Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on October 23, 2009 at 2:09pm

Unless the money is "carried" over for a specific purpose, it must be spent.
Are your trustees' appointed or elected?
If they are appointed, then consider getting a referendum on the ballot to have them elected.
Then, elect them.
With regards to pay: I put in 22 years as a volunteer firefighter; 14 years as chief.
As President of the Board of Trustees, I receive a $300 a year stipend.
If you have money to burn, then ask them for money to attend training and meetings. Charge out of district users and pay the responders out of it.
If getting paid is the issue, there are avenues.
If getting trustees that have a pulse is the issue, well; that can be changed as well.
Best of luck.
Art

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by ashfire on October 23, 2009 at 3:47pm

Our county has a fire commission elected by the fire companies. A commissioner is elected by the fire companies in their district which are six plus two at large. There is a chairman and vice chairman. We have over 30 corperations and 44 stations.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John Rulli Jr. on October 23, 2009 at 4:08pm

Come election time votem out!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ed on October 23, 2009 at 4:50pm

Most volunteers are in unique situations when it comes to their governing boards.. Some are lead by town council, board of directors/trustees, or township trustees. My volly department is somewhat unique also. My department became incorporated several years ago which adds yet another step to the process. How it works for us is, we have a board of directors that takes care of communications and dealings with the town that we cover along with the township trustees for the two townships that we serve. We have the same issue when it comes to our town board and out township trustees. Each time more money or more equipment is needed, you have to completely re-educate them on what we actually do. I see that a lot of guys post that elections are the key.. The problem my small area has is, the trustees are more or less elected based on the acherage that each person farms. If you have a lot of acherage, you're a shoe-in and you HAVE to have the township's best interest at heart. In terms of the town board, get outta here! Same board for years. People in this area are scared of change..

Moral of the story, here is my advice.. I wouldn't hold my breath for elections. I would however do my best to get the ear of someone on the board or a "friend of the board". If you get one of them on your side, they'll take care of the rest (or you'd hope). I can tell you that there are some meetings I've been to where I've had to make some serious noise to wake up the sleeping electees..

Do what you've got to do to be noticed. Sitting back bitching (like we all do) will only burn you out in the profession and make you bitter towards local government.

Good luck! Be Safe!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chief622 on October 23, 2009 at 5:42pm

The board is put together with a Representative from each of the four townships with one at large member. Each township has three trustees and they appoint one of the three to be on the fire board. plau they have an at-large member who is one of the ones who never has spoken a word in 5 years. The problem with getting them out is people vote them in as Twp Trustees. They rarely have anyone who runs against them for Twp Trustee. We as a department do not want paid. We are still proud to have 60 something FF/EMTs to run around 400 calls year for $0. We just dont want bucked when we ask for equipment, trucks, TRAINING!, ect... They always want to show their power and argue about spending money for those things. They have to proven to be very unethical people. They argue about sending people to FF=240 class because they say we are a volunteer department and dont need that training. Thankfully more people in the Dept are seeing this and hopefully we can entice some good people in the community to run against these thugs.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jay R. Dudley on October 23, 2009 at 5:57pm

I'm guessing that our Fire Commissioners are like your Fire Trustees. We had the same problem with our Commissioners and our doors almost closed due to bad money management. The new Chief came in and said he would take the job if there was a new Board of Commissioners. They had them all resign and new ones were elected. I would like to say that we are now in the Black and are doing fine. I think that is what you need to do , the problem with that is you need good people to fill their spots. I wish you luck. Any questions you can contact me @ JayDudley@csfa.net
P.S. We do not get paid for our meetings we are all Volunteers

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by ashfire on October 23, 2009 at 8:08pm

Our fire commission was endangered a while back by the previous county fire chief who was being a real tyrant about running the county fire service. He made statements to the county exec that the newly elected fire commission was mismanaging county money. What happened was the new fire commission was trying to stop the fire chiefs actions of taking state money from volunteer side of the service to use for other uses.
The fire chief had the county exec and the council thinking of replacing the fire commission with citizens and a union rep and a member of the vol fire and rescue assn that they would pick to decided how money would be spent. The members of the commission got to the exec and got him to understand what was going on. The fire chief retired after that.
The previous fire commission was replaced because it was felt by the depts that they were giving the fire chief everything and not questioning why. We had a fire commission chairman years ago who was a real bull when it came to running the fire dept. If he wanted to talk to someone like the county exec he would just walk into the exec office and no one could stop him. The present chairman is close to that chairman in his ways but today the county exec office is like trying to get into the White House so he does have to make appointments.

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion