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What do you do when you village board is a bunch of tight wads?????
What is a department supose to do when there village board wont spend money for need equipment. Our airpacks are from the 80's. Our newest engine is a 79. We operate on a budget of a little of 10,000 a year. How does anyone else go about getting them to spend some money??? Weve tried the whole grant thing and it seems to be a waste of time... In need of help!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by dvchief50 on
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I've been dealing with the same problem for years and years.This year I finally got through to them. I decided to do the work for them. I took our finance reports from the last 5 years broke them down by months to get an average on what extra money we had monthly and annually, put it all in writing, next I talked with several finance companies to find out exactly what our payments would be, I walked into our board meeting with statments from the finance company and financial reports, all the numbers crunched and walked out with a hundred thousand dollar rescue squad which should be delivered next month. Something else that helped me, we did annual payments instead of monthly that way if we come up a little short, we can add a fundraiser or two. One more thing try having the vender write a grant for you, alot of them will let you spec a truck and then write your grant, most only charge a fee if you recieve the grant if not you pay nothing.
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Permalink Reply by turk182 on
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we get about $2,000.00 a year from our township supervisors and the rest we have to earn ourselves doing fund raiser. saling tickets, pork sandwich sales, cash bashes. Anything to make money it takes alot of work but it comes with the job.
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Permalink Reply by AdamGFD23 on
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ok. yeah this issue has gone on for ever and im just getting fed up with it... The things is everyone else is getting sick of the same problem.... We will try that at see where it goes. THanks alot
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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Set fire to their offices and push the truck to the scene and use buckets to extinguish the fire....!!!??? :)
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Permalink Reply by jdstamp on
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Adam, We were/are in the same boat, as is seems as most small Villages and Townships with a Board that either doesn't "get it" or simply does not have the funds. Or previous Board "didn't get it" and had questions such as "how many Firefighters do you need" when we have only 11 certified. What our Fire Department did was instead of fighting them, we joined them. The Cheif's Mother-in-law, the Captain's Wife, Myself and another Firefighter were e;ected to the Village Board of Trustees (the other firefighter is now the President because the former President resigned) We have been in office since September, and are making progress, we have along way to go.
We are fortunate enough to have The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians in our County, They have a casino and offer revenue sharing grants in the past 3 years we have aquired approximatly $175,000 in equpment and used apparatus for a cost to the tax payers of the Village of only about $15,000
If you don't want to join them, You will have to be prepared to do their work for them when there is somthing you need for you Department. Make it simple for them. but You have to do the home work, find out everything there is to know, ie. budget, cost, grants, alternate financing, new/used equipment comparisions equipment life expectacy, cost per man hour use, insurance costs, fuel and maintenance cost. ect.....
We as a Department started thinking outside of the box, Thats when things started to happen
Good luck,
Jason
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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Two things strike me about your discussion thread.
First of all, it's not the village trustees that are tight fisted. It's your taxpayers. Village can't spend money that they don't have, so if you are looking to get on someone's case, it's the villagers who "support" your fire department that are dropping the ball. Your chief should be hounding them for an increase in tax money. Or you should consider creating a fire protection district.
Second, if your department is as destitute as you say, then applying for grants isn't a waste of time. It is a waste of time if you aren't taking the time to apply for grants.
Again; if your department is hurting that badly, then FIRE Act and others were created with departments like your's in mind.
Sometimes, you have to help yourself a little to get some help. Our department applied for a FIRE Act grant for SEVEN years. We finally got a grant. But we wouldn't have if we would have given up on it as a "waste of time". Now, we have a dozen brand new SCBAs, a RIT pack, spare bottles and spare masks as a result. If you have a problem with writing grants, there are people who will do it for you; in some cases, for free.
TCSS.
Art
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Very good point Chief, there are many opportunities for grants, sometimes you have to apply multiple times
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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Why not show them what they are paying for....? Both what you do have and what you can do....PR is more than a dog and pony show sometimes....also bring in a little research....ie your home owners fire insurance reates and ISO rating....the higher the rating the lower the rates....explain don't bitch that with a little better and newer equipment that you can and will get the iso rating up....takes money to save money...also look into the Terry Farrel fund for help and do your homework writting grant requests....have to show the need..."need" being the key word.....Good luck...........Paul
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Permalink Reply by Devil Doc on
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We got help with writing grants through Chief Grants. We have gotten every grant we have applied for with their help. Their website is http://www.chiefsupply.com/grants/. They give free help and even hold seminars. Check it out. It can't hurt...Also, every Villige, Town, etc. answer to a county and every county to a state. If the Village won't help...
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