Borough could pay $8K per year for retirement accts.
By Sandi carpello
Staff Writer
HELMETTA — Active firefighters could accrue $400 annually in retirement accounts if voters approve a supplemental retirement program for the roughly 30 volunteers who staff the department.
The Borough Council has authorized the placement of a referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot asking whether residents support the establishment of a Length of Service Award Program (LOSAP) for the borough’s 107-year-old volunteer fire department.
The program, enabled by an act of the state Legislature in 1998, allows municipalities to fund retirement accounts for men and women who volunteer in the fire, rescue and emergency fields. State law requires that, in order for a municipality to implement the awards program, it be approved in a local referendum.
The LOSAP program will be budgeted annually by the Borough Council, and is expected to cost the borough $8,000 per year — or approximately $9.60 per year for a home assessed at the borough average of $68,000.
"It is a good benefit," said Borough Fire Chief Duane Hoven of Monroe, who has been a member of the borough’s fire department for seven years.
Hoven said the program is being supported in order to ensure the retention of existing fire department volunteers, as well as to provide incentives to recruit new volunteers.
Many volunteer firefighters tend to leave the department after seven years, Hoven said. This benefit may motivate them to stay on longer, he said.
Hoven stressed the importance of maintaining a volunteer department. If the borough does not have enough volunteers, it would have to convert the department into a paid municipal service, which would ultimately cost more money for taxpayers.
Hoven noted that the LOSAP program has already been implemented in many other Middlesex County municipalities, including Spotswood and East Brunswick.
According to the borough’s program, each good-standing member of the Helmetta Volunteer Fire Department who meets specified criteria will have money deposited in a tax-deferred income account that will earn interest for the volunteer.
Helmetta’s program would reward volunteers according to how active they are during the course of one year.
The criteria is based on a point system in which volunteers must earn 50 points a year to receive the annual award. Firefighters would receive one point per hour in training courses, which have a 25-point maximum; one point per drill, with a 20-point maximum; and one point per meeting attendance, at a 20-point maximum.
Participation in at least 10 percent of fire calls can earn a firefighter 25 points, while participation in 75 percent of all fire calls can earn the firefighter 45 points.
Hoven said that the borough’s fire department currently has 27 members and five junior members. The junior members, who are below the age of 18, are not eligible for the benefit.

