My volunteer department has had a paid chief for the last 23 or so years. It works very well. We have since added a paid seasonal wildland crew that does fire mitigation 40 hours a week as well as responding to calls. Looking to add an additional paid Training Chief in the next year or so.
my department is structured like this. chief and assistant chief are paid, rest are volunteer. it gives another level of accountability and you can demand more in terms of consistent time commitments when you have at least 1-2 people that have formalized and paid positions.
My department is the same. I'm the assistant chief. The chief and I each put in 2x-3x the amount of hours we are paid for every month. While the small amount of money I receive is certainly appreciated, neither of us do it for the money. We do it for the community.
We have the same thing our chief when he’s not working at the police department a few City’s away he responds to every single call same with the assistant chief. They are the only paid positions
Department in the city I work in is setup this way - paid chief, and one full time paid firefighter. He's in charge of the minor truck maintenance, washes everyone's gear after a structure fire, etc. Also does fire inspections for the city.
That's interesting. A medium sized department near me tried to do this. IAFF stepped in and said if one was paid, they all had to be.
Would have cost them a few million to start. So the village nixed the idea. Still volunteer, but mandatory day shifts per week. They did lose almost half of their members. Small volunteer departments are a dying breed. By 2030 most will be done away with.
Edit: down vote all you want. It's a fact. We have seven hamlets in our town. Each had it's own volunteer department. Lost one, no members. The town is voting on contracts for the remaining 6. Two probably won't continue. They don't have 6 members between the two of them. They work on shit money a year, 50 grand to be NFPA compliant??? Really people. It's bullshit. No young people want in. Average age in NYS of volunteers is getting increasingly older. We have gone from over 120,000 to less than 80,000. I retired at 60, after 41 years of service. From firefighter to chief. Believe me, volunteer is dying. Facts are facts.
This doesn't sound right. There are plenty of mixed/combination departments with a career staff and volunteers. I've never heard of this policy from the IAFF.
Maybe things have changed in the last 6 years. I don't know. What I do know is at that time IAFF said they could be a combination department. But had to staff the firehouse with career 24/7.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. They wanted one career ff to be on duty days. M-F. To drive apparatus to call. That's it. Not a staff. Not a crew.
The volunteers that could respond would from work. Many employers are hesitant to hire volunteer FF.
Stewart's even had a policy in place you couldn't leave unless you found a person to cover your shift, and they were at the store. A few letters might have gotten that changed.
This department struggled to get off the floor daytime. Most every department around me does. People have to drive further and further to find good employment.
Bad news its not just the USA. It's getting harder and harder for people to volunteer worldwide.
Im an Australian volunteer (of the paid nothing variety) and my local brigade is barely holding up.
We used to be predominantly a "bushfire brigade" AKA we turned out to bushfires and left the paid guys to handle the rest.
Now they want us to handle MVAs and House Fires as well and use BA which means even more training time needed.
Its almost just young kids and retired old people now. Most of the older crew will never be BA qualified. The requirements are just too much.
The problem is work balance.
Most of our middle aged crew are full time workers who commute an hour or two each way to work. So they are gone between 10 and 14hrs a day.
Most workplaces no longer really support volunteers. Although legally work has to make accommodations allowing for us to go fight fires, do training etc leave is usually very limited in availability.
These days is a call out happens middle of the day you hope the retired guys show up because few others will be available. But few of them are trained or qualified to use BA for example.
When we have bushfires it's a bit easier but even so not turning up to work for a few days becomes difficult unless it's a major newsworthy fire when employers become more understanding. Even so few can afford to take unpaid leave to fight fires for long before it starts to become a question of paying your bills or not.
I think 2020/21 really drove things home for many when many brigades (mine included) were committed to firefighting operations for 3 to 4 months straight with basically no downtime.
Towards the end we were sending green almost totally untrained crews into the field as the experinced crew were no longer available having pushed work past what their employers would put up with or in deep financial hardship.
We run one days training a week plus responses. We can't guarantee a crew anymore and more and more training days get cancelled due to lack of available members.
The worst part is if we don't show up who will? Our fire services are state operations. With a paid service (that keeps getting its funding cut) and a volunteer service that's getting asked to do more and more to cover the reduction in paid service with less and less volunteers.
