STATter 911

Worse: I had a conversation today with a volunteer who told me the county has decided they will no longer do maintenance on vehicles that they do not own. So the volunteer departments are expected to own and maintain the stations, purchase and maintain the vehicles, and buy diesel for all the runs that the county decides to send them on... and only the county is allowed to bill for services?

Does that mean the county gets to bill for volunteer transports, use the money for the county-career departments and then tell the volunteers to go "f"-themselves? Or is the county only screwing the volunteers without trying to benefit from it themselves?
 

Prince George County should be investigated on the Fire side as well as the Police and Sheriff by State of MD and the Fedral Government. I'm starting to think there is a trend of sometype of corruption going on here. Is the Executive a Dumb Ass? It seems with all this press from the past two weeks with Berwyn Heights Mayor loosing two family members (family pets)from a Police matter gone wrong and now the Fire Department causing issues with the Volunteer departments that do save the tax payers millions of dollars a year. Just what is truely going on here and when is something going to be done about Prince George's County and their crooked politians?
 

This is simple...if there is double billing, something should be done. Whoever bills, gets and uses the funds, should perform the service.
 

The PG County Volunteer Haters strike that last blow in the battle to kill off volunteers. There is no way to make money as a Volunteer anymore. Which means your firehouse is Dead.
 

Hmmm... I never understood how people can be billed for a service when they are already paying taxes to provide said services. Seems to me like the taxpayer is getting the short end of the stick-being double billed for services.
 

VFD's are not suppose to make money through standard billing practices, ya'll ever hear of a pancake breakfest or a car wash? How about a good ol' carnival. I lived outside of Harrisburg and loved when the VFD's would have the rides.

For the life of me, I have never heard of getting a bill from someone who is providing a free service to the community.
 

"There is no way to make money as a Volunteer anymore"

Hello....can you say "oxymoron"?

The funny thing is, this fool probably doesn't even realize the problem with this sentence.

Dave, I seriously doubt that "the county has decided they will no longer do maintenance on vehicles that they do not own" or "the county has cancelled the contract to clean our gear to get rid of volunteers" or any of the other dozens of rumors people are flinging here and on the watchdesk faster than a monkey with a hand-full of poo.

Law states that the county has the sole authority to bill...it appears that the county was near striking a deal for the volunteers for them to be able to use a share of the funding for specific purposes that would have to be approved. That is the rub here...volunteer organizations would now be required to ASK FIRST and GET PERMISSION before expending monies that citizens have paid for services rendered.

This is called "accountability" for those of you previously unfamiliar with the term. "Accountability" means no more buying $120,000 Hummers that get 5 miles a gallon and then having $30,000 custom stereo and video systems installed for the personal use of your chief, and then slapping a seal and a lightbar on it in order to put it under county maintenance so that taxpayers are forced to pick up a $40,000 a year tab for the maintenance and fuel.

It also means no more spending moneys for unnecessary "fur-lined sink" and "electric dog polisher" add-ons to million dollar apparatus purchased to look good at parades.

It is all an issue of accountability...the county administration wants costs cut to meet declining revenues, and volunteers still believe they should be exempt from any and all accountability.

Those days are over. The fools whineing here need to get over it and face reality...We have a service to render, and cuts are across the board.

Every taxpayer is feeling the pinch. Suck it in and stop whining.
 

Dave - I think you have forgotten 3other companies that have been billing. There is a total of 11 companies in Prince George's County.

#10 Laurel Volunteer Fire Dept.

#49 Laurel Volunteer Rescue Squad

#35 Greenbelt Volunteer Fire Dept.
 

One thing people have wrong is that the citizens are not being billed for services rendered, that is what their taxes pay for. They are being billed for the cost of the unit and associated equipment. Health insurance and medicare pay all or part of the bill and there are no Co.'s that I am aware of that go to collections for folks who do not pay up.

The part I don't understand is how the county can bill and collect funds for units that they do not own? If the county will not allow the Volunteer Co.s to bill then the county should provide a county owned ambo for every station.
 

Ex Pa. citizen-They don't have fundraisers like that anymore because more money is pocketed than is turned in to the organization for which the event was held. In addition, they can hardly get enough people to get the apparatus out let alone work a charity function.
 

To the comment about not being able to staff fundraisers and get the equipment out of the door. that should be your first clue....time to close the doors and let the county takeover. Also, if too much money is being pocketed,and not making it to the department, what does say about the character and caliber of people that are volunteer firefighters. You said it ....not me.
 

The Volunteers should immediately take all Volunteer owned E.M.S. units out of service and refuse to staff them. Let the County buy and staff all the gut buckets if they want all the billing money!
 

Let the paid maids run all the EMS calls!!! If this is what JJ wants...then he can get on a bus....maybe even Sedgewick!!! Way to go guys!!! You really promote unity! RETARDS!!!
 

What a great way to show you care about the people you serve...we didn't get our way so we just won't play in the sandbox anymore. Enjoy while you still can, because this is the beginning of the end.
 

What a mature response...All the bs about how you care about the community and serve it. Now, because you don't get your way, you don't want to play anymore. Enjoy your little temper tantrums while you can, the beginning of the end is near.
 

It is ironic that many of you state that these units are OWNED by the volunteer corporations. Well, I own my vehicle which means I pay for my own fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc. The same cannot be said for these so called volunteer owned units.

Also, please stop pandering the falsehood that the individual himself is footing the bill for these fees. The fee comes directly from the insurance carriers, who if you investigate, already have established fees for such services not just here, but nationwide. Prince George's County is simply behind the curve in taking advantage of a revenue source that has been in place for quite some time.
 

Were any of the VFDs billing for calls that were staffed by PGFD personnel? Anyone know?
 

To "Oxymoron".

Ok genius, if you were familiar with the system, you would realize that I was saying that there will be no way for Volunteers to make money anymore, as in No way for them to make money for their corporation. You know, to buy those ambulances without county funding and then run calls with them?

People have to realize that the volunteers in this county own over 80% of the apparatus, and it was all bought with their OWN MONEY!

The volunteers receive no help from PG County for the millions of dollars they spend on apparatus, but now that companies can't bill for ambulance services, how are they going to afford to buy anything new?

Bake sales and turkey shoots don't work anymore in this county full of people on government assistance and welfare. The companies in PG county, atleast the large majority of them see little to no help from their communities, period. Don't put false information on here and sugar coat it. The citizens don't care as long as a big red firetruck shows up.

Well. What if it doesn't? What if the volunteers take all of their apparatus and go home with them.


Let's talk about numbers.

Volunteers own 69 engines vs the 18 that the county owns.

Volunteers own 15 trucks vs the 7 that the county owns.

Volunteers own 36 stations vs the 10 that the county owns.

We save the county 83 million dollars in personnel budget a year.

And they want to further cut our ability to function? Are you kidding me? Dave why don't you put these statistics out there? Why don't you question the PG County administration's tendency to strong arm the volunteers, who do this for free and save them Millions of dollars a year?
 

To the last poster...The VFD's bought apparatus that was paid for by donations, grant money, and fund drives. So, technically all that apparatus belongs to the citizens that paid their taxes, sent in donations, and play bingo on Sundays. If you want a story to be told, you should bring all the facts to light, not just the ones that you want to make the volunteer system look good.
 

To the person who asked this question:

"Were any of the VFDs billing for calls that were staffed by PGFD personnel? Anyone know?"

My understanding is that the only ones who could bill were departments that owned the unit and staffed it with volunteers.

Here is the question I have posed to career and volunteer folks in PGFD over the last few years. Even if this is another part of the plan to get rid of the volunteers as some have indicated, what is the county going to replace them with?

Other than building a few firehouses, I have seen no indication Prince George's County has the intention or the resources to hire firefighters in any great numbers and buy their own equipment. Unlike all of the other jurisdictions that immediately surround DC, there has been no expansion of the career forces as volunteer participation has lessened.

There have been and probably still are volunteer departments in the county begging for career personnel and can't get them. In general, PGFD still staffs the firehouses the way they did when I was a volunteer 30-years-ago.

Okay, if you get rid of the volunteers, then what?

To me that's the big question I ask and will continue to ask as a reporter on the sidelines with no horse in the race.

Statter
 

ANONYMOUS AT August 15, 2008 3:32 PM SAID...

People have to realize that the volunteers in this county own over 80% of the apparatus....

Volunteers own 69 engines vs the 18 that the county owns.

Volunteers own 15 trucks vs the 7 that the county owns.

Hmmmm...seems suspicious that you conveniently omitted AMBULANCES, MEDIC UNITS AND ALL SUPPORT UNITS from your "listing"....truth be told, volunteers own far less than HALF the actual fleet in Prince George's, and for the vast minority of the vehicles that the volunteers actually DO own, (as opposed to the majority of units that volunteer corporations have recently purchased..technically, banks actually own over half of all of the volunteer assets in the county), the county pays all fuel, maintenance and insurance for ALL of those.

Another note...if you want to play firehouse lawyer, I suggest you take a peek at the county charter first. It states in very clear terms that the volunteer corporations do not actually "hold" ANY corporate assets.

The charter states that the volunteer corporations exist either under the purview of their incorporated communities, or under the purview of the county.

The moment you cease to operate as a fire department, your corporation ceases to exist. Your corporate charter is voided and revoked, which bars you from liquidating any assets of your corporation. At that moment, like it or not, title on everything you currently think you "own", down to the lug nuts that hold the wheels on the trucks, will automatically revert either to ownership by your incorporated municipality, or ownership by the county.

Sorry to break the bad news to you, Matlock, but that's the way it is.
 

Of all the Volunteer Owned fire trucks how many were bought with State Grant money? How many volunteer Companies are waiting for the next round of State grant money to make their next payment? The County should take all the State grant money like other jurisdictions in the state and quit pandering to the whining volunteers who don't care a lick about serving citizens and only care about serving themselves.
 

Dave, Here's the answer to your question. The County really doesn't care if half of these outfits go out of business. Neighborhood loyalty aside, do 813 and 807 really need to be there together ??. How bout 811 and 814 ??? The count consolidate 2,3,and 4 and no one ever missed any of them. Hillside who ????? Do I need to keep going ??? Ask your good friend Gordon R how many of these places are necessary ( assuming they can provide fire/ems service w/o shooting bottle rockets out of there asss
 

The fact is that just about all of those companies that had the agreement worked out consistently get units out the door staffed with volunteers. The units were paid for by the volunteers through their hard work collecting those funds from their communities. These funds that they had been raising were used to purchase new equipment to better serve the communities.

The communities do not flock to fund raisers like they used to. Nobody will hold a carnival. Too much crime. The volunteers can't pay for todays much more expensive equipment with $10-20K donations. And this crap about $30k video systems is bunk.

Truck 14 is about 18 years old. That is a dinosaur. With its age and use it needs to be replaced soon, as the cost to upkeep it becomes more and more expensive. And it is not even the most busy piece. I understand the volunteers there wore working on plans to replace it, but now that has to be scrapped.

So the citizens suffer, because the county will not give them the money, and with the payments on the rescue squad they can't afford another piece.

Prince Georgres County expects the volunteers to run calls, provide apparatus and stations? While I agree the volunteers hurt themselves more by cutting services to the community, they can't provide services without funds to maintain the fleet.

Some of you are so angry that they don't pay for their insurance and maintenance and fuel (oh and I know at least one company is self insured). So how about they park the units since they can't afford the upkeep, and sit around the stations waiting for the county to provide the quality apparatus they have put up for decades.

I am done rambling, my point is the volunteers at those stations are providing services that ARE NOT PAID FOR BY TAX DOLLARS, IF THEY WERE PAID FOR BY TAX DOLLARS THERE WOULD BE CAREER PEOPLE AND CAREER UNITS HANDLING THE CALLS. They are providing services paid for by the few citizens that give their much appreciated donations, the hard work of those few volunteers, and the insurance monies that the citizens pay for to be used for the emergencies.
 

Check your facts, the State grant money comes from tax dollars. The Volunteers are not raising the money the State and the County are keeping the volunteer system alive in spite of the volunteer's lack of effort or commitment. You can complain all you want but the County pays the bills and State gives the volunteers the money to buy the fire trucks and ambulances that the volunteers use to charge the citizens for EMS service. The volunteers then claim it's theirs. Whoever said it belongs to the citizens is right on

If you care about serving the citizens you could care less if the County is the only entity who can bill, get on the ambulance or fire truck and serve! Citizens who pick up a phone and call 911 don't care who owns it. If you don't like being accountable find another hobby.
 

" The volunteers can't pay for todays much more expensive equipment with $10-20K donations. And this crap about $30k video systems is bunk."

Volunteers can't pay for the equipment they order because volunteers often order equipment that is unnecessary, redundant and overly packed with unneeded bells and whistles.

If you don't believe this is true, then please explain why the average volunteer pumper costs over $100,000 more than the pumpers purchased by the county.

That is the challenge when you have a volunteer department appoint an apparatus committee made up of six or seven people with absolutely no experience in equipment design who are charged to select the specifications for equipment that can cost three quarters of a million dollars to over a million and a half dollars.

