New York’s Length of Service Award Program pays retirement-style benefits to volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers based on years of active service. If your fire department or ambulance corps operates in a municipality or fire district that adopted a LOSAP by voter referendum, you earn a year of credit for each calendar year in which you accumulate at least 50 activity points. After five years of credit you are vested, and benefits typically begin at age 60. For 2026, federal law caps the annual accrual per volunteer at $8,000.1IRS.gov. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted for Changes in Cost-of-Living
Who Qualifies
LOSAP exists under Article 11-A of the General Municipal Law, which lets cities, towns, villages, and fire districts create service award programs for their volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers.2Justia. New York General Municipal Law Article 11-A – Service Award Programs A program only exists where voters have approved it in a public referendum, so the first question for any volunteer is whether the sponsoring municipality has actually adopted a plan. Some municipalities also require participants to live within the district. Check locally before assuming you are covered.
Once you are a participant, the program treats you similarly to a pension participant: you accumulate credit year by year, your right to benefits vests after a set period, and you draw payments after reaching entitlement age.
How You Earn Service Credit Each Year
A volunteer generally needs at least 50 points in a calendar year to earn one year of service credit. Points come from responding to emergency calls, completing training, attending drills, participating in inspections, and holding elected office in the department.
The point structure comes from the General Municipal Law. Response-activity points scale with how busy the department is: a department handling 500 or fewer calls a year requires volunteers to answer at least 10 percent of those calls to earn the response points, while departments at 1,500 or more calls scale down to 2.5 percent. Training, drills, inspections, and offices each carry their own values, and no single miscellaneous category can contribute more than 15 points on its own.
Departments must keep detailed participation records, and the New York State Comptroller audits LOSAP programs to check whether credits are being awarded correctly.3Office of the New York State Comptroller. Length of Service Award Programs (LOSAP) Even so, keeping your own log of calls, drills, and trainings is worth the small effort. If you fall short of 50 points in a year, you earn nothing for that year, which pushes vesting back and shrinks the eventual benefit.
Vesting: The Five-Year Threshold
Vesting is the point at which your right to benefits becomes permanent. Under the standard rule, you must complete five years of credited service to vest. Once vested, you keep everything earned even if you stop volunteering entirely.
A volunteer who leaves before reaching five years of credit generally forfeits the accumulated benefit, unless the local plan uses a graded vesting schedule that allows partial benefits at earlier milestones. This is why the 50-point threshold matters so much year to year. Miss a single year, and vesting slides. Quit at four years of credit under a standard plan, and you walk away with nothing.
How Benefits Are Calculated
Every LOSAP is either a defined benefit plan or a defined contribution plan. The structure your municipality chose shapes both how your benefit grows and who bears the investment risk.
Defined Benefit Plans
A defined benefit plan pays a fixed monthly amount once you reach the plan’s entitlement age. The benefit is typically a set dollar amount per month for each year of credited service. The municipality bears the investment risk, because it must fund whatever the actuary says is needed to deliver the promised payment.
Defined Contribution Plans
A defined contribution plan works more like an individual retirement account. The municipality deposits an annual contribution into a separate account for each qualifying volunteer, and the account grows with investment returns. Your benefit at retirement equals whatever has accumulated, so you bear the investment risk. Federal law caps annual accruals at $8,000 per volunteer for 2026, up from $7,500 in prior years, and that ceiling effectively limits what a municipality can contribute per participant per year.1IRS.gov. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted for Changes in Cost-of-Living
When and How You Collect
Payments generally begin at age 60, though a local plan can set a different entitlement age. Under a defined benefit plan you receive a fixed monthly check for life based on years of credited service. Under a defined contribution plan you typically choose between a lump sum and periodic payments drawn from the account balance.
Many plans include survivor benefits. If you die before collecting your full award, a designated beneficiary can receive the remaining payments or the account balance. The specifics depend on the plan, so name a beneficiary and keep the designation current. Without one, the benefit can end up in probate, delaying payment and potentially sending it somewhere you never intended.