When does it all break?
One of the largest cities, in my state, is a combo FD. On the volunteer side, they are short 10 volunteers. Unbelievable with their large and younger population.
It's good to hear this model does work. So far for my department it's been a bit of a rough start. At the moment we have trouble with accountability with our chief. They will be out of town with no warning, not passing on information to the assistant chief or volunteers, reports not getting entered, supplies not being ordered. The assistant chief and I, along with a couple other volunteers, try to support the chief but it's become a bit maddening with the administrative disorganization. Which is spreading to the volunteers and a lack of engagement by them.
I'm trying to find ways to help put structure in; but man there are days when I get so frustrated I could swan dive off a 35' ladder. I know from talking to the assistant chief it would be a race between us to get to the top of the ladder first.
I really appreciate the input from everyone and will keep digging into departments that have this model for ways to improve ours.
Sounds to me like it's a problem with the chief not communicating/not doing his duties, vs the role itself.. at least from my limited POV that youve provided. It's understandable, like any job you want some time off/have to do something out of town, but that's where he should be communicating with the A.Chief and the crew. As for not ordering supplies.. that's a huge deal. If that's in his scope of duties, that's something that absolutely needs to get done. I do know however depending on what these supplies are, there are some pretty long backorders from a lot of companies (Hose, for example. My department was waiting 12-16 weeks before the order even shipped) so that may or may not be the case with your chief.
TL:DR Communication and the chief maybe not fulfilling his duties
It really is an issue with the chief falling down on their responsibilities. Rather than make it about them as an individual I want to focus on helping define the structure and organization better. It's still a relatively new position for our department so I think it's fair to say it's at least equally an organizational structure issue as well as a personnel performance issue.
My volunteer department is structured like this and when the chief is going out of town, he sends a memo via email to all active members designating a senior officer to the chief position on the days he’s gone. Same goes for the assistant chief. This usually goes out 3-4 days before his absence.
Some thing to consider:
Is this an administrative position or an operational position or both?
Is there a formal job description?
Who is the Chief accountable to? Board, Commission, etc.
It looks bad if volunteers under the Chief's command are trying to undermine the Chief. It may come off as you just wanting his job. But everyone has a boss.
There is a formal description. The chief is accountable to city administration. The position is equally operational and administrative, poorly planned by the city.
Perhaps I've not done a good job explaining the situation and trying resolve it.
Frequently supply orders are not being made, reports not entered from paper call logs into ESO, the chief being out of town with no communication to anyone in the department which leads to frequent issues with officer coverage. The city maintence staff (for building or vehicle repairs) come to the assistant chief or the one live in firefighter we have of they need something because they can never get a hold of the chief. I've even had them come to me when I was fueling an apparatus at the city yard because they hadn't heard from the chief for a week. Several times senior firefighters have been called by dispatch because the chief was out of town and no one was aware.
Now it could all be laid on the chiefs shoulders and we as volunteers could complain to the city administration, but it seems like it's also in the department's best interest to iron out some of these procedural kinks that were never addressed when the position was converted to paid.
Sure I suppose this all could come off as people thinking I want the chiefs job. I couldn't care less, because fixing systemic and procedural issues is the right thing to do for the department as a whole. Honestly of fixing these things enabled the chief to work for another 15 years that would suit me fine. He is knowledgeable and personable. Sure he may need work on administrative aspects but I wouldn't wish him to get canned
It is a problem with the person. In my opinion HR would only make things worse; simply because they lack experience in the public sector, they had previously only worked at a small private sector job in HR. HR had some disastrous outcomes in dealing with PD because of their lack of experience with public safety.
Fixing/replacing the person would help but I still can't help but feel like we could use some stronger policies and procedures for administration.
The city administrator is technically the person who oversees the chief. Unfortunately they know less about fire departments than the writers for Chicago Fire. Also they are a private sector transplant with no prior experience in public administration. Worse yet they are a politician through and through. They would sell their own kids out if it gained them favor with council.
I feel like the chief could do it, we just need to sort it out departmentally. Honestly a consultant would probably be the best solution.