No wonder they can't pay for what they order.

THAT is why Prince George's needs accountability.

And expensive and unnecessary audio video systems installed in volunteer chief's cars is neither crap nor bunk...it's real. All you need to do is look.

More often than not, volunteer apparatus design committees over-spec equipment out of some silly sense of competitive pride. Pumpers are ordered with incompatible transmissions, engines and pumps, or over the maximum Gross Vehicle Weight specs with inadequate brakes, Ladder trucks are ordered that exceed the reach necessary for the tallest buildings in their response area, or are too big and long to fit into the stations or traverse the streets they will be responding on - all of which lead to cost overruns and increased maintenance, and adversely effect the overall service life.

That, my friend, is why volunteers can't pay for new apparatus, and that is why better accountability is needed.
 

I think that this is the colmination of many factors in P.G. County, and this is just another example of it. Let us really look at some real facts. The School system is horrible! Crime is out of control! Fire and EMS services are taxed to the limit!

I know that other juristictions around the D.C. area are busy, but are any of them up to 350 calls a day? That is what we face.

If the Fire/EMS department is responding to that many calls, what is the law enforcement call volume?

600(+) Career personnel total. Ok working 4 shifts or day work (go home at 3pm) now minus all those that are working in offices during the week (lets just say 100) Now minus all those that are Battalion Chief and above (lets just say 40-50 officers) So we are down to 450 career personnel actually working the streets divided up by 4 different shifts and the day work personnel not to mention personnel working at the training academy. So lets say 430 people riding the medic units/ambulances and engines and trucks. No wonder there are stations that are asking for career help and cannot get it.

But yet companies like Bladensburg who tried to help the county by saying "we have enough people, go ahead and redistribute your career personnel to other stations that need more help than us" are now being told that they can no longer bill not for the service but to replace the items they use and for upkeep..(oxygen masks, guaze pads...etc) And I know Bladensburg owns their ambulance (not county owned)

So tell me, what is this county going to do?

Law Enforcement is in the same river as the Fire/EMS and yet everyone wants to know why things are so mis-managed from the top down?

The school sytem is horrible. Teaching accoutability starts when a person is young. Teachers cannot teach without fear or try to dicipline kids who act up without fear of being shot in the classroom.

These are all real issues, real problems, and no one wants to fix anything. We need a real overhaul of all county services. Ever try to get a building permit or construction permit for renovations on your home? What a run around!

We need a real system instead of piecemealing the staffing issues.

We need real Law enforcement where the police enforce the laws and not be afraid to do so for fear of being sued by the criminal who just car jacked someone because his civil rights may have been violated.

We need real leadership. We need someone like Adrian Fenty to overhaul the county services. Someone not afraid to make tough decisions and get rid of rif-raf that are lazy and do nothing. We need good leadership from the volunteer side as well. We need good leadership in the schools and with the new police chief (who ever that may be)
 

I think that this is the colmination of many factors in P.G. County, and this is just another example of it. Let us really look at some real facts. The School system is horrible! Crime is out of control! Fire and EMS services are taxed to the limit!

I know that other juristictions around the D.C. area are busy, but are any of them up to 350 calls a day? That is what we face.

If the Fire/EMS department is responding to that many calls, what is the law enforcement call volume?

600(+) Career personnel total. Ok working 4 shifts or day work (go home at 3pm) now minus all those that are working in offices during the week (lets just say 100) Now minus all those that are Battalion Chief and above (lets just say 40-50 officers) So we are down to 450 career personnel actually working the streets divided up by 4 different shifts and the day work personnel not to mention personnel working at the training academy. So lets say 430 people riding the medic units/ambulances and engines and trucks. No wonder there are stations that are asking for career help and cannot get it.

But yet companies like Bladensburg who tried to help the county by saying "we have enough people, go ahead and redistribute your career personnel to other stations that need more help than us" are now being told that they can no longer bill not for the service but to replace the items they use and for upkeep..(oxygen masks, guaze pads...etc) And I know Bladensburg owns their ambulance (not county owned)

So tell me, what is this county going to do?

Law Enforcement is in the same river as the Fire/EMS and yet everyone wants to know why things are so mis-managed from the top down?

The school sytem is horrible. Teaching accoutability starts when a person is young. Teachers cannot teach without fear or try to dicipline kids who act up without fear of being shot in the classroom.

These are all real issues, real problems, and no one wants to fix anything. We need a real overhaul of all county services. Ever try to get a building permit or construction permit for renovations on your home? What a run around!

We need a real system instead of piecemealing the staffing issues.

We need real Law enforcement where the police enforce the laws and not be afraid to do so for fear of being sued by the criminal who just car jacked someone because his civil rights may have been violated.

We need real leadership. We need someone like Adrian Fenty to overhaul the county services. Someone not afraid to make tough decisions and get rid of rif-raf that are lazy and do nothing. We need good leadership from the volunteer side as well. We need good leadership in the schools and with the new police chief (who ever that may be)
 

Unfortunately, there will never be any real accountability on the volunteer side of the department. They want to keep things like they were back in the 50's and 60's when they were kings of their domains and the world revolved around them (so to speak). Let them put their ambulances out of service to try to fight this, maybe then the public will see what they are really about-self serving ego trippers that belong to taxpayer financed social clubs.
 

More often than not, volunteer apparatus design committees over-spec equipment out of some silly sense of competitive pride. Pumpers are ordered with incompatible transmissions, engines and pumps, or over the maximum Gross Vehicle Weight specs with inadequate brakes, Ladder trucks are ordered that exceed the reach necessary for the tallest buildings in their response area, or are too big and long to fit into the stations or traverse the streets they will be responding on - all of which lead to cost overruns and increased maintenance, and adversely effect the overall service life.


Your such a brain child, I guess you have not been to AMD lately and seen those new Squads that "YES" are over weight. But AMD will hide those facts when it comes to placing them in service because no one will question that. As most county apparatus it will be under powered incompatible transmissions for a truck in the application it is being used for. (I worked for a fire truck dealer for many years)Their will be lttle to no compartments and unnecessary wiring nightmares do to how they spec the electrical systems for lights and other applicactions.

On the note of the county paying fuel, maintenance, and insurance costs. Their are a large group of Volunteer companies that pay for these expenses out of there own pocket on a large number of apparatus within the county.
 

As most county apparatus it will be under powered incompatible transmissions for a truck in the application it is being used for.

Underpowered? For what? I've never seen "we were going too slow" written on an investigation report in a fatal accident involving a fire truck.

Tell me...at what point does your quest for "more power" become unsafe? Exactly how fast does a 30 ton truck really need to go? 55? 60? 70? 80? Is getting to the scene 30 seconds earlier really worth the additional risk?

This is EXACTLY the dangerous mindset from most volunteer apparatus design committees that causes costly accidents, and skyrockets purchase costs, as well as maintenance and insurance.

These purchases need better accountability.
 

Not a tic chief:

There is no doubt that there may be some firehouses that would close under your scenario. Closing firehouses is always a tough one for the public to swallow. So, talking about it and doing it are two different issues (read the story I just posted from Atlanta).

Still, even with a reduction in the number of fire stations, can Prince George's County staff the front line equipment (notice I didn't say firehouses) needed to provide adequate fire protection and EMS they way it is done elsewhere around the beltway (not talking tactics here, talking staffing)?

What I currently see are career staffed fire trucks going out with two. To my knowledge that doesn't go on in Montgomery, Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax.

Again, this is not Dave Statter's opinion, but the questions I have always asked of the career and volunteer leaders of Prince George's County.

The other question I always ask is this. If the answer to the above, is no, Prince George's County can't provide that type of service with a career department, isn't it in the county's best interest to find better ways to encourage volunteerism and have the best relationship possible with the VFDs in the county?

Just some questions from a reporter who has covered this story for a day or two.

Statter
 

Tell me...at what point does your quest for "more power" become unsafe? Exactly how fast does a 30 ton truck really need to go? 55? 60? 70? 80? Is getting to the scene 30 seconds earlier really worth the additional risk?

This is EXACTLY the dangerous mindset from most volunteer apparatus design committees that causes costly accidents, and skyrockets purchase costs, as well as maintenance and insurance.

At know time did I speak of safety or speed. It looks to me like you are just jumpming at anything you can to down the volunteers. If you had any knowledge about mechanical applications, when you place a little motor or poor quality transmission in a large truck. Drive it regularly up and down the road it places hard wear on the unit, which means you will be repairing it more often. (causes repair cost?) Now over weight vehicals and front ends do present a possible safety issue, or death from mechanical failure. (maybe your AMD should be checked out for issues that do not meet standards)Oh and if you had such a good knowledge of PG, you would have read the standards for apparatus (guidelines) - (accountablity)
Grow up and go back to 1619, your making a fool of yourself and everyone else.
 

"At know time did I speak of safety or speed."


At "know" time did you learn to use spellcheck either. Here's a quick rule for you: If you really expect to pass yourself off as a mechanical engineer, I would suggest you at least master the simple rules of sentence structure first. When you make mistakes on simple words like that, "your" making a fool of yourself and everyone else. (Frankly, I got a nice chuckle at the "and everyone else" part too)

By the way...going back to your earlier comments, would you mind providing us with a list of all of these volunteer owned pieces in prince george's county you mentioned where the volunteer corporations currently pay for all of their own maintenance, insurance and fuel?

There may be one or two, but other than that, out of the volunteer "fleet" of 84 pieces mentioned above, I have serious doubts that there are actually more than one or two...far from a "majority"...I think you are making that up.
 

Seriously correcting people's grammar and sentence structure makes you look childish and brings nothing constructive to this conversation.

What it shows is you don't have valid points and rely on attacking peoples' typing ability instead of producing factual information.
 

Seriously, statements like...

"Grow up and go back to 1619, your making a fool of yourself and everyone else."

...seem to be the ones that really sound childish, and give clues that the author is unprepared and sorely lacking in valid points or factual information to base their debate on.

Speaking of factual information necessary to base the debate on, have you had a chance to prepare that list of the many pieces of apparatus that volunteers fully fund insurance, maintenance AND fuel on yet?

Seriously, I can't wait to see it!
 

Dave,

In response to your question of what type of service the career side could provide, look at the numbers.

They have enough stations to place one per 48 square miles, they have enough engines, trucks and squads to run 3 full assignments at the same time IF they had the staffing for them. Speaking of staffing...With roughly 450OPERATIONAL on the career side there is enough staffing for 3 shifts, and that is not accounting for staffing of ambulances or medic units. So really your looking at 2 shifts, 24 on, 24 off. Oh, and don't plan on taking leave.

In response to the posts about buying upgraded apparatus, the life of an average county engine is probably 1/2 that of a vol engine due to the fact that they buy cheap. Now what is more cost effective? Buying two to last as long as one good one? Additionally, with the county about to announce furloughs for county employees, I don't see them packing the academy with too many new hires.

Why isn't all over the news Dave? You have one of the largest Fire/EMS departments in the area on the verge of implosion due to mismanagement. The money the individual departments take in for billing goes toward purchasing new apparatus. There is no double billing. The only way a vol company can bill is if they own the ambulance AND it is staffed by all volunteers. How, in a county that is suddenly broke the day after getting the bond rating they wanted, is the fire department turning down 83 million in FREE service?
 

In response to the posts about buying upgraded apparatus, the life of an average county engine is probably 1/2 that of a vol engine due to the fact that they buy cheap.

I'm sorry, but that statement is nothing but the expression of pure speculative opinion that is sorely lacking in any form of fact.

County-owned engines log just as many service miles as volunteer-owned. The difference is, the county appears to have enough sense to deadline and sell apparatus while there is still service life (and resale value) left in them, and at a point in their service life prior to the point when their maintenance costs start to surpass their carrying costs.

That is good planning, and it is also the result of having accountability built into the system.

It is exactly this thinking that resulted in the recent purchase of the new fleet of seventy ambulances to replace the entire ambulance and medic unit fleet. The entire ambulance fleet, the vehicles that take the most wear and tear - far more than engines and trucks do - was replaced with new vehicles. Bulk purchase provided significant cost savings per unit.

Are the vehicles no-frills? Yes...but does an ambulance with chrome wheels, fifty extra running lights and a blaupunkt stereo put on better bandaids? No.

On top of significant cost savings for purchase, these vehicles are also slated to be replaced in five years, when vehicle drive-train warranties expire and while there is still significant resale value for the vehicle.....and, mind you, they are to be replaced at a point before repair costs begin their sharp increase.

THAT, my friend, is the result of having a comprehensive vehicle plan...and that is what volunteer "apparatus design committees" lack; Bulk purchasing power, the resulting parts savings by compatibility with multiple shared units, an objective to expend funds in a prudent and cost-effective manner, and a plan for eventual replacement prior to significant increase in repair costs.

Like it or not, that is why volunteers need more and better accountability before making significant purchases of this nature.
 

After reading all of the comments (and laughing) I thought I'd clarify the situation in Prince George's County for some people. First off - DOUBLE BILLING DOES NOT HAPPEN!! The volunteers only bill for calls run on their company owned ambulances staffed solely with volunteers at the time of the call. Second - the bill goes to the patient's insurance company. I don't know of ANY volunteer organization that sends a patient to collections over an ambulance transport! That claim is just ludacris!

