Thursday, February 4, 2016

Was There A Question about This?

From Fire Rescue 1: A study released by The Firemen's Association of the State of New York on Tuesday concluded that switching over to all-paid squads would cost $3.1 billion in pay and benefits annually.
Niagara Gazette reported that there is no serious movement to pay all-volunteer squads, but officials with the firefighters’ group said the report illustrates the value of volunteer squads. The report also found that there would only be a one-time cost of $5.9 billion for a statewide switchover.
"While we're talking to people about the value of career service, it's nice to have some empirical data to show that," John D'Alessandro, the group's secretary, said.
There are about 100,000 volunteer firefighters in New York, with about nine out of 10 municipal fire departments being volunteer. There are more than 200 paid fire departments in the state, mostly in big cities like Buffalo and New York Cityhttp://www.firerescue1.com/fire-department-management/articles/56951018-Study-shows-volunteer-firefighters-cost-savings-to-state
While there is obviously a need for career fire departments with full time firefighters,, there is also a big need for volunteer firefighters.
Here in Arizona, there are so few volunteer fire departments, even though there are many communities that certainly can save money.
In Mohave County, we have full time professional fire departments, serving populations of a couple hundred people up to a couple thousand of people.  There is no reason for these communities have to pay for a full time fire dept., where only a couple of people are working a shift and mutual aide is 30 minutes or more away.
Arizona considers itself to be a very conservative state but they certainly don't act like it.

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