Taxes on LOSAP Benefits
A LOSAP that pays only length-of-service awards to bona fide volunteers, and that keeps annual accruals within the federal cap, is treated as not providing deferred compensation under Internal Revenue Code Section 457.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 457 – Deferred Compensation Plans of State and Local Governments and Tax-Exempt Organizations For 2026, that cap is $8,000 per year of service.1IRS.gov. 2026 Amounts Relating to Retirement Plans and IRAs, as Adjusted for Changes in Cost-of-Living Exceed the cap or cover people who are not bona fide volunteers, and the plan can lose its favorable treatment and fall under Section 457(f), with more restrictive tax consequences and possible FICA liability.
The Section 457 exclusion does not make the money tax-free. Distributions are taxable income when received. Municipalities report payments on IRS Form 1099-R, and you should expect to owe federal and state income tax on every distribution.5Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-R and 5498 (2025)
If You Are Called to Military Duty
Being called to active military service does not cost you your place in the program. Under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, a returning service member receives seniority credit for the time away, and that principle carries into pension-like programs.6eCFR. Regulations Under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 A volunteer serving a single enlistment of up to four years is treated as having earned the full 50 points each year, or a prorated amount, so there is no break in service credit.
When you return, you are treated as though you never left for purposes of participation, vesting, and benefit accrual. The municipality cannot restart your vesting clock or take away credits earned before deployment. USERRA is a floor; local rules can be more generous but not less.
Line-of-Duty Injuries and Death
LOSAP is a retirement program, not workers’ compensation. If you are hurt or killed responding to a call, a separate law provides medical and cash benefits. Volunteer firefighters are covered under the Volunteer Firefighters’ Benefit Law, and ambulance workers under the Volunteer Ambulance Workers’ Benefit Law. Benefits are paid by the local political subdivision’s insurer at no cost to the volunteer, and there is no waiting period before cash benefits begin.7New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. A Guide to the New York State Volunteer Firefighter Benefits Law and Volunteer Ambulance Worker Benefits Law
Cash disability benefits depend on severity:
- Permanent total disability: $600 per week for benefit periods after January 1, 2017.
- Temporary total disability: up to $400 per week, based on the date of the accident.
- Partial disability with 75 percent or greater loss of earning capacity: $400 per week.
- Partial disability with 50 to 75 percent loss: $268 per week.
- Partial disability with 25 to 50 percent loss: $30 per week.
- Partial disability under 25 percent loss: no cash benefit, though medical care is still covered.
All medical care related to the injury is paid in full by the insurer. If a volunteer dies in the line of duty, the surviving spouse receives a lump sum of $56,000 and ongoing weekly benefits of $887 when there are no dependent children. Funeral expenses are covered up to $6,700, and that cap does not apply when death results directly from firefighting.7New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. A Guide to the New York State Volunteer Firefighter Benefits Law and Volunteer Ambulance Worker Benefits Law Families may separately qualify for the federal Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program, which pays a one-time $461,656 for qualifying line-of-duty deaths or permanent disabilities occurring in fiscal year 2026.8Bureau of Justice Assistance. Benefits by Year
If You Disagree With a Credit or Benefit Decision
Disputes over service credits, eligibility, or payment amounts happen. Start with an internal administrative review: bring your own records of calls, trainings, and drills to the program administrator. If the records show an error, the municipality is obligated to correct it. Some municipalities offer mediation as a less adversarial next step.
If the administrative process does not resolve the problem, you can file an Article 78 proceeding in New York Supreme Court. Article 78 is the state’s mechanism for challenging decisions by government agencies and officials, replacing the older common-law writs of mandamus and certiorari.9New York State Unified Court System: Ask a Law Librarian. What is an Article 78? The court reviews whether the municipality’s decision was arbitrary, violated its own rules, or lacked factual support. The statute of limitations is strict: four months from the date of the final determination. Move quickly after an adverse decision, because missing that window ends the case before it starts.