Not only did the county significantly cut the budget for volunteer companies for this fiscal year - they're now cutting the legs out from underneath the volunteer companies by taking away their main source of funds. And the fact of the matter is that PGFD cannot SAFELY staff all front line apparatus 24/7. And they also aren't hiring any new personnel to try and fill the voids they are creating by trying to push out the volunteers. The county has no money - period. And whoever the genius was who thought that ambulance billing would solve the county's money problems is smoking much more than just what was delivered to the mayor of Berwyn Heights' home!

This definitely needs to be in the headlines of all the major news channels. I can't believe it hasn't been already. We'll see just how much good 'ol Jack Johnson & "The Wick" (PGFD's Chief...) enjoy their decision when the citizens of PG County are knocking down their doors when they need 911 services.
 

But they don't want to be accountable-that's the whole problem. They think they are above any kind of rules and regulations unless they are handed down from the Lord of the Fiefdom( the volunteer chief). This may be a good time to consider whether or not a combination system is viable in today's world.
 

Get real.

Out of the almost sixty (about forty-five ambulances and dozen medic) ALS/BLS units currently in service in the county, you can count on one hand the number that truly rely on any significant volunteer staffing to get out, and you will have fingers left...Truth be told, 100%volunteer involvement constitutes considerably less than 10% of all the medical responses in the county.

The vast majority of BLS/ALS units in the county are already staffed by career forces 24/7.

All this talk of volunteers taking their toys and going home is nothing more than a bunch of hot air.

If those companies decide to pull the preverbial plug, I think you will find that there will be little or no demonstrable effect.

Puff up your chest and blow as hard as you like, boys...you may think you are the big bad wolf, but this house won't fall down just because you say so.
 

Four words.....GET RID OF TRIM !!!!!
 

Based on the discussions in this forum, it is quite obvious to an outsider what force is driving this debate.....EGO'S.

The volunteer organizations were given a negotiated settlement wherein they would receive all money that they were due. However, to receive the money they would have to submit a claim for service and would then receive the associated fees. It wasn't until the volunteers refused to comply with this arrangement that the Exec stepped in an ordered those in violation to cease all billing activities. The immense ego's of these volunteer chiefs and corporate orders simply couldn't stand being held accountable to an outside entity, Chief Sedgwick.

In the end, for all of you crying that your money was taken away, that simply isn't the case. To all you self-centered and egotistical chiefs and corporation officers, keep it up, when your demise is complete, you will see that as is usually the case; your wounds were self-inflicted.
 

I have read over and over about lack of leadership at the county level, whether it be from the Fire Chief, or the County Executive. I would have to ask, where is the leadership from the volunteer corporations?

What kind of leadership would walk away from guaranteed money, simply because you had to be held accountable to receive it? I think that these so-called leaders have cut their noses off to spite their faces. Also, if their billing practices were on the up and up.....then why all the protesting. If you have nothing to hide, then what would be so hard about being held accountable.

At the end of the day, you have to measure your worth. Would you rather be a volunteer movement martyr on the various blogs, or submit you claims and receive ambulance billing money as a solvent corportation. You all chose POORLY enjoy your martyrdom!
 

(It is exactly this thinking that resulted in the recent purchase of the new fleet of seventy ambulances to replace the entire ambulance and medic unit fleet. The entire ambulance fleet, the vehicles that take the most wear and tear - far more than engines and trucks do - was replaced with new vehicles. Bulk purchase provided significant cost savings per unit.)

It seems you left out the part about the units where going to be leased and some how they got purchased without anyone knowing, costing millions of dollars over the original price of the units.

How many of these units are left in service? How many have been wrecked or damaged to where the re-sale is lost?
The company that made the units is no longer in business (American Lafrance) this limits parts to repair or fix the units.

When are these units being replaced? If you have not looked around lately, where do you think the money to replace them is coming from? Ambo billing – Money goes to County General Fund, oh the County schools, PD, Public works, Jack Johnson’s pocket (National Harbor), Sherriff’s, Corrections, Welfare and do I need to go any further?
 

"It seems you left out the part about the units where going to be leased and some how they got purchased without anyone knowing, costing millions of dollars over the original price of the units.

What the heck are you taking about??? You sound like a total idiot!

1) American La France did not go out of business....I suggest you visit their website, where you will find the following press release dated July 25, 2008:

American LaFrance Exits Bankruptcy
New Business Initiatives Planned

New York, July 24, 2008 – Patriarch Partners is pleased to announce that, effective July 24, 2008, American LaFrance, LLC, the 175 year old manufacturer of fire, rescue and vocational vehicles, emerged successfully from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

2) The 70 Ambulances were purchased, as planned from the beginning. There are several press releases found on prince george's county's website that chronicle the process...All refer to PURCHASED, and non refer to lease.

I suggest that in the future you check the source of your information before you embarrass yourself. Everything you read on the watchdesk is not gospel.
 

Hey Dave,

What's the difference between a trash truck and the majority of fire trucks in Pee Gee County?

Trash trucks have at least three people on them............
 

Do you think if the entire county was staffed with career folks that the generous pay scales and retirement packages would continue? It would be interesting to see the public reaction to the compensation package the career folks get i.e. 20 year retirement w/high percentage based on salary and other criteria.
 

If you think that anyone who retired off the job on normal service retirement is getting rich off of it, you really are ignorant and misinformed.
 

Want to know what a volunteer who posts on the watchdesk has in common with a GRAPE?

The harder you squeeze either one, the more whine you're bound to get.
 

I've heard a lot of people talk about accountability in this discussion. How the volunteers could have their money they worked to get, so long as they have the county's go ahead on how it's spent. So here's my metaphor if you will:

You're young, and you need some cash for whatever, let’s say a concert ticket. So you ask your parents for some funds. They say “Now Junior, if you want something, you need to get out there and earn some money for yourself. We have our own money problems to worry about.” So you go and get a job, let’s say a paper route. You get up at the crack of dawn, hop on the bike you bought a few years ago, and you go busting your butt up and down the neighborhood, delivering papers. You work hard, and you make it to payday. And so you run home, get cleaned up, and get ready to head to that concert. But your folks stop you at the door. “Where’s your pay?” they ask. And you show them your money. And they say, “Well what are you going to do with it?” And you say, “I’m going to a concert.” And they say, “Oh that’s not a good use of your money, we’re going to hold onto it until we approve of what you want to spend it on.” Meanwhile your parents are up to their ears in credit card debit, and can barely make the payments on their mortgage, and they’re telling you how to spend your money.

So does that seem fair? It’s your sweat, your effort, your time, your bike. But someone who says they know better than you is going to tell you how to spend your money.

And some of the folks on here are going to respond, “Well the county does know better. They know what’s best for the citizens and the fire departments. They know how you should spend the money.” They obviously don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t be in debt. They wouldn’t be struggling to cover the staffing they say they can cover. They wouldn’t be putting four firefighters in a house where two need to go on the ambulance, leaving two to head out and staff a fire engine going to a house fire. They wouldn’t order 70 ambulances at a time, ambulances that are so beaten after three years that patients in the back scream after going over every little bump at 15 mph because the shocks are shot.

Can the volunteers handle their own money? I think they can.

College Park VFD knows how to spend their money. They needed a new engine. Laurel VFD was selling their engine. So as opposed to going half a mil in the hole for a new piece, in a community where most of the people they serve are college students without a dime to donate, CP bought Laurel’s for less than one tenth of that. So Laurel VFD gets a good deal, they resold it while it still had many great years on it, very responsible. Then College Park put in some serious time overhauling and painting it, and it runs and looks fantastic. Two companies benefit, all without county input. That’s two examples of good spending by a volunteer corporation.

If you want to manage money, yours or anyone else’s, you have to show that you are capable. PGFD hasn’t done that. It’s greed, pure and simple. PGFD needs the money, and they’re going to try and take it.
 

Nice metaphor...except you forgot the part about the fact that you constantly flip out dad's credit card to pay for the gas, insurance and maintenance on the "bike" you "hop on", which happens to be a tricked-out Harley Sportster...you know..the one that you didn't have the money for, but took a high-interest loan to buy anyway, you know....because you "need" it to drive around on your paper route...you know...the same Harley that you will fully expect mom and dad to pay off if you miss a payment.

You also forgot to mention the fact that you are 26 years old, and you still live under mom and dad's roof, and the only job you have is your paper route.

You burn their electricity, and use their propane for your hot showers. Mom and Dad clothe you, and you don't pay them a cent.

By the way, the concert you want to go to? The tickets cost $650...and mom and dad havn't had a night out since they started paying for your education. You don't contribute a dime for that either.

Now, with that in mind, is it too much for mom and dad to want approval before you spend "your" money???
 

Yes, that's 2 examples of fiscal responsobility on behalf of 2 of the 48 volunteer fire stations and those are the only 2 I grant you.If you think that the rest of the VFD's are as fiscally responsible as those 2 companies, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
 

Who said anything about getting "rich"? You still didn't answer the question, if the county hired enough career folks to cover all the needed field units with adequate staffing - would they still be able to keep up the level of compensation & retirement packages you currently have?
 

Can the volunteers handle their own money? I think they can.

College Park VFD knows how to spend their money. They needed a new engine. Laurel VFD was selling their engine. So as opposed to going half a mil in the hole for a new piece, in a community where most of the people they serve are college students without a dime to donate, CP bought Laurel’s for less than one tenth of that. So Laurel VFD gets a good deal, they resold it while it still had many great years on it, very responsible. Then College Park put in some serious time overhauling and painting it, and it runs and looks fantastic.


Looks fantastic?...maybe...but it still RUNS like a fifteen year old dog, and it still carries the exact same corresponding high maintenance costs it had when it was a fifteen year old dog in Laurel.

Laurel and College Park got a "good deal" alright, but the county, and county taxpayers got screwed in the process.

Seems you also forgot about all the OTHER "volunteer-purchased" pieces where the County has been forced to take over the payments in recent years because volunteers defaulted on their notes...can you say Riverdale? Can you say Riverdale Heights? Can you say Boulevard Heights?

Another of these recent "Good Deals" was one crafted by Glenn Dale. In 2006, the county purged its entire old ambulance fleet as a cost-saving measure to decrease high maintenance costs. 18 buys one of the old ambulances dirt cheap at auction, slaps on a new coat of paint, and puts it back in service and under county maintenance....brilliant, 18 gets a dirt cheap ambulance, and once again, taxpayers get the shaft.

Funny...it sounds lmore and more like better accountability is the smart way to go to me!
 

So you go and get a job, let’s say a paper route. You get up at the crack of dawn, hop on the bike you bought a few years ago, and you go busting your butt up and down the neighborhood, delivering papers. You work hard, and you make it to payday. And so you run home, get cleaned up, and get ready to head to that concert. But your folks stop you at the door. “Where’s your pay?” they ask. And you show them your money. And they say, “Well what are you going to do with it?” And you say, “I’m going to a concert.” And they say, “Oh that’s not a good use of your money, we’re going to hold onto it until we approve of what you want to spend it on.”

That was the FIRST month that you had the paper route...Since then, there have been multiple days when you just didn't show up, overslept, were too hung over to deliver papers, or just didn't feel like doing it that morning.

On those days, mom and dad have to pay other kids from the neighborhood to do your job for you. You began to like that...and started only delivering papers when you WANTED to deliver papers.....and the more mom and dad paid the neighbor kids, the less interested you became in maintaining your paper route.

THis pattern continues until you have proven yourself to be so unreliable that mom and dad pretty much have taken over hiring other kids to make sure the papers get delivered for you.

Now it has come to the point that you are only interested in delivering the papers on your route to the houses that tip.

Now tell me...Is it still "your" money?
 

Ok, so let's have the county purchase all the apparatus and the individual company's will pay for fuel, maint., and insurance with ambo billing. I am sure you won't find too many dept's out there that would complain about that. As far as the county being a financially responsible "parent" lol what a fricken joke. Dad, JJ and Uncle Sedge are smoking juniors hard earned money. What sense does it make to take the ambo billing from the individual dept's? The money coming in from the individual dept's is spent on FIRE DEPT needs. It is X amount of dollars the Co fire chief does not need to beg JJ for in his budget. ALL ambo billing from the Co will go to the general fund which means it sure will help out the police get more officers on the street working overtime. Where you had 11 dept's with a constant source of income directly infusing funds into the fire service, you now have the Career side that much more financially strapped because they are picking up the bill, literally, for each of those dept's future purchases IF they can get the money out of the general fund. This county has gotten what they deserve for voting JJ in...twice lol. But hey we do have a good relationship with some village in Africa.
 

Another of these recent "Good Deals" was one crafted by Glenn Dale. In 2006, the county purged its entire old ambulance fleet as a cost-saving measure to decrease high maintenance costs. 18 buys one of the old ambulances dirt cheap at auction, slaps on a new coat of paint, and puts it back in service and under county maintenance....brilliant, 18 gets a dirt cheap ambulance, and once again, taxpayers get the shaft.

