LINCOLN – Town officials have decided not to accept the town of Chester’s offer of roughly $25,000 as compensation for annual fire services provided by Lincoln.

The latest development in negotiations between the towns, the proposal by First Selectman Temple Ireland of Chester used the relative percentage of calls generated by his town and separated operating costs from fixed costs.

At Monday night’s regular meeting, the Lincoln council advised Town Manager Glenn Aho to stand by its recent proposal for Chester to pay two-thirds the per capita rate Lincoln residents pay. The proposal breaks down to $60 for each of Chester’s 525 people and an annual charge of roughly $31,000. Originally, Chester was asked to pay the same per capita rate as Lincoln, which would have put Chester’s annual cost at nearly $50,000, but negotiations generated the two-thirds proposal by Lincoln officials.

Under the current agreement, Chester pays for fire services on a per incident basis, which amounted to $13,623 last year. Compared to what it cost the Lincoln Fire Department to provide those services, Chester is being subsidized by Lincoln residents, Aho said Wednesday.

The $31,000 would help put Chester in line with the cost of the service and provide access to more services, Aho said, such as free business and property inspections and free planning and fire-safety classes.

The two-thirds proposal also would mean the end of hourly billing for Lincoln fire crews, which determines Chester’s annual bill, Aho said. In 2001, a fire at Walpole Manufacturing Co. in Chester burned on and off for four days in a 15-acre wood debris pile and generated a fire service bill of roughly $40,000 from Lincoln crews for that one fire, he said.

“What they have to realize is that with this price, they gain some security,” Aho said.

Ireland said Wednesday that he received a letter from Aho about the council’s decision, but he believed Lincoln’s offer still would require Chester to pay a disproportionate portion of the budget. Ireland said he planned to check what towns similar in size to Chester pay for fire service contracts and compare Lincoln’s Fire Department budget with other towns of a similar size. Ireland said he believed there was still room for negotiation and that he expected another meeting with Lincoln officials might be necessary.

“I’m more than happy to pay my fair share; I think it’s too large a jump,” Ireland said. “There’s a lot of things to take into account rather than just two-thirds of what their population pays.”