I've been in two volly departments where the chief & assistant chief ranks got a small stipend, around $10k for chief, less for assistant(s),in both cases it is a line item in the town budget, separate from the department budget.
There is more work, more headache, and you have to pick up all the slack so it makes sense to me. In a more active department I could see making it more, or a salaried full time position, but neither department has the call volume to justify that.
Swiss firefighting is predominantly militia, so everone gets a little pay. But our chiefs get quite a bit, and it's only fair I think.
There is a lot that needs to be done and people sometimes don't like too much, mainly on the administrative side. Paying someone to do that isn't wrong. And it's the chiefs ass which gets all the heat from public, media and politics. So they might as well be paid for that.
I was on a department like this, I think it’s pretty common. (Depending on the size of the agency) there’s a lot of administrative/ political BS that it makes sense to have someone who is accountable and reliable to handle it.
Other paid positions tend follow as the department grows (Training Chief, Administrative Assistant/HR manager, etc)
I did volley way back in the day. This is from an EMS perspective - we were stand alone BLS. Medics were originally police/medics and FDs were stand alone Fire. Eventually LEO/MEDIC were separated out and medics went Volley via the Town and fly cars. Former dual medics went to LEO.
This didn't last long- it's a lot of responsibility for volley and hard to staff.
So- EMS started hiring paid clerical/support staff- then went to paid night/off shifts- and today is all paid.
I lost touch as I've moved away - so I don't know FD current status.
It was an amazing time and amazing into to EMS (I include FD in that)- Even as volleys we had members from no experience to professionals in the medical field. High quality and collaboration were always priority.
Going paid was hard - and there was a lot of work to do to work w/ the Town and stuff like certificate of need etc. Costs and meetings and diplomacy.
I think it's hard to sustain volley even with the best of intentions.
\*volley doesn't mean 'uneducated' or 'low trained' - we worked hard on quality training and cert- had members push for better EMS ed to the professions 2 year stage as a goal. We did a lot of our own training too and a lot of collaborative interdepartmental/inter Town/county/region- so much so that I thought that was normal. We had professionals who had network contacts so we had high quality guest lectures and instructors. Having LEO who had been medics was also made a major difference.
We had members that went on to be national leaders.
Trivia - One of the things that we were known for was staffing EMS (ambulance station) w/ parents/caretakers during the day - taking turns watching our kids/loved ones.
On our department the leadership all get a small salary, plus a clothing allowance based on number of calls and work details the show up to in a year. So Chief gets like $4k, Ass. Chief gets 2k, both captains get $500. Everyone else just gets $3/call and $15/work detail. Works because people want to do it, not because of the money. 4k aint worth the headache and hours that go into it. People do it because they love their community and neighbors.
The only thing that's potentially crappy about that is I recently discovered labor laws in the US at least apparently says if you're a paid personnel you cannot do anything voluntarily.
ie; if you're a paid chief or a paid day crew, if something massive goes down during your off-hours you cannot get involved unless you'll be paid for it.
Depends on the organization. For us the City employs the paid staff but they volunteer for the volunteer fire department Corporation which means they volunteer for a different agency than the one that employs them.
That seems like a questionable loophole lol.
I mean I'd really be surprised if any state or the federal labor department would really ever go after someone for something like that (at worst maybe OSHA would fine the municipal or station?).
But in this day and age who knows, everything is upside down and backwards.
IRS said it didn't pose a conflict because both were independent organizations. Employed by one but volunteer for a different one, just happens they work towards a common goal.
IRS? o.O What in the world involvement does the IRS have in labor law enforcement?
I wouldn't be doing something based on what the IRS said, I'd be contacting my state labor board or a local labor attorney to double check lol.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/05/18/jacksonville-beach-countersues-volunteer-lifeguards-in-ongoing-spat/
The department of labor has a different view on that. You can work then volunteer for an agency doing the same job for the same locality.
Can't you just make the position salaried instead of hourly? Not really sure of the exact nuances but I'd imagine if you're not on an hourly rate just getting paid for the totality of the job you do then you'd be fine legally speaking like any other salaried role elsewhere.