Stop posting, you obviously don't know what your talking about. The ambulance at Glenn Dale is not an old county ambulance. It was purchased from a Charles County department with 15,000 or so miles on it, at a very good price, and not at auction, saving the county a large amount of money. Speaking of Glenn Dale and saving the county money, 168hrs. in a week..vol's staff 128. Not clear enough? Ok, 8760hrs. in a year, Volunteers staff 6760hrs. How much does that save the county? Still not clear enough? How about the volunteer staffing at Glenn Dale, ONE firehouse in the county, saves the county $1,056,380! No, wait...sorry didn't include holiday overtime..$1,111,604 a year. That makes up for a lot of oil and fuel doesn't it? If your best argument for the county taking over billing is they pay for fuel and maint. you must be a Sledge cronie.
 

Mr. Metaphor here. Some of you made some interesting points. Not many valid points, but interesting.

Nice metaphor...except you forgot the part about the fact that you constantly flip out dad's credit card to pay for the gas, insurance and maintenance on the "bike" you "hop on", which happens to be a tricked-out Harley Sportster...you know..the one that you didn't have the money for, but took a high-interest loan to buy anyway, you know....because you "need" it to drive around on your paper route...you know...the same Harley that you will fully expect mom and dad to pay off if you miss a payment.

Mom and Dad aren’t paying much, considering they have my fine brothers only get the pieces out my door 22% of the time, leaving 78% for me to do. My “bike” was paid off the minute it rolled in the door, no Sportster, but a solid used piece that’s got a lot of great miles on it still.

You also forgot to mention the fact that you are 26 years old, and you still live under mom and dad's roof, and the only job you have is your paper route.

I have my own full time job on top of volunteering, and keep my own place. NEXT!

You burn their electricity, and use their propane for your hot showers. Mom and Dad clothe you, and you don't pay them a cent.

Mom and Dad don’t clothe me. They gave me a cheap shirt and pants once, cost them maybe 20 bucks. The gear they provide? I admit it’s top of the line, but it’s the only time I’ve been given anything from them. Plus I got half as much of the gear as my brothers (one set vs. the paid guys’ two). So my brother gets a salary, health benefits, two sets of gear and doesn’t ever have to think about the quality of the piece he’s on, because I put in the time make sure I bought a good one, not too snazzy, but enough to get the job done.

By the way, the concert you want to go to? The tickets cost $650...and mom and dad havn't had a night out since they started paying for your education. You don't contribute a dime for that either.

Mom and Dad get plenty nights out. They go out in chief's cars, loaded down with gear, gas guzzling beasts, that they drive around 24/7, independent of when they are working. They say they’ve earned it. Yeah, they earned the right to spend taxpayer money like drunken sailors. And my education, that the taxpayers are paying for, is cheaper than the education my brothers get, since they get PAID to sit in class. Imagine that.

Looks fantastic?...maybe...but it still RUNS like a fifteen year old dog, and it still carries the exact same corresponding high maintenance costs it had when it was a fifteen year old dog in Laurel.

Laurel and College Park got a "good deal" alright, but the county, and county taxpayers got screwed in the process.

Seems you also forgot about all the OTHER "volunteer-purchased" pieces where the County has been forced to take over the payments in recent years because volunteers defaulted on their notes...can you say Riverdale? Can you say Riverdale Heights? Can you say Boulevard Heights?

So you’re upset when they make a good purchase, but ask the county to toss in a little for the maintenance? But you’re also upset that they have to actually contribute to the cost of a piece of apparatus that their career guys ride? How else are the career guys going to get to the call? Walk with buckets of water?

Another of these recent "Good Deals" was one crafted by Glenn Dale. In 2006, the county purged its entire old ambulance fleet as a cost-saving measure to decrease high maintenance costs. 18 buys one of the old ambulances dirt cheap at auction, slaps on a new coat of paint, and puts it back in service and under county maintenance....brilliant, 18 gets a dirt cheap ambulance, and once again, taxpayers get the shaft.

You complain about the high cost of maintenance, how the taxpayer takes it in the backside. Who paid for the 70 new ambulances? Who’s paying for the costly maintenance now, since they are being run into the ground? Are you sure the 70 new ambulances weren’t just because the paid folks got tired of riding around in crappy pieces?

That was the FIRST month that you had the paper route...Since then, there have been multiple days when you just didn't show up, overslept, were too hung over to deliver papers, or just didn't feel like doing it that morning.

On those days, mom and dad have to pay other kids from the neighborhood to do your job for you. You began to like that...and started only delivering papers when you WANTED to deliver papers.....and the more mom and dad paid the neighbor kids, the less interested you became in maintaining your paper route.

THis pattern continues until you have proven yourself to be so unreliable that mom and dad pretty much have taken over hiring other kids to make sure the papers get delivered for you.

Let me summarize your point. Unlike the good old days, where people could be volunteers and help out whenever, now the volunteers have to ask for help in staffing. That is a great point. We have to ask for help getting the pieces out the door. That’s because this 2008, and people need to earn money of their own. We can’t live off volunteering. However, Mom and Dad can’t pay for all the time. At my house, they rely on us for 78% of the staffing. They do 22% of the work. So they can have the 22% of the money they work for. We’ll take our 78%. And Mom and Dad still make out on the deal, because they don’t have to pay me to do the 78%, I’ll do that for free.

Now it has come to the point that you are only interested in delivering the papers on your route to the houses that tip.

This is just a flat out lie. No one is stopping service to the calls that won’t pay, or that don’t have insurance. Everyone is still getting the same level of service. And that still doesn't prove why the county should get all the money.

Like I said, the county has no leg to stand on when they say we should ask for the funds. No one has provided an example of excellent management on the part of the county. There is no reason to trust them. Everyone keeps talking about the 70 ambulances, like that was the best decision anyone ever made. It was a terrible decision. The better idea would have been to take them in phases. Sure buy in bulk, but take 20 a year, so there is a constant supply of new ones. Not 70 ambulances that all need replacing at the same time. You still have interchangeable parts and those benefits.

Someone give me an example of good management by the county, something that shows they can manage money, and I’ll take note. Otherwise all you’ve got is name calling.
 

Trim is an entity within the County Charter. Several years back County Executive offered a Proposal to do away with TRIM The Taxpayers VOTED the Proposal DOWN on Ballot Referendum. It seems quite inappropriate to chastise and be harshly critical of the County Executive who is Elected by the Taxpayers. The County Fire Chief is Public Servant charged with the Responsibility to Deliver a Professional Firre & EMS Service.
He must rethink and even redeploy his priorities to get his job done as mandated. The words of negative opinionated individuals is somewhat
a shame to the image of Public Safety. Yes these are very tight times Financially. County operates with a Budget. Please keep in mind "SPENDING AFFORDABILITY" is the bottom line. The constant rant and criticism by each faction (Career & Volunteer) does absolutely nothing to work through
the Financial crisis. The Taxpayers Deserve and expect everyone to Demonstrate and Exercise a high standard of professionalism. (Professionalism Defined as Career AND Volunteer).
The Facts and statistics are a good start for everyone to sit down together and begin some concrete decisions. The County Volunteer Leadership and the County
Career leadership need to stop words of how good each entity is. The statement which obviously comes from a Career person that Volunteers are done through. Stop and listen to yourself. The County cannot afford a Total,Career Fighting and EMS Force. Check your words with the facts of Financial availability. Bottom Line here is,Reasonable people together can workthrough this and determine a good Resolve for the TAXPAYERS.
"Trust and Respect"
 

The ambulance at Glenn Dale is not an old county ambulance. It was purchased from a Charles County department with 15,000 or so miles on it, at a very good price

One thing I can say is when you tell a lie, you go for the gold! How on earth would a 1998 ambulance only have 15,000 miles on it eight years later?

Chuck Co. may be slow, but logging an average of less than 2,000 miles a year on a front line ambu is clearly a fabrication.

Nice try, though.
 

Fact:
1. Glenn Dales ambo came from Charles County, 2. It had low miles,(my best guess was 15,000 I can't remember exactly what it was) 3. It was at a good price, 4. It saved the county from buying an ambulance, 5. It has run for 2yrs. and helped to pay for a new engine and squad that the county did not have to foot the bill for.

Fiction:
1. It was an old PGFD ambo, 2. It was bought at auction, 3. The tax payers got the shaft.

Who's facts are more scewed? Again, the point was the county is as screwed up as a football bat and people like you are probably the ones doing it. Stop being part of the problem. Think about this, Glenn Dale FD has been in business for rougly 80yrs. and is doing fine. They have managed money, personnel and every aspect of business for roughly 80yrs. PGFD has been in business for 35yrs? and is in the toilet. Personnel mismanagement, money mismanagement, and business mismanagement. Who is better to decide financial matters, personnel matters and emergency service matters for the citizens of PG?
 

Thanks for blowing sunshine up our shorts!

Now, its time for a reality check:

For all your bitching, it appears that the County is actually doing something to address the current economic downturn.

For all your bluster, I have yet to hear one single idea of anything volunteer fire departments could do to economize.

Your only idea you have been able to express seems to be that you need to be left alone.

Face the facts:

In the first fifty-five years of the Prince George's County Fire and Rescue Association, just two volunteer departments disbanded: 15 and 16.

2) In the twenty-some years since 1985, a total of five (10%) of the remaining departments have failed, or currently exist only on paper...no active volunteer participation to speak of.

3) Approximately 30% of the remaining volunteer corporations are currently teetering on the brink of financial failure.

I might be wrong, but maybe it would be better for you to turn your "keen" intellect to solving the problems you face in your own house before you start making up stories about mismanagement in county government.

But that would require work, instead of bitching.
 

First, PG County has been in the fire service business since July of 1966. If you need to know why the Volunteer Departments should be held fiscally accountable, just look back to the days of the "Casino Nights". There was probably more cash going out the back doors than was being turned in. Need proof of that-what happened to Hillside-bailed out twice by the County and the 3rd time the County cut them loose-where did all the money go to make the payments on their apparatus-that's right, into someones pockets other than the banks that financed the apparatus.
 

Mr. Metaphor here again. Let’s see what we’ve got now.

Thanks for blowing sunshine up our shorts!

Now, its time for a reality check:

For all your bitching, it appears that the County is actually doing something to address the current economic downturn.

And that would be…? Thank you for your very specific example. You didn’t even mention a topic, or a news article. Just that the county is doing “something to address”. Not solve, or fix, but address. Very nice.

For all your bluster, I have yet to hear one single idea of anything volunteer fire departments could do to economize.

Ask and ye shall receive. There’s plenty we do. Our house tries to cook in station as much as possible, so we’re not burning fuel just to drive out to grab grub. That saves some fuel. Or perhaps how we watch our electricity, turning out lights in empty rooms. We are quite good about that. Or training as close to home as possible, by hosting courses in house. My, oh my, my station does that too. Or how about encouraging firefighters to take appropriate measures and maintain their gear properly, thereby decreasing the amount that is paid to Maryland Fire. We do all that already. So there are a few small ideas. Now let’s hear some of yours about what the county is doing.

Your only idea you have been able to express seems to be that you need to be left alone.

My point is that we should be able to manage the funds that we put in the work for, instead of the county doing whatever they want with funds that they had nothing to do with. And for the record, I fully support the county withdrawing gas and maintenance support from the ambos of the departments that wish to collect their own funds. That would force the departments to have good fiscal responsibility, which most already have. But if a paid firefighter is going to step foot on the piece, the county better be ready to pony up some dough.

Face the facts:

In the first fifty-five years of the Prince George's County Fire and Rescue Association, just two volunteer departments disbanded: 15 and 16.

2) In the twenty-some years since 1985, a total of five (10%) of the remaining departments have failed, or currently exist only on paper...no active volunteer participation to speak of.

So what you’re saying is that because of two decades of social change (people are busier/more work hours/people working more jobs to put food on the table) which has led to less volunteering, that it was somehow the VFDs’ fault? I admitted in an earlier post that times have changed, and the scenario of Fire/EMS in PG requires SOME paid folks. My point is that the county can’t do it alone, not in staffing, nor in money. Which leads to your and my next point.

3) Approximately 30% of the remaining volunteer corporations are currently teetering on the brink of financial failure.

I’ll need a list with a source document, plus a definition of “teetering on the brink of financial failure.” And if you are correct, your ideal situation is that instead of providing a much needed source of income to the volunteers, you rather have the money disappear into some slush fund, so the county can mismanage that money too? You can’t bitch about how the volunteers are failing financially, while you take away sources of income. That’s just plain stupid.

I might be wrong, but maybe it would be better for you to turn your "keen" intellect to solving the problems you face in your own house before you start making up stories about mismanagement in county government.

But that would require work, instead of bitching.

Luckily, my house is doing quite alright for itself. We’re not hurting for funds, and we get our pieces our the door quite nicely, fully staffed, sometimes with even two or three crews (I know, shocker!). So I’m free to hop on here in between calls (work) and use my “keen” intellect to laugh at your ridiculous responses and to ask you again – how has the county shown itself to be a good fiscal manager? One example. Not “the county is doing something”. An actual example. It would be more relevant to this discussion if it was a FD/EMS example.

