Referendum would help volunteer fire departments
If Pennsylvania voters give their approval, the state’s 2,400 volunteer fire companies could soon be seeing some financial assistance from the state. As part of the state’s $20.7 billion budget adopted in June, Gov. Mark Schweiker included a referendum for the November ballot on whether the state should borrow up to $100 million on behalf of fire companies and other emergency services. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency is charged with studying how the $100 million can be spent according to federal law, as well as what other sources of money could be made available for fire and emergency services.
According to the bill authorizing the referendum, sources could include a monthly surcharge on the usage of cellular and wireless telephones.
A report must be submitted by Sept. 30 to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness and Senate Committee on Communications and High Technology.
“We’re still trying to get our arms around the requirements,” PEMA press secretary April Hutcheson said of the $100 million, which would arrive in the form of a bond issue.
The referendum will ask voters the following question in some form: “Do you favor the incurring of indebtedness of up to $100 million for the purpose of establishing a program that utilizes capital and other related methods to enhance and improve the delivery of volunteer fire and volunteer emergency services in this commonwealth as hereafter authorized by the state?”
State Rep. Jeff Coy, D-Cumberland, plans to introduce legislation establishing the bond issue this fall so that the Legislature is ready to act on it immediately if voters approve it.
Under Coy’s bill, PEMA would administer the grants with oversight from a board consisting of volunteer firefighters, emergency medical technicians and representatives from the Legislature, PEMA and the Schweiker administration. Each volunteer fire or ambulance company would be eligible for one grant per year.
Hutcheson said the referendum was in line with a political movement to bolster emergency services in the post-Sept. 11 environment.
“It’s something the Legislature felt very strongly about,” she said. “It’s also consistent with Governor Schweiker’s ideas about providing sustainable, meaningful support for our front-line responders.”
Hutcheson said that the number of volunteer firefighters statewide is dwindling and that although training is crucial to safe and effective firefighting, many firefighters are unable or unwilling to schedule time off work to take classes.
She also said the bond issue could reduce the amount of time volunteers must spend raising money to cover their budgets.
“Volunteer fire companies spend a great deal of their time doing fund-raising – bingos, barbecues and whatnots,” she said. It is a burden to them to have to continually fund-raise.”
Coy said he hopes to create a permanent funding stream to volunteer emergency services: When a bond issue runs out, the Legislature would ask the voters to approve another. “Volunteers need to know that we’re talking about a program that’s going to be long-lasting,” he said, “and is not something that’s a one-shot deal.”