“No one wants to volunteer their time. We are down to nine. That’s not safe, that’s not good. We no longer have guaranteed responses.”
~ Silver Lake Fire Chief Andy MacFarlane
By Gail Peckler-Dziki~Correspondent
Silver Lake Fire Chief Andy MacFarlane reported to the village board at the March 12 Committee of the Whole that he is down to nine members.
“The drop started when the bickering on the board started,” he said.
Silver Lake firefighter and member of the previous ad hoc committee Greg Galich said, “Volunteerism is down. We have a one and a half mile area and we just aren’t getting the volunteers.”
MacFarlane also commented that since a new type of scheduling and pay has been institute, fewer show up for calls.
“We had better participation when we used the points system,” he said.
Currently the Silver Lake Fire Department is paying hourly. Previously, firefighters were paid according to how many points they collected during the year. Points were received for training, fire and med calls. The fire department received a lump sum that was then divided by the number of points and volunteers were paid that way.
Another problem faced by the fire department and the village is that equipment repairs coming due. Between all the fire trucks, there are 28, 15-year-old tires that need to be replaced. “It’s not a mileage issue,” MacFarlane explained. “It’s an age issue. Each tire is $700. We had two replaced on the tanker by mechanic advice but the rest aren’t far behind.”
In addition to those two tires, all the drive belts on the tanker were replaced. That bill was about $3,200.
That leaves 26 tires and at $700 a crack, that’s a bill of over $19,000. And when the village budgeted only $54,000 for the fire department, that’s a big bite.
Since all the equipment is about 15 years old, having been replaced last when the Silver Lake village hall and fire department burned down, it is all coming due to be replaced at the same time. Until a few years ago, no money was put away for these expenses.
It’s also hard to make sure that there are personnel in the village to cover day calls. In years past, there were several larger businesses in the village and workers some workers there also volunteered for the fire department. At one time, public works supervisor Bob Williams, along with two other public works employees were on the fire department. Those numbers are all down.
Silver Lake Village Trustee and emergency services chairman Soti Wilber asked McFarlane to keep track of participation rates until the end of the month. “Then we have some data to help us decide if we should go back to points.”
Williams said that the village should hire the part-time public works employee for full-time. Wilber pointed out that there are no funds for a full-time worker. Wilber said that part of the condition of employment was that the public works employees were to be part of the fire department to make sure there was daytime coverage.
Williams said they didn’t go to training because they weren’t being paid for that time. ‘If it’s a condition of employment, you have to pay them,” he said.
Wilber pointed out that there were no funds in the fire budget to pay them. Williams said they could be paid from the maintenance budget.
With the drop in volunteer numbers, MacFarlane suggested that the fire department might have to stop responding to medical calls. “It’s not a money issue,” he explained. “We are not in it for the money, we want to help our community. We can keep our license until the numbers go back up.”
MacFarlane commented that ebb and flow in volunteer numbers is common. “We are now where the rescue squad was about eight years ago.”
Galich said, “No one wants to volunteer their time. We are down to nine. That’s not safe, that’s not good. We no longer have guaranteed resp