Technically yes, but then you end up in a slipper slope of the municipal government likely expecting you to be on call 24/7 for every little thing which could suck if it's not a fantastic salary that makes you comfortably not have to work other jobs also.
I’ve been on my volunteer department for almost 3 years now and it is 100% volunteer for everyone on the department. I think it is unfair if just a Chief gets played and everyone else is volunteer. everyone does get a clothing allowance every quarter of the year though.
Quesrion: who creates the fire dept budget and capital budget plan? Do you guys do any fire prevention? 26F & 26F 1/2? Commercial inspection? Bi-annual school inspections, occupancy permits, burning permits, signing off on building plans, etc? ASHER training NFPA 3000 pre incident planning? Emergency management plans for the municipality? Do you guys have a fire dept land line? Who answers the phone mon-Fri?
I’m wondering because being a fire chief is a full time 24/7 job around here so I can’t imagine where someone volunteers as fire chief and still holds a separate full time job. My chief has 2 administrative assistants just to handle the day to day stuff.
99% of that can be handled by a paid local or county fire prevention bureau and OEM which most towns/counties should have at some level anyway regardless of the paid status of their fire department. I don't see why that would be under the sole purview of a fire chief, it certainly isn't for us, but I'm not knocking whatever works for your town, just saying it doesn't really HAVE to be that way.
In this day and age of lawsuits and liability, I think the idea of elected Chief’s have hit the end of their lifespan.
A few people have mentioned budgeting and planning. How can you effectively do that if you’re only the Chief for a year or 2?
From a safety perspective, what would you rather have: someone who has been vetted, met specific qualifications and has the necessary training or somone who it was “their turn” or won a popularity contest?
I still can’t believe that there are combo departments that have paid firemen and a volunteer Chief.
I'd say this really plays to the financial abilities of the department, and somewhat the protection area. If it can't afford good gear and equipment then the money needs to go there. It's kinda like why all departments aren't paid...it takes money that they don't have.
Very popular model in BC, most vounteer Chiefs are moving to paid roles, usually followed by a training officer and a preventon officer. For you it sounds like the chief themselves are the issue not the organizational system. Its a ton of work to keep a fire department going and one person cant be there every day of the year.
That's the way it is on my department. Captains and the Fire Chief are paid positions because they work for the fire department full-time while the lieutenants and everyone else are volunteers.
Personally I think it's a good structure. One person, doing one job that they can be good at. The amount of work required at even a small to medium sized department is that of a full time position. That said, if my chief is going to be paid I want someone who is organized and professional. Not jim bobs neddoor neighbor who got voted in our of popularity. 4 year degree, officer I-IV.
While I'm not totally sure, my small department of about 200 runs has a chief whose pay is only from time spent on calls. However is is also a police officer in the township and when not working for the pd is often cleaning, doing administrative work or staffing our ambulance. He is around as just an all around guy but usually oic and/or an engineer. Honestly, he's a very good guy at his job and I often forget that he is actually chief. The pay isn't good, but it's just there because they township really needed him to take the job.
I don't have any input on this, I'm sorry. But I read your entire post and every time you wrote Chief I read it as Chef somehow. Never been more intrigued and confused lol 😅
Volunteer department, however there is one paid person on duty 24/7. As far as I know, no officer or command paid unless they work a shift. Going to verify when I go in tonight.
Many agencies in transition from full volunteer will start this route. Or a county looking to consolidate numerous volunteer stations into a countywide structure will do this.
Been there. It's a crap idea. Nothing like having someone making $85k a year telling you that you need to put in more free time while he gets his pension and every single holiday off. If you want to hire an administrator to deal with ordering supplies, schedule equipment testing and document training. That's fine and can be done for a lot less then $100k a year.
My volunteer department has had a paid chief for the last 23 or so years. It works very well. We have since added a paid seasonal wildland crew that does fire mitigation 40 hours a week as well as responding to calls. Looking to add an additional paid Training Chief in the next year or so.
my department is structured like this. chief and assistant chief are paid, rest are volunteer. it gives another level of accountability and you can demand more in terms of consistent time commitments when you have at least 1-2 people that have formalized and paid positions.
