gamewell45

They advertise the number of FF's: plenty of members at the parade. lots of cars parked at the FH on meeting nights, The dept web site that proudly lists the # of members, the annual report, the instulation dinner. Even when the public dose not see this, the politicians often do and they never ask, but the chiefs never tell them that there is a problem.

Nowhere have I ever seen depts. make a clear distinction as to haw many interior vs. exterior members they have.

I don't think volunteer firemen attending a parade or attending meetings is "advertising" to the public nor is listing the number of active members your department has or how many attend the installation dinner. What are the volunteers supposed to do? sneak into the fire house for drills and meetings? Don't attend parades? These are things volunteers do as part of being a volunteer. If you've never been part of the volunteer fire service i wouldn't expect you to understand.

I've never seen a volunteer department make a clear distinction as the the classification of its members, tho' i'm sure if the public requested it i'm sure any volunteer company would disclose it. Eitherway i think the likelyhood of it happening is about the same as the public requesting to know how many union members you had as opposed to core union members in your local. It makes no difference to them as they could care less.

Most Volunteer companies? Is that your oppinion or a fact?

It would not be fiscally irresponsible to staff departments with career personnal. Career firefighters do alot more service to the public than sit around and wait for 2 or 3 jobs. They spend sjifts preventing fires and emergency medical calls, providing medical care, covering the routine calls no one gets out of bed for, and training. I would rather see tax dollars go to that than it go to spending thousands of dollars on a person who will never go into a fire. Especially in departments that have 50 exterior firefighters who are making calls to get points for their pentions

First off, if you mean staffing cities like Yonkers or New York City (which btw has 10 volunteer companies at last count), then I would agree with you. But definitely not for rural or suburban-rural areas.

Volunteers can and do everything you've mentioned above and at a fraction of the cost. Furthermore i don't know where you get your information from; but in most departments fire-police, administrative supportand EMS-only personnel do not require the same training that interior fighters must have. Each training is tailored to the particular job that person is supposed to be doing. That would be a waste of funds to train someone for a job they are not going to do.

Under your scenario, most if not all departments would be either combo or fully paid. The taxpayers wouldn't be paying thousands of dollars on career personnel, they'd be paying millions ultimately.

Finally, a friendly reminder, try to get your facts straight; volunteers in the state of New York do not recieve pensions; It's called LOSAP (Length of Service Award Program) and its an annuity, not a pension. There is a big difference between the two. Ask your accountant if you don't believe me.

And adding all the extra bureaucratic classifications benefits public safety and service how? There is only one classification that benefits public safety and particularly in a county system where getting a rig on the road in a timely manner with qualified firefighters is the critical, and that's interior.

I wonder where the stories and comments are for combo departments where the career staffing is completely mis-managed, under-utlized and kept in the dark merely for nothing more then "they will take over" or "we will lose control."

Its not "extra bureaucratic" as you attempt to put it. Some people have absolutely no interest in going inside a burning building. Some may be only interested in assisting on the outside such as operating master streams, brush fire operations, serving as MPO, directing traffic, performing EMS-related work or clerical support functions. Do we as a volunteer based organization turn them away?? of course not, that would be ridiculous. There's plenty of people who desire to become interior status firefighters so why not use all the help we can get as far as non-interior work goes?

Most volunteer companies get a rig out on the road and have the necessary interior firefighters necessary for the initial attack; and if they need additional assistance, they can most certainly call for mutual aid. To staff a station with career personnel for for those 2 or 3 jobs most rural volunteer departments get per year, is not only unnecesary, it would be tantamount to fiscal irresponsibility.

The only EMS contract that I have read about latly that was done properly was the Highland contrat. Why pay for someting or some one to sit around and sleep when most "dedicated" rigs have extremly low call volumes. Highland has a contract that states Moble Life I belive provides service has a time limit from time of dispatch to time on scene since this is what realy matters. one or two ALS units could cover Dover, Pawling, Union Vale, And Beekman combined how often are all these units out on calls at the same time?

