By Stephen Appezzato
With a looming personnel shortage, maintaining the ranks of local volunteer emergency services is becoming a challenge. Three state bills in the works hope to attract more residents to staff these lifesaving departments.
“We’re losing responders, we’re losing volunteers. There’s no incentive program for them whatsoever,” said Colts Neck resident Elaine Mann, whose husband is a volunteer firefighter. Local fire companies and EMS departments are staffed by highly trained, unpaid residents. These committed few are constantly on-call.
Like many family members of emergency servicemembers, Mann recalls the countless times her husband David responded to late-night fire calls after receiving an alert on his pager.
“They could be in the middle of something – doctor appointments, whatever – but they all respond. Their operation is 24/7,” Mann said.
“They have to go through extensive training at the academy and they have to know first aid, they have to know an awful lot of things. And in the middle of a snowstorm or in the middle of a rainstorm at 3 o’clock in the morning, they get up and they go to their fire stations,” she said.
Some of these volunteers receive a Length of Service Award (LOSAP) each year in return for their service, which is similar to a 401(k) pension program. But the small benefit, usually just north of $1,000 annually for qualifying first responders, appears to be losing its appeal.
“You can’t get volunteers. That’s the problem in a nutshell,” Mann said.
Staffing shortages, which, according to Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden, impact response times and safety, have gotten so severe that in February, county officials launched their own emergency medical service, MedStar, to assist surrounding towns facing these issues. Unlike most local first responders, MedStar paramedics are paid.
However, a bipartisan group of state legislators hopes to reverse this trend by expanding the benefits offered to volunteer first responders through three state bills introduced in February.
SCR82, S2385 and S2386 would authorize towns to provide up to a 15% property tax exemption each year, provide $1,250 in tuition credit for county colleges for up to four years, and allow a small income tax credit annually for qualifying volunteers, respectively.
“This package of legislation recognizes volunteers’ contributions are essential and would create new incentives in an effort to recruit new volunteer first responders and retain existing volunteer first responders,” said Sen. Vin Gopal (D-11), who sponsored the bills.
Mann, who lives in Gopal’s district, heard about the proposed bills and set out to garner signatures and support from residents and firefighters in Monmouth County. She said she has collected five pages of signatures so far and anticipates collecting many more.
“I got a couple of different fire companies going and working on it, too,” she enthusiastically said.
“I think it’s very important,” Mann said. “They (firefighters) participate in our town a great deal. Everybody knows the fire and the first aid squad because they’re always there at functions and events,” she said, “so it’s important that we support them in the right way.”
The three bills are currently under committee review, but Gopal said he intends to get them to Gov. Murphy’s desk as soon as possible.
The article originally appeared in the April 4 – April 10, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