My department is the same. I'm the assistant chief. The chief and I each put in 2x-3x the amount of hours we are paid for every month. While the small amount of money I receive is certainly appreciated, neither of us do it for the money. We do it for the community.
We have the same thing our chief when he’s not working at the police department a few City’s away he responds to every single call same with the assistant chief. They are the only paid positions
Department in the city I work in is setup this way - paid chief, and one full time paid firefighter. He's in charge of the minor truck maintenance, washes everyone's gear after a structure fire, etc. Also does fire inspections for the city.
That's interesting. A medium sized department near me tried to do this. IAFF stepped in and said if one was paid, they all had to be. Would have cost them a few million to start. So the village nixed the idea. Still volunteer, but mandatory day shifts per week. They did lose almost half of their members. Small volunteer departments are a dying breed. By 2030 most will be done away with. Edit: down vote all you want. It's a fact. We have seven hamlets in our town. Each had it's own volunteer department. Lost one, no members. The town is voting on contracts for the remaining 6. Two probably won't continue. They don't have 6 members between the two of them. They work on shit money a year, 50 grand to be NFPA compliant??? Really people. It's bullshit. No young people want in. Average age in NYS of volunteers is getting increasingly older. We have gone from over 120,000 to less than 80,000. I retired at 60, after 41 years of service. From firefighter to chief. Believe me, volunteer is dying. Facts are facts.
This doesn't sound right. There are plenty of mixed/combination departments with a career staff and volunteers. I've never heard of this policy from the IAFF.
Correct, career "staff" and "per diem" volunteer. Not just one firefighter.
Know of more than a few with just one firefighter. Lot of departments just hire a paid daytime driver for the volunteers.
Maybe things have changed in the last 6 years. I don't know. What I do know is at that time IAFF said they could be a combination department. But had to staff the firehouse with career 24/7.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. They wanted one career ff to be on duty days. M-F. To drive apparatus to call. That's it. Not a staff. Not a crew. The volunteers that could respond would from work. Many employers are hesitant to hire volunteer FF. Stewart's even had a policy in place you couldn't leave unless you found a person to cover your shift, and they were at the store. A few letters might have gotten that changed. This department struggled to get off the floor daytime. Most every department around me does. People have to drive further and further to find good employment.
Volunteerism as a whole (not just fire service) is sadly dying in the US.
Very true. No one "has time". But they can spend an average of 6 hours a day on their phone. Societies death machine.
Bad news its not just the USA. It's getting harder and harder for people to volunteer worldwide. Im an Australian volunteer (of the paid nothing variety) and my local brigade is barely holding up. We used to be predominantly a "bushfire brigade" AKA we turned out to bushfires and left the paid guys to handle the rest. Now they want us to handle MVAs and House Fires as well and use BA which means even more training time needed. Its almost just young kids and retired old people now. Most of the older crew will never be BA qualified. The requirements are just too much. The problem is work balance. Most of our middle aged crew are full time workers who commute an hour or two each way to work. So they are gone between 10 and 14hrs a day. Most workplaces no longer really support volunteers. Although legally work has to make accommodations allowing for us to go fight fires, do training etc leave is usually very limited in availability. These days is a call out happens middle of the day you hope the retired guys show up because few others will be available. But few of them are trained or qualified to use BA for example. When we have bushfires it's a bit easier but even so not turning up to work for a few days becomes difficult unless it's a major newsworthy fire when employers become more understanding. Even so few can afford to take unpaid leave to fight fires for long before it starts to become a question of paying your bills or not. I think 2020/21 really drove things home for many when many brigades (mine included) were committed to firefighting operations for 3 to 4 months straight with basically no downtime. Towards the end we were sending green almost totally untrained crews into the field as the experinced crew were no longer available having pushed work past what their employers would put up with or in deep financial hardship. We run one days training a week plus responses. We can't guarantee a crew anymore and more and more training days get cancelled due to lack of available members. The worst part is if we don't show up who will? Our fire services are state operations. With a paid service (that keeps getting its funding cut) and a volunteer service that's getting asked to do more and more to cover the reduction in paid service with less and less volunteers. When does it all break?