Realistic estimate of round the clock of a dedicated ALS unit

Medic $20.00 / Hour = $480.00

EMT $11.50 / Hour = $276.00

$756.00 per day payroll for staff X 365 Days = $275,940.00 per year payroll for staff with out benifits

12 months per year = $22,995.00 per month

now how much is EMS worth to a comunity????

remember this is only an estimate and does not include vehicles, fuel, benifits, or insurance.

We all need and should demand round the clock ALS care no matter what fire district you live in.

Also remember vacation relief staffing, replacement for sick, personal and brevement days, payroll tax, modification to the existing fire house if not already for career personel; and they also get yearly pay raises. Let the town deal with it instead of the fire district. Better to have the ambulance provider to deal with payroll, benefits and so forth.

When a department claims they have "X" number of firefighters protecting the community, does the community know that some, many, or all may not be willing (or able) to perform interior.

I've been in the fire service for over 32 years and i've never, ever had a member of the public approach me and ask me how many members of the department are able to or willing to perform interior duties. Every fire i've been at, their primary concern is that everyone is out of the house and safe. They honestly could care less. Anything else is secondary.

Link to Story

Questions? Comments?

Sounds to me like there are several flaws in the current system; ie...waiting up to a year in some cases to go through the process; only one type of membership (interior); negative perception of the department by volunteers; scheduling of tests, etc.

Most volunteer departments that i'm aware of take between 2-4 months from start to complete activation of membership. While they are working on correcting deficiencies, they need to speed up the process; mostly likely they should study other volunteer departments methods of processing new members.

Many volunteer departments have different classifications of membership; Interior, exterior, administrative, Fire-Police, etc. They need to study other volunteer departments membership classifications.

The scheduling of tests is something than can be addressed immediately. Most volunteer departments are keenly aware of time constraints among there members and schedule accordingly.

As far as negative perception of the department by volunteers, thats a problem only the department can only solve itself; anytime you ask or encourage someone to volunteer there time, you have to make it as attractive and accomodating as possible. The only other solution as we all know is the expand the existing paid staff and that means expanding the budget as well and most taxpayers are not going to be easily convinced that paying people to staff a fire station that gets a minimum amount of runs per year is worth higher taxes.

If we did that in our dept we would have been fired before we got back to the house. Why would you chase people who you saw have a gun on them in the 1st place. I'm sorry im not paid for that line of work

I concur with you; they had no business doing what they did; they could've gotten themselves or innocent bystanders killed or injured; Its a job best left for the police to handle.

Agreed, thats exactly why the career chief authorized the study and why myself and others have been working so hard at it.

Regionalization is coming, like it or not. But the issue is do we dictate it or do we allow Albany to do it for us?

Agreed, it will mostly like happen within the next 10 years or so, and as in most cases in the state, getting anything accomplished by the counties is next to impossible, Albany will be calling the shots. It should be interesting to see IAFF & FASNY (both powerful special interest groups) lobbying the state. Break out the popcorn and beer for this one.

Gamewell, a one for one replacement of volunteer depts with paid depts is outrageously expensive and also incredibly inefficient. Going paid is feasible alternative because it also allows consolidation of depts requiring fewer resources and drawing from a larger tax base. Now you combine this with a system where paid firefighters only replace volunteers where the volunteers can not meet an established performance and staffing standard and you have a cost effective system that maximizes the benefit of volunteers and guarantees an effective level of protection.

NY10570, reading your post makes sense and in theory i do agree with minor exceptions. I think if anything, creating a county fire department (thus eliminating all fire districts including those in municipalities) could be more feasible then replacing one on one. In a situation like this, the county could close those fire stations that are not needed; and mix the paid and volunteers and thus create opportunities for volunteers to serve in areas previously that were career only (such as Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, etc). I agree that volunteers would have to meet established performance and training standards. Under a system like this, those who choose to volunteer can still render their services.

Obviously contractual issues with the fire unions representing career personnel would have to be worked out but that can be dealt with at the bargaining table.

This might be more palatable to the taxpayers of the county; tho' i think the politicians would have to prove that it is an economically feasible plan.

The total thrust of this is to provide the residents with an acceptable, economical level of fire protection at the same time protecting existing career personnel against job loss and allowing volunteers to continue their tradition of volunteering.