Oops, the bells are ringing. Guess I gotta go lay my life on the line, for free. Hope your fully paid and benefitted day goes well tomorrow.
 

I have read these posts from start to finish and am amazed with the content. Clearly several of the antagonizing posts are from disgruntled career and volunteer staff or people simpathetic to their "side". I am a former volunteer from over a decade ago and I am proud my past service and PG. It is clearly disappointing to see the lack of unity and leadership on display from both "factions".

However the last comment in this blog is astonishing. Volunteers need to "economize"? The free labor (not providing career staff salary, health insurance, pensions)is the economy the volunteer component contributes stupid!! In any FD/EMS system or Department the transition to more career staff clearly is where the "cost of service" escalates. In many cases the transition to more career staff is clearly necessary but prioritizing high levels of volunteer participation in all aspects of the Department at all levels is where cost savings really add up and the PGFD did this well for decades.

However what stands out most, with this current issue and most in the past several years is that the Fire Chief, who by job description and the county charter, is responsible for leading and managing a combination career/volunteer department/system is clearly not doing this as well as it’s previous leaders. Anyone who has an understanding of this Department and Prince Georges County & it's real costly priorities (crime/schools) understands the Fire Chief has not figured out how to unify the Department and has few volunteer participation priorities. He seems to always be battling the volunteers and has allowed a divided career/volunteer culture to prosper.

There are few if any financially viable options other than to figure out how to work with the volunteers that are still integral to the department/system. If the Fire Chief does not work with these Departments there is likely to be a further erosion of services due to the cost impact and avaialbility of career staffing & county units if a transition to a primarily career Department were to occur.

Most of the Volunteer Departments in this list are not part of the "problems" he and past Chief's have struggled with! Most on the list are the high staffing and consistent contributors to delivering service. No one with any service or business sense would further erode these relationships. Also anyone with experience in PG, career or volunteer, cannot deny possible questions or concerns on whether the PGFD or the County can be effective or trusted to put this money back to the Fire/EMS Stations or Departments who give high performance or are providing value to the System and the County citizens.

The PGFD has little to no history in consistently "re-investing" back into the volunteer component of the Department with any real measured or trusted commitment.
These Departments and the citizens in first due areas of Laurel, College Park, Berwyn Heights, West Lanham Hills, Greenbelt and Glenn Dale they serve have reasons to be concerned.
 

There’s plenty we do. Our house tries to cook in station as much as possible, so we’re not burning fuel just to drive out to grab grub. That saves some fuel. Or perhaps how we watch our electricity, turning out lights in empty rooms. We are quite good about that. Or training as close to home as possible, by hosting courses in house. My, oh my, my station does that too. Or how about encouraging firefighters to take appropriate measures and maintain their gear properly, thereby decreasing the amount that is paid to Maryland Fire. We do all that already.

Wow! You guys are SO ENTERPRISING! County government is facing a $47 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year, and your idea of chipping in and doing your part is to cook at home and turn out lights and wash your own clothes? My goodness, all of those excellent cost savings measures should provide a cost savings of WELL OVER FIFTY DOLLARS a MONTH PER VOLUNTEER STATION!

By the way? All of those "ideas" are things you should have been doing all along, you pinhead. Thanks for providing such an excellent example of how little some volunteers actually understand macro-economics and budgeting!

What's next? Are you and Mickey and Dorothy going to put together a variety show in old Mrs. Swenson's barn? You could sew your own costumes!

Real problems call for real solutions, not token gestures.

The County executive is calling for draconian cuts - in the neighborhood of ten percent of the operational budget, you fool. Turning out lights and cooking in are not the answer, and if you think they are, you clearly live in fantasyland, and lack the basic ability to even grasp the problem the entire department - volunteer and career alike - currently faces.
 

Also anyone with experience in PG, career or volunteer, cannot deny possible questions or concerns on whether the PGFD or the County can be effective or trusted to put this money back to the Fire/EMS Stations or Departments who give high performance or are providing value to the System and the County citizens.

Government does not exist to reward high performance with a larger piece of the pie. Government is there to assure that the proper tools and adequate resources are distributed in a manner that provides the ability to deliver a consistent level of service throughout the entire community.

Government exists to assure equitable distribution of resources to meet the needs of all of the citizens in general, and in a fair and equitable manner.

While volunteer fire stations have the luxury of only looking at their individual needs, county government must practically apply limited resources to the areas that would best be served, not those who believe they should get more because they perceive that they are somehow doing more.
 

To: Four words.....GET RID OF TRIM !!!!!

What county do you park your double-wide in? Certainly not PG.
 

Wow, $47 million. Thats a lot of money. That is a pretty big COUNTY deficit. County, not FIRE DEPT deficit. A $47 million deficit is causing turmoil county wide. I wonder what would happen to the FIRE DEPT if they lost the $83 million in free service every year the vol's provide? PGFD is vapor locking because they have to cut approx. $13 million from their budget. That is roughly what their share of the deficit comes out to. Where would they get $83 million a year to cover volunteers if they weren't there?

"Real problems call for real solutions, not token gestures"

Exactly. Lets go ahead and rob 11 Vol. Dept's that are providing staffing, service, and equipment that PGFD does not have to fund. Let's take away their source of income, which in turn will cause them to decrease the level of service and increase the cost to the county over the long run. Typical thinking of this county, from the exec. to the counil to the fire chief. On a side note, they day that all the union contracts were ratified by the County Council they approved BORROWING about $300 million for various projects. That was in ONE day. Matter of fact, that was within one HOUR. $47 million for an addition to PG Comm. college. How about this, don't do the addition, and pay off the current deficit? The county has $200 million surplus, on top of the $170 million they are supposed to have in the "rainy day fund". Why not take some of that and take care of the deficit? Because it makes too much sense. Instead we are going to screw with the services that save the taxpayers $83million a year. That is exactly TYPICAL of the administration of this county.
 

Mr. Metaphor here. Not much to respond to. Amazing how everyone gets quiet when you ask them to put up or shut up.

Wow! You guys are SO ENTERPRISING! County government is facing a $47 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year, and your idea of chipping in and doing your part is to cook at home and turn out lights and wash your own clothes? My goodness, all of those excellent cost savings measures should provide a cost savings of WELL OVER FIFTY DOLLARS a MONTH PER VOLUNTEER STATION!

By the way? All of those "ideas" are things you should have been doing all along, you pinhead. Thanks for providing such an excellent example of how little some volunteers actually understand macro-economics and budgeting!

And that you, by your name calling and ignorance, have shown how little you understand how little things add up. If we cut the Maryland Fire bill in half, that’s a bit more than 50 bucks per month per house. Same with the gas. If you burn a gallon of diesel for every trip, and you save one trip a day, than that’s $150 right there.

And you’re absolutely right. We should all being do this, all the time. My question back at you is, are the paid folks doing this? Doubtful. They say “Hey, it’s not our money. Who the hell cares?”

The County executive is calling for draconian cuts - in the neighborhood of ten percent of the operational budget, you fool. Turning out lights and cooking in are not the answer, and if you think they are, you clearly live in fantasyland, and lack the basic ability to even grasp the problem the entire department - volunteer and career alike - currently faces.

The county is calling for cuts?!? What an amazing idea! Spend less money! Why didn’t I think of that. Nothing specific you’ve provided, just spend less money. Has the career side come up with any ideas for where there cutting money from? I’m not hearing much but crickets.

So once again, you’ve gotten on here, bashed some fine suggestions, called people names, and not provided one iota of evidence to back up your claims, nor provided any suggestions of your own. Yeah you’re a real problem-solver.
 

How do you figure your services are worth 83 million dollars a year in savings to the taxpayers? If the County did go to an all career department, probably the first thing on the agenda would be to close all the stations that are within 3 blocks of each other and build 1 centrally located station. Now these stations would not have to be "Taj Mahal" stations with social halls for bingo. Apparatus could be bought with just the basic items needed for a Class A pumper instead of one that is all "decked out". There seems to be a myth that the volunteer system doesn't cost as much as an all career system, but if you break it down, it costs almost as much as a fully paid department minus the salaries.
 

Let's all stop the rant and negative name calling sarcasim. It's a known fact that the County is in a serious Defict Shortfall. Why is it so difficult for reasonable people with the Basic Body of Knowlwdge and Understanding to sit down together and bring to light how each faction (Career & Volunteer) can bring about some realistic resolve to get the Fire & EMS Service back to the Level where it's supposed to be? Yes it's quite tough to bring together the Facts & Statistics with the numbers mentioned. Instead of ranting how good one faction is and how bad the other is, doesnot it seem more Professional to realize both factions make up one Department? sometimes people have to swallow their Pride to make accomplishments towards Total Accountability. You donot have like anyone within County Gov't Administration, nor anyone within the other faction. "TRUST AND RESPECT" it seems to be lacking here. There are some really important Facts that either were overlooked and/or disregarded.
(1) Post 911/Homeland Security &
FEMA
FACT: Fire & EMS Service/ 1st Responders and Emergency Services are and integral part to proect Taxpayers. Everyone who rants and
portrays how great one faction is against the other should be ashamed
of themselves. What a negative Image of Public Safety is being demonstrated withy ugly words and no mention how-why-whynot-who-when to reach some type of Acoountability for the Taxpayers.
Fact; (2) The numbers 15 and 16 have never been assigned to any Volunteer Fire Department. The number 15 was the Designation for the Fire Marshal the Late Chief Lawrence Woltz nwas "Car 15" His FM Staff used the 15 series ie; Car 151-152-153 etc. Just for the record Chief Jim Estepp had the Designation "Car159"
Fact the number 16 was designated for the Dispatchers @ PG Fire Control Board later to become PGFD Bureau of Fire & Rescue Communications.
Fact: The only Volunteer Fire Dept. to ever be dissolved was "Hillside Station 6" through their own Financial difficulties.\
 

After taking the tme to read all of the posts, I find it ubbelievable PG County is part of a major metropolitan area. All the infighting between career and volunteers is quite amazing.It seems like nobody respects anybody in this department. I guess I should thank my lucky stars I live and work on the other side of the river. After reading the posts, I don't even want to drive through PG, for fear I might get hurt or sick and nobody there cares enough to send help.Its all quite disturbing. You guys really need to step back and look at yourselves.
 

Yes, it does cost as much to run a volunteer station as it does a career station when you take away the costs of the salaries & benefits of the career folks.

However, you must also remember that in any organization where people are getting paid to work there, typically 75% of the budget is spent on personnel salaries & benefits.

Therefore, if you factor in the cost of career folks in the career station, the cost of running that station is going to skyrocket.

If the volunteers are unable or unwilling to staff units on a consistent basis then the result must be the inclusion of career staff to fill the voids. As this is done, the county & public must realize there is a hefty price tag attached for the services of career firefighters.
 

Fact; (2) The numbers 15 and 16 have never been assigned to any Volunteer Fire Department.

Funny how for people like you, "facts" adon't seem to beincumbered by reality...from your tone, you sound pretty young, and I doubt that you did much research before shooting off your mouth, but here's a little dose of reality for you: just because you don't know or understand something does not mean it never happened.

Station 15, otherwise known as the Sydney VFD, disbanded in 1926. Station 16, otherwise known as Greater Capitol Heights Fire Department Number 2, didn't last much longer...Much of its equipment went to Hillside after it folded. After a centralized department was established, the numbers 15 and 16 were re-issued.

Fact: The only Volunteer Fire Dept. to ever be dissolved was "Hillside Station 6" through their own Financial difficulties.

Oh...I guess you still consider 22 to be a viable and volunteer station...after all, it has the exact same number of active riding volunteers as 30.

In the future, I highly suggest you check your facts before you have to check your mouth.
 

Mr. Metaphor here. One of the rude posters above suggested that someone check their facts. And so I checked mine. And just so there will be no argument, this is the COUNTY issued summary of the PGFD for 2007 (weblink below).

http://www.co.pg.md.us/Government/PublicSafety/Fire-EMS/PDFs/PGFD2007AnnualReport.pdf

Several pertinent facts:
(The numbers below may have errors due to rounding, my apologies.)

Total budget of the PGFD, volunteer and career combined: approx: $117.8 million

Compensation for the career side: $64.2 million
Fringe benefits for the career side: $34.4 million
Operating expenses of the career side: $5.5 million
Capital outlay by the career side: $0.3 million
Recoveries by the career side: Approx $0.3 million
Total: $104.1 million (88.5%)

Compensation for the volunteer side: $0
Fringe benefits for the volunteer side: $1.8 million
Operating expenses for the career side: $11.5 million
Capital outlay by the career side: $0.2 million
Recoveries by the volunteer side: $0
Total volunteer: $13.6 million (11.5%)

So $98.6 million of a $117.8 million budget (or 83.7%) was pay and compensation for the career side. Now, to be fair, the career side has many paid positions that the volunteer side uses, like battalion chiefs, EMS officers, fire investigators, communications, etc. So the actual firefighting duties are only a portion of that salary number. But let’s be generous and say half the pay and benefits go to actual front line firefighters. So that’s $49 million. And let’s round off and say that those front line career folks are covering 50% of the county. So to go all career staffing, you would need an additional $49 million, or expand the FD budget by 40%.