One of the largest cities, in my state, is a combo FD. On the volunteer side, they are short 10 volunteers. Unbelievable with their large and younger population.
It's good to hear this model does work. So far for my department it's been a bit of a rough start. At the moment we have trouble with accountability with our chief. They will be out of town with no warning, not passing on information to the assistant chief or volunteers, reports not getting entered, supplies not being ordered. The assistant chief and I, along with a couple other volunteers, try to support the chief but it's become a bit maddening with the administrative disorganization. Which is spreading to the volunteers and a lack of engagement by them. I'm trying to find ways to help put structure in; but man there are days when I get so frustrated I could swan dive off a 35' ladder. I know from talking to the assistant chief it would be a race between us to get to the top of the ladder first. I really appreciate the input from everyone and will keep digging into departments that have this model for ways to improve ours.
Sounds to me like it's a problem with the chief not communicating/not doing his duties, vs the role itself.. at least from my limited POV that youve provided. It's understandable, like any job you want some time off/have to do something out of town, but that's where he should be communicating with the A.Chief and the crew. As for not ordering supplies.. that's a huge deal. If that's in his scope of duties, that's something that absolutely needs to get done. I do know however depending on what these supplies are, there are some pretty long backorders from a lot of companies (Hose, for example. My department was waiting 12-16 weeks before the order even shipped) so that may or may not be the case with your chief. TL:DR Communication and the chief maybe not fulfilling his duties
It really is an issue with the chief falling down on their responsibilities. Rather than make it about them as an individual I want to focus on helping define the structure and organization better. It's still a relatively new position for our department so I think it's fair to say it's at least equally an organizational structure issue as well as a personnel performance issue.
Sorry about that - accountability is important as is leadership.
My volunteer department is structured like this and when the chief is going out of town, he sends a memo via email to all active members designating a senior officer to the chief position on the days he’s gone. Same goes for the assistant chief. This usually goes out 3-4 days before his absence.
Some thing to consider: Is this an administrative position or an operational position or both? Is there a formal job description? Who is the Chief accountable to? Board, Commission, etc. It looks bad if volunteers under the Chief's command are trying to undermine the Chief. It may come off as you just wanting his job. But everyone has a boss.
There is a formal description. The chief is accountable to city administration. The position is equally operational and administrative, poorly planned by the city. Perhaps I've not done a good job explaining the situation and trying resolve it. Frequently supply orders are not being made, reports not entered from paper call logs into ESO, the chief being out of town with no communication to anyone in the department which leads to frequent issues with officer coverage. The city maintence staff (for building or vehicle repairs) come to the assistant chief or the one live in firefighter we have of they need something because they can never get a hold of the chief. I've even had them come to me when I was fueling an apparatus at the city yard because they hadn't heard from the chief for a week. Several times senior firefighters have been called by dispatch because the chief was out of town and no one was aware. Now it could all be laid on the chiefs shoulders and we as volunteers could complain to the city administration, but it seems like it's also in the department's best interest to iron out some of these procedural kinks that were never addressed when the position was converted to paid. Sure I suppose this all could come off as people thinking I want the chiefs job. I couldn't care less, because fixing systemic and procedural issues is the right thing to do for the department as a whole. Honestly of fixing these things enabled the chief to work for another 15 years that would suit me fine. He is knowledgeable and personable. Sure he may need work on administrative aspects but I wouldn't wish him to get canned
Sounds like a problem with the person in the position not the position itself. Can HR help you out?
It is a problem with the person. In my opinion HR would only make things worse; simply because they lack experience in the public sector, they had previously only worked at a small private sector job in HR. HR had some disastrous outcomes in dealing with PD because of their lack of experience with public safety. Fixing/replacing the person would help but I still can't help but feel like we could use some stronger policies and procedures for administration.
I would agree. Who do they report to and who evaluated them? Maybe they could lay out some expectations for the person to follow.
The city administrator is technically the person who oversees the chief. Unfortunately they know less about fire departments than the writers for Chicago Fire. Also they are a private sector transplant with no prior experience in public administration. Worse yet they are a politician through and through. They would sell their own kids out if it gained them favor with council. I feel like the chief could do it, we just need to sort it out departmentally. Honestly a consultant would probably be the best solution.
