Will You Hire
When and if there comes a time that your volunteer fire department isnt able to get the membership to respond and keep up with the incidents, what are your solutions? Do you go to your tax payers and try to hire full time staff? This seems to be a trend that is common all around the United States, and seems to be an unfortunate one for the traditions of the volunteer fire service.
As we look to see what we can do to better serve our community, it often seems that 24 hour coverage by full time, career staff is the best way to serve. A common problem that is seen when you start to hire full time staff is the interest of the volunteers drops even further than it did before hiring. The common question “why do I need to respond if the paid guys are going to handle it?” is asked. How do you combat this way of thinking? It is important to remember that if you have hired one or two career firefighters to work a shift each day, they are there to suppliment the volunteers. All too often it is assumed the volunteers are “backing up”, or supplimenting the career members. If we take this mentality and throw it out the window and replace it with the mentality of “we are all doing the same job for the same department”, the morale and sence of worth will remain with the volunteer members.
Another solution to manning issues that doesn’t cost as much as a full time career firefighter is a per-diam system. The tax payers are more likely to bite at something like this, and your volunteer members will have the opportunity to work a second part time job. This will benefit more of your members, giving them an incentive to show up to calls and trainings when they arent signed up for a shift. A per-diam system can still put a member (or members) on the floor 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It is important to do research on the options before jumping to the conclusion that hiring full time, career staff is the solution to manning issues. Make sure to look at the history of the fire department, where your membership came from, where they are today and where you want to see your membership in the future.