Oh by the way, 64 million in compensation divided by the 837 paid career staff = $76,000 per staff member. I realize that there are a variety of compensation packages up and down the chain, but that number just does not look good when you consider the average person in PG County brings home about $36,000 per year (2005 census estimate).

So the next time it comes to trimming some fat from the budget, I suggest looking at the career side and their 88.5 % of the budget rather than the volunteers and their 11.5 %.

Thanks!
 

So the actual firefighting duties are only a portion of that salary number. But let’s be generous and say half the pay and benefits go to actual front line firefighters. So that’s $49 million. And let’s round off and say that those front line career folks are covering 50% of the county. So to go all career staffing, you would need an additional $49 million, or expand the FD budget by 40%.

Actually, the county could put "four on the floor" career at every single station in the county 24/7/365 by adding less than 230 more full-time uniformed personnel to the current staffing numbers. That additional staffing would only cost about $17.5 million more a year.

However, for the sake of argument, let's go ahead and run with your sloppy bookkeeping. With YOUR figures in mind, riddle me this, Batman...if, by your own calculations, it would only cost $49 million a year more to staff an all career force in the county, then how on earth could county volunteers be "saving" the county this mystical "$83 million a year" you keep spouting off about? Perplexing, ain't it?
 

Where has all the PGFD money gone to!

As a county residence I can not understand who in the county government approves of the funding for the Prince George’s Fire Department.

• Past coverage was Seven Major Battalion Chiefs (salary $125k each) limited fire coverage day only.
• Several months ago PGFD Fire Chief mandated that all battalions chief around the clock.
• So seven battalion times four equals 28 Battalion Chiefs at a cost of $3,500,00.00 .
• County promotes 21 new Major Battalion Chiefs.
• PGFD promotes 21 new Lieutenants to Captains ($100K each). Total costs $2,100,00.00.
• PGFD gets stopped in there tracks 21 Fire Fighters get promoted to Lieutenants due to cheating.
• It appears test answers were given to them and PGFD investigates and nothing is made public.
• Meantime Career Training Officer at the PGFD Fire Academy makes allegations that over the last several years he has been at the academy answers were given to many if not all personnel taking test. Again, PGFD investigates and nothing is made public.
Do we have a County Council or County Executive who care about this county!
Do the citizens care or know about this about this situation!

Other than the PG Volunteers Fire Fighters who
now have at war with County Fire waging against them. Does anybody care!

As a county tax payer can not understand who is watching out for the good of all the county residences in this county. How can the PGFD give the impression that the county owns the majority of the apparatus see below:

APPARATUS STATISTICS FOR PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY
http://www.brandywinevfd.com/index.html

93 ENGINES - 14 County Owned, 79 Volunteer Owned, 6 of the Engines are equipped with Extrication Tools

24 TRUCKS (INCLUDES LADDER TRUCK AND TOWERS)- 10 County Owned, 14 Volunteer Owned

11 RESCUE SQUADS - 3 County Owned, 8 Volunteer Owned
d
47 BASIC LIFE SUPPORT AMBULANCES - 33 County Owned, 14 Volunteer Owned

12 ADVANCED LIFE SUPPORT PARAMEDIC UNITS - 12 County Owned, 0 Volunteer Owned

4 TANKER COMPANIES - 1 County Owned, 3 Volunteer Owned, 1 County Reserve

3 FOAM UNIT COMPANIES - 1 County Owned, 2 Volunteer Owned

15 BRUSH UNITS - 3 County Owned, 12 Volunteer Owned

5 MINI PUMPERS -0 County Owned, 5 Volunteer Owned

4 HAZMAT COMPANIES - 4 County Owned, 0 Volunteer Owned

This is why Prince George's County is losing all the good county residences! They are moving away from this crap!
 

Wow...Seven major battalion chiefs. Didn't know battalion chiefs were majors.
 

Mr. Metaphor here. I’m being accused of saying something I never said.

Actually, the county could put "four on the floor" career at every single station in the county 24/7/365 by adding less than 230 more full-time uniformed personnel to the current staffing numbers. That additional staffing would only cost about $17.5 million more a year.

However, for the sake of argument, let's go ahead and run with your sloppy bookkeeping. With YOUR figures in mind, riddle me this, Batman...if, by your own calculations, it would only cost $49 million a year more to staff an all career force in the county, then how on earth could county volunteers be "saving" the county this mystical "$83 million a year" you keep spouting off about? Perplexing, ain't it?

The only perplexing thing is how you are able to write, but not read. If you look at my posts, I never mention $83 million. Ever. I take credit for my posts. I’m Mr. Metaphor! I stick by my $49 million figure.

But let’s look at your numbers above.

46 stations (44 stations right now, plus the two brand new ones they are building in the report) X (4 FFs at all times) X 24 hours X 365 days = 1,611,840 man hours per year.

One person can only work 40 hours a week with incurring expensive overtime. Plus you need some vacation and all that. At least two weeks a year. We won’t even count sick time, injury time, etc. So we’ll say 50 weeks a year of 40 hours a week means that each firefighter can carry about 2000 hours.

1,611,840 man hours divided by 2000 hours per guy = approx 806 firefighers just on the front line. No leadership, no communications, no support. Just 806 guys and gals running fire suppression equipment and BLS ambos.

You say the county only needs to add 230 to make this number.

So 806 – 230 = means the county employs 576 front line firefighters right now?

Here are my questions right back at you. Using your numbers, the county only needs to add 230 FFs. So what in the heck are 576 frontline firefighters doing right now, if the volunteers are covering 50% of time? I’d really like to know.

Further more, if the volunteers cover 50 % of the time, and it takes 576 career FFs to cover the other half of the time, wouldn’t it then take another 576 to get it all covered?

And I can’t wait until you get up in front of 1619 and tell them that they get to cover federal holidays now. Bye bye, every 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas off.

So are you the financial manager for the county? Because with your crappy numbers, that would definitely explain the predicament we’re in.
 

Okay, Sport..I'll explain, and I promise to type reeeeal slow so even you can keep up:

It takes four shifts of four firefighters to staff a station on 24/72. Say it with me: 4 x 4 = 16.

Now take the 16, and add 2.5 more firefighters to cover sick leave and vacations per station. Say it with me: 16 + 2.5 = 18.5.

Now, take that 18.5 and multiply it times forty-four stations. You do know your times tables, don't you? Say it with me: 18.5 X 44 = 814.

Now, that's 814 firefighters, right?

Now, add in a fire chief, four Lt. Colonels and ten majors. Say it with me: 1 plus 4 plus 10 equals 15.

Now add 814 and 15.

814 + 15 = 829.

now, add 7 battalion chiefs on shiftwork (that means times four) and add a batt chief for investigations, and a batt chief for training... that equals THIRTY, Right Sport?

now, 829 + 30 equals 859, right?

Now, add 12 medic units staffed with two times four shifts. Say it with me: 12 times two times four is 96, right?

Now add 18 medics for sickleave and vacation coverage: 96 + 18 = 114, right?

Now add 859 and 114. Say it with me: 859 + 114 = 973, right, Sport?

Now, add 12 support positions (aides and training).

973 plus 12 equals 985.

That's total uniformed career staffing of 985 to cover 44 stations "four on the floor" with shiftwork, plus management, leave coverage and AEMS staffing 24/7/365.

985.

Now here's the part that might be tricky for you...we need to take the current approved staffing level of 750 uniformed career personnel as listed in the 2007 annual report, and subtract that from the 985. Stick with me Sport:

985 - 750 = 235.

It would take a total of 235 additional positions to fill every existing station with 4 personnel 24/7/365.

I said 230, it was actually 235. I was off by five. Sue me.

By the way, that doesn't even take into account consolidation of 7 and 13, shutting down 11, or the other two consolidations recommended in the PSMP.

If you took those common sense steps, you could actually DECREASE your overall need by 74 positions. That takes the additional number needed down to 161.

Now, with fringe benefits, each new firefighter costs in the neighborhood of 68K/Year.

Multiply 68K times 161, and the annual cost increase is below 11 Million a year.

Dedicate existing State AMOSS funds currently doled out directly to volunteers along with the funds raised by ambulance billing, and you cut county apparatus replacement costs drastically, effectively negating your "43 Million" savings lie.

Truth be told, the actual additional cost to go all career would be under 11 Million dollars a year.

Now, according to Park and Planning, there are about 117,000 owner-occupied households in the county...Raising 11 Million dollars would require a property tax increase of $94 per household per year for an all career department.

That's less than $8 a month more per household for guaranteed fire and emergency medical service.

You may not like it, Sport. Heck, I doubt you even understand it, ..but those are the facts.
 

"Now, according to Park and Planning, there are about 117,000 owner-occupied households in the county...Raising 11 Million dollars would require a property tax increase of $94 per household per year for an all career department.

That's less than $8 a month more per household for guaranteed fire and emergency medical service."



It's only $94.00 a year? County taxpayers would probably save more than that on their homeowner's insurance premium when their insurance company finds out the fire department is professional!

GET RID OF TRIM!
 

Again the last post on the cost of going fully career is astonishing. The County, this budget year, and likely in the next several years due to revenue shortfalls, because less tax collections and the REDUCTION in the real value of property is going to have an extreme difficulty in their ability to pay for or fund the current Department's Operational Budget let alone another "11 million" to make it a 100% career.

I think the individual in the last post appears to have a good handle on basic math (and sarcaism) but really does not have real data to make an even accurate estimate on the total and real cost of an accelerated transition to a fully career department and the REAL cost of Government and the ability to add more employees to the payroll.

A simple comparison of the data in the PGFD annual report and data from peer Depts that have a greater % of career staff in Fairfax,VA and Montgomery, Md would probably give you a more accurate ballpark idea of the cost and realisitic actual staff numbers - both Departments have well over 1,000 career staff and probably less "real work load" than PGFD. Shame on PGFD and the Fire Commission for not putting real data numbers in the Department's annual report to it's taxpayers on the cost savings or cost avoidance the volunteer component of the Department provides to the Community.

This County Government does not have the funds or revenue this year and likely not for many years (decades?) to come remotely close to catching up to the likes of Fairfax & Montgomery who are still not 100% career themselves. This County also has many funding priorities that are probably well ahead of the Fire/EMS like schools, crime and general community quality of life expense & capital improvement needs that will keep growth and dollars away from Fire/EMS - again not unique to PG - happening everywhere.

The statements on eliminating TRIM and just raising taxes are also not realistic - likely made by people who do NOT live in the County and pay taxes/fees (i.e. the Voter). I don't think PG and it's 2.5% cap on tax increases has prevented it from finding other ways to collect dollars thru other "fees" and "assessments" that probably puts the overall tax burden in a place that is probably "enough" by nearly most taxpayers' opinions. Plus your customers (the tax paying citizens) ability to pay is probably stretched - simple observation from a former resident who is generally aware of where the County is today.

LIKE many of the most recent posts - the solution is fairly simple. Teamwork by the Leadership of the Fire Chief (the Gentleman who sits on top of it all - whether he likes to work with volunteers or NOT) and Fire Commission at a minimum.

PGFD is a combination Fire/EMS Department that will be combination with an integral volunteer component for many years to come. The Leadership of the Department needs to stop fighting and posturing and make PG the model combo Dept it used to be again or Dave Statter will have enough material to keep this blog growing like wildfire with material from the PGFD Combination System (at the expense of it's career & volunteer staff).

Not trying to reduce business from Dave (it's a great blog) but I would like to see the Department get the respect & admiration I remember from the past.
 

Now here's the part that might be tricky for you...we need to take the current approved staffing level of 750 uniformed career personnel as listed in the 2007 annual report, and subtract that from the 985. Stick with me Sport:

985 - 750 = 235.

It would take a total of 235 additional positions to fill every existing station with 4 personnel 24/7/365.....

Ok "Sport" that is exactly typical PGFD thinking. Now stay with ME. Of the 750 "on the books" you have to subtract the sick, lame, injured, retired on duty, admin., etc. and you have a more accurate number of around 450 actually in stations. Get out your calculator, 985-450=535. What do you know we have already doubled your number. We're done right. Oh wait, forgot something. If we go by your "4 on the floor" number we're still not right are we. What are we forgetting.......oh wait, I got it. What is that called??? OH yeah min staffing. I know PGFD has made a career, lol had to go there, out of responding on calls with 2 and 2, amb and eng/special service, or just 2 eng/special service, if the ambulance is out. To meet min staffing requirements wouldn't a station need a min staffing of 6?? Or 5 if it is an eng/amb only station, yes I know, but I like the number 6 better. It's safer, besides, someone is always off.

So now "Sport" get out your calculator again....6-4=2. That would be the number you will have to multiply by 44 stations. That comes to 88 additional personnel. 88+535=623. That is 623 additional personnel to the current compliment to meet min staffing. Now if you look at the annual budget for PGFD you will see compensation and fringe benefits =$98.6 million for the Career side. With the current compliment of 750 personnel that equals $131,466 avg per person including benefits. Ok, now your going to have to punch a lot of numbers in for this one....ready?...$131,466x623=$81,903,733. Wow, did we just find out where that $83 million or so is?

