Township Council OKs volunteer payment plan

Proposal to reward emergency volunteers who have been on active service at least five years will go to voters in November.

By: Michael Arges
   EAST WINDSOR— Despite controversy about the point system, the Township Council Tuesday approved a plan of tax-deferred payments to township emergency volunteers who have been on active service at least five years.
   The LOSAP ordinance must be approved by voters in the Nov. 6 general election. The plan is designed to help recruit and retain fire company and rescue squad volunteers, a crucial need in recent years. The Length of Service Award Program is an optional program established by the state Legislature with guidelines by the state Department of Community Affairs.
   A note of controversy was introduced by members of East Windsor Rescue Squad No. 2. On behalf of their governing board, secretary Shari Benson read a letter stating that the proposed point system for determining eligibility for the LOSAP program takes too little account of hours spent on-call by volunteers.
   "If it is to be a tool used in recruiting new members and retaining our current members, LOSAP must be attainable. We believe that, under the point system presented to the mayor and council by the other volunteer agency, no one in our organization can make LOSAP," the letter read in part. Different organizations have different needs, the letter said. "Members should know that if they continue to give it their all and meet the criteria, they should be eligible."
   "What would work for our organization is a system based on time — not on-call volume," Rescue Squad 2 President Rita Teubner said Wednesday. Ms. Teubner and many other rescue squad and fire company members were unable to attend the meeting, because of the Night Out Against Crime event at the same time.
   "You can ride a 10-hour shift, you can put in 50 hours in a month and only get two calls. And the way the point structure is set now, for those 50 hours you get nothing," Ms. Teubner added. You have to get 10 calls to get one point, she noted. "Fifty hours is a lot of time for a volunteer to put in."
   "The way it’s set right now, we don’t believe anybody in our organization could make it," Ms. Teubner said. "Are people going to get angry that they can’t make it, and leave?"
   Tuesday’s ordinance calls for the township to pay $1,150 per active member per year into the program, the maximum allowed by the LOSAP. The estimated yearly cost to the township is $85,000, according to the ordinance.
   The East Windsor ordinance allows one point per call for a fire volunteer but allows two points per 10 calls for a rescue squad volunteer. A fire company member needs 150 points in a given year to be deemed an active member and thereby eligible for the program; a rescue squad member needs 100 points. Volunteers need five straight years of active service — as defined by the point system — to be vested in the plan and thus entitled to funds that have been contributed to their account.
   The point system for both fire companies and rescue squads puts heavy emphasis on administrative and committee participation rather than on actual time spent being on call to serve the public, Ms. Teubner suggested. She felt that, for her squad at least, the emphasis should be put on time spent being on call.
   "Committees exist, whether you have one person on them or 10 — it doesn’t make a difference," she noted. "The chairperson is usually the one who puts in the greatest amount of time. We felt the emphasis should be on riding time," Ms. Teubner said. "If you don’t ride, if the rigs don’t pull, you don’t need an executive officer."
   In a July interview Rob Manlio, the chief of East Windsor Rescue Squad No. 1, suggested that a lot of points are allotted for administrative tasks because that is where his squad needs the most help. He was not available for comment for this article.
   For example, according to the ordinance approved Tuesday, volunteers receive 30 points for serving as president or chief of operations, 10 points for any other elected position, five points for serving as elected trustee, and 20 points for any other elected position. Rescue volunteers receive five points for each stand-by work detail or community education assignment, with a 40-point maximum per year. Rescue volunteers receive two points for attending a company meeting and two points for participating in a squad drill.
   Mr. Manlio is not alone in placing a heavy emphasis on committee service, Ms. Teubner added. "The fire companies also felt executive officers and committees should receive a lot of points."
   Out of 125 points required per year, fire company volunteers would receive 25 points for serving as chief or president, 20 points for deputy chief, assistant chief or captain. They would receive 15 points for lieutenant, 10 points for service as engineer, vice president, treasurer, assistant treasurer, corresponding secretary, recording secretary, trustee or committee chairperson.
   Fire volunteers receive one point for every two hours of training (15 points maximum per year), for each squad drill (20 points maximum), and for attending each company meeting (12 points maximum).
   The council vote was unanimous except for Marc Lippman, who abstained apparently because he is a rescue squad member and might become eligible for benefits if the measure passed.
   In voting for the ordinance, Mayor Janice Mironov emphasized that she was not thereby taking a side on the point system issue. However, the matter needs to move forward if it is to be on the November ballot.
   "The point system is an essential part of the ordinance," the mayor explained Wednesday. "And so the choice to alter the point system at this point would have meant that the question could not have appeared on the ballot this year. There would not have been time to take all the necessarily legal steps and redo the public hearings."
   "There can be changes made down the line," the mayor added. In light of the concerns expressed by Squad 2 members, township officials will explore how future changes to the point system could be made, she added. Township officials are unsure whether or not changes in the point system would have to be approved in some future general election, the mayor added.
   Gary Golep, president of Rescue Squad Number 1, criticized Squad No. 2 for failing to have representatives at enough of the meetings where the point system was discussed — especially in the last few months and weeks before the ordinance came up for a vote.
   "They were advised of the meetings that we were having," Mr. Golep said at Tuesday’s meeting. "District two has been invited on every occasion, notified in advance of each meeting," he added.
   "We have been trying to get them to give us some kind of structure that might be compatible to work with," he said. "We can’t just hold up the LOSAP program because one department has not seen fit to come to the meetings."
   Ms. Bensen and Ms. Teubner disputed those observations. They said they had not received any communication from the other squads in the last two weeks. Ms. Teubner said that she had missed one meeting because she did not see an e-mail message in time, but she did not receive notice of other recent meetings.