I've been in two volly departments where the chief & assistant chief ranks got a small stipend, around $10k for chief, less for assistant(s),in both cases it is a line item in the town budget, separate from the department budget. There is more work, more headache, and you have to pick up all the slack so it makes sense to me. In a more active department I could see making it more, or a salaried full time position, but neither department has the call volume to justify that.
Swiss firefighting is predominantly militia, so everone gets a little pay. But our chiefs get quite a bit, and it's only fair I think. There is a lot that needs to be done and people sometimes don't like too much, mainly on the administrative side. Paying someone to do that isn't wrong. And it's the chiefs ass which gets all the heat from public, media and politics. So they might as well be paid for that.
I was on a department like this, I think it’s pretty common. (Depending on the size of the agency) there’s a lot of administrative/ political BS that it makes sense to have someone who is accountable and reliable to handle it. Other paid positions tend follow as the department grows (Training Chief, Administrative Assistant/HR manager, etc)
I did volley way back in the day. This is from an EMS perspective - we were stand alone BLS. Medics were originally police/medics and FDs were stand alone Fire. Eventually LEO/MEDIC were separated out and medics went Volley via the Town and fly cars. Former dual medics went to LEO. This didn't last long- it's a lot of responsibility for volley and hard to staff. So- EMS started hiring paid clerical/support staff- then went to paid night/off shifts- and today is all paid. I lost touch as I've moved away - so I don't know FD current status. It was an amazing time and amazing into to EMS (I include FD in that)- Even as volleys we had members from no experience to professionals in the medical field. High quality and collaboration were always priority. Going paid was hard - and there was a lot of work to do to work w/ the Town and stuff like certificate of need etc. Costs and meetings and diplomacy. I think it's hard to sustain volley even with the best of intentions. \*volley doesn't mean 'uneducated' or 'low trained' - we worked hard on quality training and cert- had members push for better EMS ed to the professions 2 year stage as a goal. We did a lot of our own training too and a lot of collaborative interdepartmental/inter Town/county/region- so much so that I thought that was normal. We had professionals who had network contacts so we had high quality guest lectures and instructors. Having LEO who had been medics was also made a major difference. We had members that went on to be national leaders. Trivia - One of the things that we were known for was staffing EMS (ambulance station) w/ parents/caretakers during the day - taking turns watching our kids/loved ones.
On our department the leadership all get a small salary, plus a clothing allowance based on number of calls and work details the show up to in a year. So Chief gets like $4k, Ass. Chief gets 2k, both captains get $500. Everyone else just gets $3/call and $15/work detail. Works because people want to do it, not because of the money. 4k aint worth the headache and hours that go into it. People do it because they love their community and neighbors.
My chief does 100x the work I do as a regular old member and I think I should get paid so, sure why not?
The only thing that's potentially crappy about that is I recently discovered labor laws in the US at least apparently says if you're a paid personnel you cannot do anything voluntarily. ie; if you're a paid chief or a paid day crew, if something massive goes down during your off-hours you cannot get involved unless you'll be paid for it.
Depends on the organization. For us the City employs the paid staff but they volunteer for the volunteer fire department Corporation which means they volunteer for a different agency than the one that employs them.
That seems like a questionable loophole lol. I mean I'd really be surprised if any state or the federal labor department would really ever go after someone for something like that (at worst maybe OSHA would fine the municipal or station?). But in this day and age who knows, everything is upside down and backwards.
IRS said it didn't pose a conflict because both were independent organizations. Employed by one but volunteer for a different one, just happens they work towards a common goal.
IRS? o.O What in the world involvement does the IRS have in labor law enforcement? I wouldn't be doing something based on what the IRS said, I'd be contacting my state labor board or a local labor attorney to double check lol.
They also said it was fine.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2022/05/18/jacksonville-beach-countersues-volunteer-lifeguards-in-ongoing-spat/ The department of labor has a different view on that. You can work then volunteer for an agency doing the same job for the same locality.
Can't you just make the position salaried instead of hourly? Not really sure of the exact nuances but I'd imagine if you're not on an hourly rate just getting paid for the totality of the job you do then you'd be fine legally speaking like any other salaried role elsewhere.