But wait, there's more. Because now if there are no vol's there are no vol houses or equipment. Now add the immediate capital outlay for 35 or so more firehouses, and unk number of engines/special services and we are now talking about what....$400 million or so to START for the career side to take over w/out vol's.

Botton line is you have no argument. There is no way this county can afford an all paid dept. Won't happen anytime in the next 15-20 years, if ever. The fire dept. budget got cut this year and will be cut for the next 2-4 at least. Ambo billing will not bring in $83 million a year. Raise taxes? Right, property taxes are higher in PG than any other county, and there are more foreclosed homes in PG than just about anywhere in the country. Where is the money going to come from? Your pockets, thats where. For every class of recruits that goes into the academy for the next 5yrs. it will come out of your pockets. Keep running your mouth, maybe the PGFD Chief will hear you and make it a 3 week furlough instead of 1 so he can hire more like you.
 

Mr. Metaphor here, with one final post.

I noted the comment below:

Again the last post on the cost of going fully career is astonishing. The County, this budget year, and likely in the next several years due to revenue shortfalls, because less tax collections and the REDUCTION in the real value of property is going to have an extreme difficulty in their ability to pay for or fund the current Department's Operational Budget let alone another "11 million" to make it a 100% career.

I think the individual in the last post appears to have a good handle on basic math (and sarcasm) but really does not have real data to make an even accurate estimate on the total and real cost of an accelerated transition to a fully career department and the REAL cost of Government and the ability to add more employees to the payroll.

That is the smartest thing said on here by any side. I don't think anyone (including myself) has the numbers in front of them to get an accurate picture or what an all career PGFD would cost. One pro-career poster said $11 million, a pro-volunteer person said $80 million, and we've heard other guesses in the middle.

However everyone agrees on one point: a combination system is more cost-effective than a purely career system. And so long as volunteers are more cost-effective, in this pseudo-capitalist system we call our economy, they will continue to exist. Love us or hate us, get used to us because we've been here for while, and we will continue to be here for quite some time.

And if you seriously think we're going to roll over and let the PGFD collect money off our donated hard work, you've got another thing coming.

Metaphor out.
 

Ok "Sport" that is exactly typical PGFD thinking. Now stay with ME. Of the 750 "on the books" you have to subtract the sick, lame, injured, retired on duty, admin., etc. and you have a more accurate number of around 450 actually in stations. Get out your calculator, 985-450=535.

First, those numbers already counted uniformed firefighters in administrative positions, and contained a buffer of 2.5 positions per station (over 15% of the available workforce) to assure leave and sick coverage. That's a total of over 110 positions.

Civilian administrative positions (logistics, apparatus maintenance, inspections and some of investigations along with clerical and professional: 88 more active positions total) are outlined in a different reporting figure, and do not count against the current authorized strength of 750 uniformed.

Second, in order for anyone to believe your premise, you would have to believe that there are currently 300 career firefighters on IOJ. That's nearly half of the workforce. That not only a patent lie, it is also idiotic.

The numbers work. You are either too stupid or just plain unwilling to open your eyes and admit it.
 

More on cost for "Sport". Both Fairfax & Montgomery protect more people but their service levels are far less than PG. The 11 million number is really from oversimplified math and planning - again not real data here - obviously from someone who has never had the responsibility for managing people or money and projections for Government or the private sector (hopefully NOT). Remember PG Government cannot find 13 million to sustain current Department? Things are going to still get worse before they get better again - the real estate "bubble" bursting is going to challenge Governments everywhere, especially in place like PG that has been hit hard, to run real lean due to the tax collection challenges.

See web links below - both FFRD & MCFR have career staff of 1300 plus and budgets of 175 million or more and still have varying levels of volunteer participation contributing to services.

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fr/deptinfo/overview.htm

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/firtmpl.asp?url=/content/firerescue/organization/index.asp

PGFD career staff and operational budget would probably have to increase closer to 50-60 million more at a MINIMUM to provide adequate service and staffing to run this Department as "primarily career" (volunteers still not gone). Back to the point - the solution here is for the Fire Chief & Fire Commission to roll up their sleeves and get to work (leave EGOs at the door) and recapture PGFD rightful place they used to be as one of the most well known & resourceful Combination Fire/EMS Departments in this Country. You can't dictate or punish to get back to this position of past success you have to LEAD.

As a foot note The Fire Chief & Fire Commission should put a number to the volunteer contribution & participation - it's only fair to the taxpayer and all who make up the Department/System that is PG (career & volunteer).
 

The point was not to present 230 more career as an operational plan, the point was to show the utter fallacy of statements that volunteers save taxpayers 86 million dollars a year.

The simple truth of the matter is that for $11 Million a year more...which equals a 7% increase in the Department budget,each station would have "4 on the floor" career coverage 24/7/365.

That point was proven. I know you don't like it, and would do anything possible to try to refute it, but the county could adequately career staff all stations for $11 Million.

Also, thanks for finally admitting that PG does more with less than neighboring jurisdictions, even though it blew a big hole in your previous statements regarding mismanagement.

Final point here...the Chief and the commission shared a positive working relationship(at least under Strine....we'll see how much cooperation Alter can promote)they seem to be working to resolve this...the egos that need checked seem to be the volunteer station chiefs...they are the stumbling block to efficient management of resources throughout the county. While they actually control a miniscule portion of the overall county resources (less than 5%), they consistently act as if they call the chots on a much bigger level
 

" It would take a total of 235 additional positions to fill every existing station with 4 personnel 24/7/365.

I said 230, it was actually 235. I was off by five. Sue me.

By the way, that doesn't even take into account consolidation of 7 and 13, shutting down 11, or the other two consolidations recommended in the PSMP.

If you took those common sense steps, you could actually DECREASE your overall need by 74 positions. That takes the additional number needed down to 161.

Now, with fringe benefits, each new firefighter costs in the neighborhood of 68K/Year.

Multiply 68K times 161, and the annual cost increase is below 11 Million a year."

“Sport” here is where you really want to analyze your numbers/figures. You have closed a station (11) with an engine & ambo doing over 3 k in runs that has a fair amount of free volunteer labor that would be redistributed to other stations that in theory would have only “4 on the floor” and also consolidated two stations that also have sizeable run totals with one of those stations (7) that again provides a fair amount of free labor to get a suppression unit and ambulance on the road consistently. These 74 positions would not just go away!

Isn’t the County opening 3 new all career only fire stations also – see PGFD annual report. One of these stations is a career super station by PG standards because it will have an engine, ambulance and two special services. These three stations will require 60-70 new career staff alone and the personnel need to adequately staff them will not cost just 68,000 per position annually. Plus “4 on the floor” ONLY does not cut it for staffing in PG due to high call volume for Fire & EMS. As a previous post stated earlier in an all career PGFD you would likely need “5 or 6 on the floor” in every station with 8 in the station with four pieces of apparatus.

Back to the real math & planning error in your figures – 68,000/yr cost per each career staff expansion position is a serious and gross under-estimate. PGFD career staff is very fairly compensated Department in comparison to DC metro peers – this number sounds closer to the gross salary cost of the FF/medic with 1-3 yrs on the job. I don’t have the data but do your homework to see how much the gross salary (for each FF/Paramedic, Technician, Lt/Capt), federal & state taxes cost (how much PG pays in FICA), insurance (health, life, unemployment, etc), an overtime allowance of 10-15% at least and the real kicker the PENSION cost liability that PG provides so you can have “20 and out” and have 2/3 pay & benefits until you die. These total costs are likely to be in the range of 2 to 2.5 times that actual salary cost for each position.

Retired FFs who jump out after just 20 years could easily collect these salary & insurance benefits funded by PG taxpayers for 25-35 plus years easy making what the County has to sock away pretty large to fund it in the future. What career staff has stayed in the Department past 25 years lately? Oh and by the way even before you get any raises or regular step promotions – this is where your math is overly simplified – these costs increase every year due to inflation, the cost of benefits especially health insurance, etc. The estimate of 136,000/each career staff position a previous post had taken from 2007 report is probably a bit high since the majority of the very top brass is filled out but if you populate the data above with real numbers with properly researched data you would get a number that isn’t likely to be that much lower than this 136,000 per each career staff position.

And to your point- YES everyone in the PGFD System, the career & volunteer staff alike, should be commended for doing a lot with modest financial & operational resources. But remember all that you can have is primarily a function of what the Government has the ability to pay – the County is struggling to find 13 million this budget year to fund the PGFD System NOW – forget about an additional 11 million, 25 million, 50 million, etc we are all tossing around in this hypothetical all career department. The FFRD & MCFR comparison numbers are probably are not too far off the mark for your primarily career Department unless you want to continue to dream up numbers that look much better for your point of view.

Lastly, I did find an “official” PGVFA number of 26 million in annual savings on their web-site. It doesn’t clarify how they get to this number but maybe this is the “career salary” direct savings. It’s really hard to put numbers to indirect costs like apparatus, their own stations and other things that are community direct services the VFDs provide that the taxpayer does not directly fund thru their County tax bill.
 

(yawn)

Like they say, never try to teach a pig to sing. You just get frustrated, and you only annoy the pig.

Staffing costs do not escalate..they remain fairly constant. As personnel retire, you promote from your ranks, and hire at the lowest level. Even an idiot like you should know that.

The salary quoted was for entry level...which is what would be hired to fill station-level firefighter positions. Station officers and management would remain constant. And, the UNION funds the pensions, Sport. But, from your sloppy research so far, you would never be able to figue that out either.


It seems that all you want to do is to "guesstimate" the highest number you can pull out of your butt, and babble incessently about it.

Dave, this guy clearly doesn't get the point, and the conversation is getting boring and repetetive. Can you post something about Jerry Engle to liven things up again?

I'm out of here.
 

and the real kicker the PENSION cost liability that PG provides so you can have “20 and out” and have 2/3 pay & benefits until you die. These total costs are likely to be in the range of 2 to 2.5 times that actual salary cost for each position. Retired FFs who jump out after just 20 years could easily collect these salary & insurance benefits funded by PG taxpayers for 25-35 plus years easy making what the County has to sock away pretty large to fund it in the future.


You need to shut up and quit attacking things you clearly know absolutly nothing about. PG taxpayers do not pay retirees. Employees pay a portion of their salary into a pension fund throughout their entire career. This pension fund is maintained outside of county government, and it is administered by the firefighters union. When a firefighter retires, their retirement pay comes entirely from this pension fund, and no county funds are spent at all on retirees. Sit down and shut up. You sound like an idiot.
 

Check out this page for the fringe benefit costs funded by the County - look at Fire Retirement line item IDIOT. Yes this is how you are going to get paid once you retire. The county taxpayer has to contine to put dollars into it once you retire smarty pants.

http://www.princegeorgescountymd.gov/budget/Budget_2005/opr_bgt/Budget_Overview/pgs_III-11_Fringe-Benefits-Costs-Sum.pdf

I read the last two posts and for a second and I thought maybe there was some magical funding source that paid for all of those benefits once someone retired. But then came to my senses and did a quick check to see if some data was out there and I don't feel that stupid anymore - what is the 2008 line item for Fire Retirement & LOSAP???

Yes my friend the county taxpayer does fund that lovely pension. I got to say I do not know how 1619 & PG County administers it but if you do indeed do it outside of Government kudos to the local- it gives your members more control. Sound more like a 457 fund though. I see escalating cost 30% from FY '04 to FY'05 - wait until the retirements of all of the new command staff with high salaries start hitting this line item.

I'm sure LOSAP costs have risen also and I know many 1st & 2nd generation career guys also collect on that too from prior or post PGFD vollie days - it's fair they earned it. I'm not really against ya here - I believe you've earned the money but you all should be pro combination because it's win win at the moment given the County's ability to pay!(that's my position).

I agree - this post is getting boring when ya start thinking like an accountant or actuarial and understand true costs and realities start to make it too realistic.

I think Engle is done for awhile - based on what I saw last on this blog or TWD he is hanging out with the shift men at 13 maybe they can keep him straight. Remember career folks can be just as entertaining - heck look at the venerable Boston Fire at the moment - really sad & scary and a shame to the fire service as a whole. There is bad stuff & people everywhere stop thinking it's only someone else.
 

Dave, How low can someone go? This anonymous piece of trash has now sunk to attacking firefighters pensions to make a political point. What is he trying to say? After somebody gives almost a quarter century of their life dedicated to risking their life protecting their community, they are being too well compensated by receiving the retirement they were promised when they took the job? Or is he insinuating that retired firefighters are living too long and don't die soon enough for his taste? My God, how low can one person sink!
 

"I'm not really against ya here - I believe you've earned the money but you all should be pro combination because it's win win at the moment given the County's ability to pay!(that's my position)."

