Less Vol companys by 2015

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Permalink Reply by Shanna Davis on July 6, 2009 at 11:14am

Its already happening in my combo department. The Chief recently took a new policy manual to the district board for approval. The volunteers had no say, no imput, etc. in the new manual and the board would not hear us out and adopted the new manual. The new manual takes away nearly all imput and control the volunteers had in the department and could potentially jeopordize retirement benefits for some of the long term members. The volunteers are fighting this but we keep getting told that "the department is moving forward and needs to make these changes." The other reason is "liability issues."
Our Chief is getting ready to replace our Lts. who have always been volunteers with the paid staff. I really figure that within 3-5 years that my department will eliminate the volunteers, mostly because our Chief does not want to operate with any volunteers and he's working to move the department to all paid staff.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Tomlinson on July 6, 2009 at 6:57pm

I'm not sure where you got these facts from, but if the Fed's are saying that, then once again it proves that most politicians are idiots and can figure out that 2+2 doesn't equal 279. The reason I position my response that way is because everyone is screaming "No money! OMG, no money!" which, in all reality this is a problem nationwide.

But let's consider the idea if every-single-department in the nation were volunteer. Think about the cost savings then. Millions upon millions of dollars in retirement funds saved, plus the savings in insurance and so forth.

I know this is really a radical idea and no one would ever see it fly, but if they want to figure out how to do more with less, a volunteer country would be ideal.

Or I might be a little out there and just dreaming. It's possible....

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Permalink Reply by Justin on July 11, 2009 at 10:47pm

its sad to say but we are a dying breed

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Permalink Reply by Donald Smith Jr. on July 12, 2009 at 9:08am

The feds may be rite in some parts of the country or near major cities but were I live the city of plattsburgh is even looking at getting rid of the paid dept. . I dont aggree with it and think that if the feds and state governments want us to be around then they should figure out a way to help us get the training that we need. For example instead of cutting instructors in NY they should train more so that we can get more training and train some volunteers so that we can hold trainings in our depts on our own as well as with other neighborind depts. you dont need 5 instructors to do classroom activities but I do understand that you do for live burns and things of that nature.

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Permalink Reply by CHRIS on August 13, 2009 at 2:37pm

We get funding from the county,through a fire tax,even though we took a hit this year in our budget,we still made out ok-we like to pad some of our line items to make sure we don't get hit too hard.Manpower continues to be the big issue and all the points brought up here--time, expense etc are very very valid. BUT-THE BIG QUESTION IS--If you go to paid or combo---who is gonna pay for it? Taxpayers are fed up with their taxes going up all the time...not to be political here but our country has become the country that we tried to get away from in the 1700s. And remember- George Washington and Ben Franklin were volunteers too. I think for the most part we should be safe as vollies..here in N.C.at least in our county- you get penalized for raising money--they take away what you raised the next year in your budget. All in all we should be ok though....TCSS....CHRIS

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Permalink Reply by Auxman on August 18, 2009 at 5:29pm

I don't buy the "people are too busy" or "not enough money" arguments. There is a major long term trend in loss of membership in all volunteer organizations, especially those that actually do some real work. Why? People in general are lazier. They're not "spending more time with their family", they're watching tv 3-4 hours a night.

With volunteer fire deparments in particular I do see the higher training requirements being imposed by some departments as a major barrier to recruitment. If your FD wants all the volunteers to be FF1 or FF2 that going to keep out a lot of folks who would probably otherwise be great folks to have on board. That high barrier may be a good thing overall, but it is not going to be compatible with having very many folks on hand. If you're a combination department that might be ok though.

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Permalink Reply by Russ Beeson on August 21, 2009 at 3:24pm

I think unless they are willing to pay for it with out raising the Taxes or robbing peter to pay paul they are in for a fight. Volunteers have a sense of duty and pride that runs deep and having grown up in a volunteer Dept and being an active member currently they should instead of trying to phase us out put more money on the table for better training and equipment instead of looking to squash it. It is currently not costing the Federal Government anything and they need to leave it alone. JMHO

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