I've said it before (and wont go into detail) I pay less for my 100% career fire protection (about$300/yr) than many in Westchester pay for a VFD or Combo dept. and I have an ISO 2 (which reduces my insurance costs. Don't assume that because its volunteer it free or even cheap (it maybe, but maybe not).

I'm paying around $130 per year with an all volunteer dept. The ISO i think is a 7-9, but doesn't make that much of a difference in insurance payments. If the town installed working hydrants and a fully career dept, then the rating would most likely go down, but i think the overall cost of contructing a water system (which would open up the town to unlimited development) and a career department (which handles maybe 400 fire/reset calls per year) would not be cost effective.

Yes they have a big daytime population. But at night it drops to 29,000

Looks to me like there busiest rig has done 123 runs this year. Thats about the same number as our slowest unit. Our busy units do 5x that.

They also have more members per company than almost any VFD in Westchester (has in the whole dept.). & they have 5 companies. How many depts in Westchester have over 300 active members, and it looks like a majority are EMT's as well.

Now to date the dept has also handled over 1300 EMS calls....with....PAID STAFF. The paid staff are also FF's so daytime (& night?) they have paid crews staffing up to 8 ambulances (16 personnel?). THere is no mention on the bunking in program.

This is info I got from their site.

The ambulance services in my town is fully paid; paid crews are not part of fire department, but rather a private company which the town has a contract with. Fire Department EMS volunteers supplement paid crews. This is for 600 plus runs per year.

Looks like it works very well for them. Maybe the reason it does not work as well here is the housing market.

Monroeville, PA 15146 $198,500

4 BEDROOM, 2 BATHS, FORMAL DINING ROOM, EAT-IN KITCHEN, 2 YEAR WINDOWS, ROOF-3 YEARS, SLIDING DOOR OFF DINING ROOM TO LEVEL YARD, 24X14 SHED, WOOD BURNING FIREPLACE, DOUBLE ATTACHED GARAGE, HARDWOOD THROUGHOUT. 24 X 14 SHED.

If nice housing could cost that little here, many folks could afford to stop the 2nd job and volunteer.

I dont' know what county you live in, but aside from the suburban counties, most NY housing is within most peoples salary ranges. Those who are fortunate enough to live in Counties such as Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange and Dutchess counties are already screaming about the high cost of taxes (school, police, town, highway, fire, library, sewer, sanitation, etc). I honestly don't know how much sympathy you'd get from the average taxpayer if you start talking forming a fully career fire department. Saving a few hundred dollars per year on your insurance isn't going to impress too many if they ultimately end up paying more in fire taxes. Remember, the career firefighters have to be paid salary increases; overtime, benefits/retirement, vacation relief, training, fire house conversion, etc. It is not the bargain as one may believe it to be.

It would be nice if the taxpayers could afford the luxary of having a fully paid department in every town; but lets be realistic, paying a crew of fire fighters to sit in the fire house to respond to 300-400 fire calls per year is not feasible. Educating the public as to the value of volunteering and changing the way they do business will go along way to help keep taxes down and at the same time attract and retain the volunteer system.

Sad to say but I don't think you will ever see that again b/c the vollies just don't have the time to do it anymore. The only thing I see happening in the future is the disbanding of volunteers and replacing them with a paid staff.

Once the taxpayers realize that a fully paid fire department will cost them the shirts off their backs, more of them might find the time to "volunteer". At best you might see a combination career/volunteer department.

Furthermore, there is a concept already in use in, Monroeville, Pa, which is a city i think of around 70,000- 100,000 daytime pop, that is all volunteer. The big difference between them and NY volunteers is that they have volunteers who "bunk in/live in" at 5 fire stations around the city. As far as i know, it is still an all-volunteer fire deparment.

It seems to work very well for them; perhaps someone should make some of the westchester departments aware of this system. From what i've been told it appears to work well.

Just food for thought.

Im shocked that everyone is so fast to find these EMT's guilty. Unless you were there, there are two sides to every story. I thought we were still in America, where you are innocent until proven guilty. Or, does the EMT's being FDNY have any thing to do with the strong feelings involved.

There are three sides; FDNY's side, the private Ambulance crews side and the truth.