 100 points for the telecommunication system, including zero points out of 20 for alarm processing and for emergency dispatch protocols.

Yantic Chief Blanchard agreed that the city’s fire training scores should be higher, but he said the overall ISO rating for the city remained the same as past reports. He questioned whether the appeal would be worth the effort and whether the rating would have any effect on homeowners’ insurance rates.

That stance angered Alderwoman Joanne Philbrick, who is not a member of the Public Safety Committee but attended the recent meeting. Philbrick said she was embarrassed by the dispute and said the city should pursue any improvement, however slight. She praised Scandariato for doggedly pursuing the matter for the past three years until he finally secured an appeal hearing.

“Blanchard said ‘so what is it going to save the taxpayers? A few pennies?’” Philbrick said recalling statements at the meeting. “That’s a slap in my face as a taxpayer. I don’t want him to do that.”

Michael Barry, vice president of media relations for the Insurance Information Institute, an independent entity funded by the insurance industry to explain insurance issues to the public, said the ISO fire classification rating “is one of dozens of variables” used by insurance companies to calculate property insurance rates.

The ISO rating is limited to an assessment of the fire response to a structure fire and does not take into account many other community factors that go into insurance rates, Barry said. Among those would be risk of storm damage from hurricanes or tornados, theft, vandalism and even the likelihood of a liability lawsuit in a particular area.

Different insurance companies use the ISO ratings differently, Barry said.

He said in an ISO appeal, the city’s rating change might only swing one or two points, so changes likely would not have significant effects on rates. But still, the higher the rating, the better, Barry said.

“Any improvement toward a 1 rating is a positive development,” Barry said. “I do think that the homeowners’ insurance prices are not going to fluctuate too much in one direction unless the rating changes dramatically.”

Robert Andrews, vice president of community hazard mitigation for ISO, called the 1-10 rating “an advisory number” for insurance companies to use in assigning insurance rates. A 1 rating would signify “exemplary fire protection,” while a 10 would mean a community did not meet the rating service’s minimum criteria.

“A community’s investment in fire mitigation is a proven and reliable predicator of future fire losses,” Andrews wrote in an email response to questions about the rating system. “Therefore, many insurance companies offer reduced premiums in communities with better fire protection as measured under the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule. By offering economic benefits for communities that invest in firefighting services, the program provides a real incentive for improving and maintaining public fire protection.”

Norwich Alderman William Nash, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, downplayed the dispute over providing fire department records for the city’s appeal. He said ultimately, the departments would cooperate with Scandariato in the city’s effort to obtain a better rating.

Aldermen H. Tucker Braddock and Gerald Martin, both members of the committee, said the dispute was upsetting, especially what they termed false claims by the volunteer departments that Scandariato did not provide information about the pending appeal. Braddock said the issue of an appeal request was discussed at a July Public Safety Committee meeting, and representatives from the volunteer departments were in attendance.

“There’s a lot of barriers to overcome here,” Braddock said of fire department relations. “I don’t see we’re out of the woods yet.”

Martin said the effort to obtain a better fire insurance rating is citywide and shouldn’t be controlled by the volunteer departments. He objected to the view that training records belong to the specific departments, since the city pays for fire equipment, apparatuses and many other department expenses.

“When we ask on the committee to provide information, they should provide it," Martin said. “They work for us. Our committee gets them the apparatus and the firetrucks. Most people in Norwich are used to doing things their own way. There's a culture that it's volunteers versus paid, and that needs to stop. We're all one city.”

c.bessette@theday.com