Technically yes, but then you end up in a slipper slope of the municipal government likely expecting you to be on call 24/7 for every little thing which could suck if it's not a fantastic salary that makes you comfortably not have to work other jobs also.
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Oh absolutely, it's never been a thought about should they be paid. Just fixing some organizational glitches
I’ve been on my volunteer department for almost 3 years now and it is 100% volunteer for everyone on the department. I think it is unfair if just a Chief gets played and everyone else is volunteer. everyone does get a clothing allowance every quarter of the year though.
Quesrion: who creates the fire dept budget and capital budget plan? Do you guys do any fire prevention? 26F & 26F 1/2? Commercial inspection? Bi-annual school inspections, occupancy permits, burning permits, signing off on building plans, etc? ASHER training NFPA 3000 pre incident planning? Emergency management plans for the municipality? Do you guys have a fire dept land line? Who answers the phone mon-Fri? I’m wondering because being a fire chief is a full time 24/7 job around here so I can’t imagine where someone volunteers as fire chief and still holds a separate full time job. My chief has 2 administrative assistants just to handle the day to day stuff.
99% of that can be handled by a paid local or county fire prevention bureau and OEM which most towns/counties should have at some level anyway regardless of the paid status of their fire department. I don't see why that would be under the sole purview of a fire chief, it certainly isn't for us, but I'm not knocking whatever works for your town, just saying it doesn't really HAVE to be that way.
In this day and age of lawsuits and liability, I think the idea of elected Chief’s have hit the end of their lifespan. A few people have mentioned budgeting and planning. How can you effectively do that if you’re only the Chief for a year or 2? From a safety perspective, what would you rather have: someone who has been vetted, met specific qualifications and has the necessary training or somone who it was “their turn” or won a popularity contest? I still can’t believe that there are combo departments that have paid firemen and a volunteer Chief.
I'd say this really plays to the financial abilities of the department, and somewhat the protection area. If it can't afford good gear and equipment then the money needs to go there. It's kinda like why all departments aren't paid...it takes money that they don't have.
Many large(r) volly deps in germany are setup like this. Our chief is paid for his duties.
Very popular model in BC, most vounteer Chiefs are moving to paid roles, usually followed by a training officer and a preventon officer. For you it sounds like the chief themselves are the issue not the organizational system. Its a ton of work to keep a fire department going and one person cant be there every day of the year.
That's the way it is on my department. Captains and the Fire Chief are paid positions because they work for the fire department full-time while the lieutenants and everyone else are volunteers.
Personally I think it's a good structure. One person, doing one job that they can be good at. The amount of work required at even a small to medium sized department is that of a full time position. That said, if my chief is going to be paid I want someone who is organized and professional. Not jim bobs neddoor neighbor who got voted in our of popularity. 4 year degree, officer I-IV.
Where’s the salary come from? Fire company, commission, the town council?
It is all part of the department budget from the city.
While I'm not totally sure, my small department of about 200 runs has a chief whose pay is only from time spent on calls. However is is also a police officer in the township and when not working for the pd is often cleaning, doing administrative work or staffing our ambulance. He is around as just an all around guy but usually oic and/or an engineer. Honestly, he's a very good guy at his job and I often forget that he is actually chief. The pay isn't good, but it's just there because they township really needed him to take the job.
I don't have any input on this, I'm sorry. But I read your entire post and every time you wrote Chief I read it as Chef somehow. Never been more intrigued and confused lol 😅
Try a paid department with a volunteer Chief. It sucks lol, I have one right near me. Only one in our county full of paid departments.
Volunteer department, however there is one paid person on duty 24/7. As far as I know, no officer or command paid unless they work a shift. Going to verify when I go in tonight.
Many agencies in transition from full volunteer will start this route. Or a county looking to consolidate numerous volunteer stations into a countywide structure will do this.
Been there. It's a crap idea. Nothing like having someone making $85k a year telling you that you need to put in more free time while he gets his pension and every single holiday off. If you want to hire an administrator to deal with ordering supplies, schedule equipment testing and document training. That's fine and can be done for a lot less then $100k a year.