I think I said "you earned it" and no I hope you have a great 2nd career or retirement after you leave the PGFD - just like to debate real facts. This volly of posts went away from "Ambulance Billing" and providing or fairly distributing "public funds" to the affected VFDs (based on the financial & intrinsic value they provide) to a debate of the true cost of career staffing and how much the PG County taxpayer can afford now and in the future. These are directly related to the issue at hand because how this issue and other VFD issues are handled can easily have a negative impact volunteerism.

The initial attacking came from others when I started to provide "back-up" on why 174 (or 235)additional personnel would likely cost a lot more than 11 million dollars and suggested that the cost of FFRD & MCFR provides a realisitic ballpark number for a similiarly sized primarily career department.

I am not "anti-career" - emotion & politics aside - the County Fire Chief & Government Leaders will incur more cost the more they irritate & drive-off their VFDs participation by their actions and they do not have the dollars to replace VFDs (just the personnel) now or anytime in the near future.

A rapid deline in volunteer participation could easily become a negative for the career staff if you really objectively look at cost implications - i.e. the ABILITY TO PAY.
 

The bottom line is that the county has serious issues. The emotions contained in this thread and on the watchdesk overshadow a lot of the realities out there, and underscore the dysfunctionality of it all.

1) I think everyone with common sense can agree that the most cost-effective way for this department to proceed over the next 20 years is through a well-managed, COHESIVE, combination department.

2) That being said, the volly contingent seem to be oblivious to the fact that their arguments about cost savings are counteracted a bit by the fact that there are a number of extraneous stations in the county; stations that a competant county government would have stopped funding years ago. Consolidating or relocating stations to fill area gaps and follow the eastward shift of population would make a more effective force, but the county can't do that because of resistance by volunteers only concerned about their own first due.

3) It's also unclear why/how the county continues to accede to demands by volunteer companies to maintain/fuel extraneous apparatus, when the county has commissioned several studies that show that the department probably has 25-30% too many pieces of apparatus.

4) The best way for this department to run is probably through having a countywide volunteer contingent that can be redeployed like the career staff is. Yeah, it might trample some "traditions," but this ain't 1964. You can count on one hand or fewer how many current volunteers at each station live in their first due. They're coming in from surrounding counties (or states) to volunteer, does it REALLY matter if they're working in College Park or District Heights? It might matter to them, but the chief has to look at the bigger picture.

5) This chief is a complete and utter joke. Make no bones about it. The volunteers have squandered just about every last bit of local political capital they have in Upper Marlboro. Jack Johnson has committed to cutting the budget, even laying off people, in every field except public safety and education. If this chief wanted to "get rid of the volunteers," he has a willing and able county council willing to back him up. He hasn't gone there yet, which is surprising because he and his senior staff go out of their way to make business impossible for the volunteers, hoping they'll go away, and instead, the county is stuck trying to pay the operating costs, and staff, a bunch of old stations with 3 engines apiece.

6) While all this infighting goes on, the fact remains that a competant chief would look at the county, where the calls for service are, what type (fire suppression, BLS/ALS) of calls there are, and map out the station locations and apparatus needs, and rebuild and redeploy as necessary. They've already started doing so with the relocations of 8/20/21/26/40/42/45 coming down the pike.

7) At a time where the PGCVFRA and the Fire Commission were working together on a unified approach to addressing needs, you've got massive resistance from the volunteer rank/file. At some point, the volunteers have to recognize their role in all this, and work towards a positive conclusion that recognizes the realities of the present-day situation. You've got the entire county government, most of the municipalities, the public, the politically powerful, and the county council on one page, and a bunch of non-county resident volunteer fire fighters on the other page. Someone has to bridge that gap and get everyone working on the same page, which is providing fire AND EMS service to the ENTIRE county.

It's a tough situation, and everytime one side does something right, they follow it up with three wrongs. Someone needs to step up and get above all the pettiness. The onus would seem to be on the paid staff, the professionals, and those who volunteer in their spare time should be given a little leeway, but all the petty crap that comes out of 1619, Basil Ct, and the volunteer masses needs to just stop, and I'm not sure a leader exists that can cut through it all.
 

As a veteran of the vollie/paid wars of the 70s in Fairfax County...I can see it coming. This is the opening shots in a war to move the volunteers out. Ok fine. I say, lets jump the shark here and all the volunteers should stop responding....right now. This minute. Now what? The countys hands are tied by the law restricting their taxing authority. How you gonna pay for an instant hiring of 400 paid firefighters? Thats alot of cash PG doesnt have and is not likely to have in the next hundred years or so. Not to mention the extra apparatus, fire stations etc? I would suggest that PGFD are about to shoot themselves in the foot here. The volunteers need to go to the press and make their case directly to the voters and explain. YES there has been bad actions on BOTH sides of these issues but right now, PGFD is the laughing stock across the country after all the kentland mass.

Call volume up, volunteer revenues down, tax revenue down..sounds like tough days ahead in PG Co.
 

It would seem to me that with the county DEMANDING that the volunteer stations run a ambulance and now refusing to allow for billing of that service, they are attempting to make the volunteers in to SLAVES. How would you like it if you were told you WILL work this job, and we wont pay you for it? Not many people like working for free.
 

You ticks are idiots...The county fuels your units at no cost, Ticks might own the building but most of the everyday items in it is bought by the county for you and you still find a way to complain even though the county repairs your crappy buildings and units. You are all a bunch of freeloaders that are dirty, jobless, and put no value towards society. God bless a chief that hates you all. Now we taking more of your money to speed up the fade of the volunteer system... Oh and just knowing that your tick ambo money is going into the general fund makes the contract raises we got just that sweeter. "Prevention before no response ensures all the ticks have to find a new home"
 

Going to the public is the LAST thing the volunteers need to do. If they think that the public knows them as the noble public servants who do the job for free, they've got another thing coming. Most of the time, their services aren't appreciated, unfortunately. There are a LOT more people upset at the volunteers for refusing to run ambulances than there are who are happy about the "free" labor.

What the volunteers need to do is find an adult to represent them. Someone who isn't mentally stuck in the 1960s, who lives IN Prince George's County, and who can make the arguments FOR keeping them in an ADULT manner. Someone who is willing to cut loose the deadweight from the volunteer ranks, and who is willing to acknowledge, accept, and strengthen the operation of a combination department.

You'd have to be blind not to see the natural attrition of the volunteer companies. 6 is gone forever. 22 and 30 are gone. 26 only has a chief. 8, 21, 23, 40, 42 are on the losing end of an argument for staying in their own private quarters. Over 2/3 of the stations require day staffing, and nearly half require 24/7 staffing. The biggest attractor of volunteers is fire suppression, and fires are at a historic low in the county while EMS calls (a volunteer's nightmare) are at an all time high.

As the Vegas money runs out, and volunteerism dries up, the county is going to have to have a plan to replace stations as they go offline; they can't do this when you have volunteers running around acting like they don't answer to the chief, or whining about the PGCVFRA or the Commission. It's 2008. It's a JOKE that this county even has to rely on a single volunteer firefighter. The largest county in the United States with a combination department that has more than 10% volunteers.

People are on here arguing about running ambulances, who has legal authority, who can bill for ambulances, and intra-departmental crap; things that most other fire departments solved 30 YEARS AGO. If you look at it from an uninvolved, unemotional position, it really is a joke that we're even dealing with these things in 2008. The county has been dropping the ball on something that is their legal, political, moral and ethical responsibility since the 1960s.
 

This statement in the previous posts about "volunteers not wanting to run ambulances" is NOT the case? This article and blog are about the Fire Chief and County Executive immediately removing a funding source from THE VFDs that ARE providing EMS service including paying for the rigs. Stop talking about fuel, apparatus, insurance, the stations, etc - career or volunteer anywhere in the USA - these are typically funded by taxpayer monies - irrelevant to the discussion.

Some posts allude to last years stand-off with Kentland by slapping the label on VFDs saying volunteers do not want to run ambulances – this is NOT the case with the affected VFDs or relevant to the point being discussed. Kentland and the other VFDs that do NOT provide BLS transport services do NOT receive career personnel for suppression staff which is a significant cost avoidance to the taxpayer especially if they consistently staff multiple units. When Depts like Kentland no longer provide service then you either replace them with career staff or close the station. A few “pro-career” folks posting on here apparently do not like this and just seem aggravated or pissed that they even continue to exist.

How this Kentland issue was handled was a really embarrassing example of poor Combination Department leadership that probably cost the PG taxpayer way too many additional tax dollars to "contain Kentland to their 1st due" as punishment let alone the negative PR for PGFD & Kentland. Didn't this Fire Chief NOT commit in writing to providing 24/7/365 career staffing/funding for this EMS unit until his hand was forced? I agree that the Fire Chief needs to be “in charge” but this kind of crap did not happen when Estepp or Edwards were in charge – examples of very good Combination Fire Service Leaders.

This "EMS billing issue" is another failure of the Department and County political leadership to figure out win- win solutions, especially relevant when you don't have the dollars to walk away from your VFDs and can't really afford the costs to maintain services. Most Departments affected by this latest conflict (Laurel, Laurel Rescue, Branchville, College Park, Hyattsville, Bladensburg, Berwyn Heights, Greenbelt, Riverdale, West Lanham Hills and Glenn Dale) are consistent contributors to providing Fire and EMS service to their respective communities and the County as a whole. Why this Fire Chief has allowed this to become another PR nightmare is nuts – he probably has his hands full & empty budget bucket while trying to provide Fire &EMS services in areas where previous VFDs are no longer the primary folks to provide consistent and adequate services or new areas of growth.

The previous post with: “God bless a chief that hates you all. Now we taking more of your money to speed up the fade of the volunteer system... Oh and just knowing that your tick ambo money is going into the general fund makes the contract raises we got just that sweeter” is really low and unprofessional and should send any honest person or taxpayer thru the roof. This comment made me look at the post with the path to the FY 2005 County Budget. The cost of JUST retirement liabilities for career staff of $12.76 million dollars is nearly equal to the total operational & fringe benefit taxpayer cost of $13.62 million dollars in the FY 2007 budget for volunteers. The cost to just pay the retirement salary of your current & future retirees is nearly more than the cost of your volunteers and they appear to still provide alot of the service in may areas. Seems like a simple business decision to me - funding performing VFDs is alot less expensive than the alternative.

PG County seems to be very far from having the financial means to replace VFDs. Someone better get this combination Department working in PG again or “as the Fairfax Veteran stated above “Call volume up, volunteer revenues down, tax revenue down..sounds like tough days ahead in PG Co.”.
 

"This article and blog are about the Fire Chief and County Executive immediately removing a funding source from THE VFDs that ARE providing EMS service including paying for the rigs."

Dave, this is EXACTLY the type of blatant misinformation that comment sections on blogs are chock full of.

Truth be told, while volunteers continue to attempt to pin much of their woes on the current county fire chief, the present situation is none of Sedgwick's doing.

The leadership representing the volunteers requested, and were granted, the ability to negotiate with the County directly on the ambulance billing issue WITHOUT the fire chief being in the loop.

During those negotiations, the volunteers were offered a generous piece of the revenue pie, and stupidly turned it down out of pride.

The fact is, the negotiations on distribution of revenue broke down because the volunteer leadership stubbornly resisted all sensible requests that they submit to standard accounting and bookkeeping practices, and that a clear and documented system of checks and balances be put in place to account for the distribution of funds.

This situation is clearly of their own making. I suggest the volunteers quit trying to blame this one on the fire chief. In this case, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
 

I agree that the Fire Chief needs to be “in charge” but this kind of crap did not happen when Estepp or Edwards were in charge – examples of very good Combination Fire Service Leaders.

Time for a little history lesson for you youthful "revisionist historians".

Estepp was chief when Tuxedo Cheverly VFD slid kicking and screaming out of existence, and Station 22 became the career flagship.

Does Seat Pleasant ring a bell for anybody? The standoff at 51? That was under Steve Edwards, as was the exodus of volunteers from Oxon Hill.

How about the standoff at 7? I seem to remember the Riverdale Mayor forcibly ejecting volunteer firefighters from the city-owned building because they took the ambulance out of service and HID it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that occurred under the watchful eye of the volunteer's favorite "teddy bear", Ron Siarnicki.

How soon some forget. These issues are constant...and they all seem to begin with volunteer organizations attempting to dictate operational policy.
 

As long as the volunteer companies try to pretend they are individual fire departments, and not companies in a countywide Fire and EMS department, they're going to lose every time. They might win a battle here or there, but they lack both the apparent understanding and perspective to win these types of battles.

The VFDs have persisted whereas in Fairfax and MoCo they have slid away because of political power they earned through Vegas-laden donations. Those politicians aren't around anymore. That money isn't around anymore. The political leaders don't see the volunteers as the selfless public servants doing a good deed for the county that MOST of them are; they see a bunch of whining, older rednecks that represent an earlier era of Prince George's County that the current council would just as soon forget ever existed.

A lot of this is a simple lack of awareness about where they volunteer, and that demonstrates another shortcoming: volunteerism works best when you're out there serving your OWN community. What we have in Prince George's County is a bunch of guys with a fun hobby.

If you're in it because you want to serve your community, or even serve the larger public, that's usually a good starting point. The legions that come to PG Co because they want to be aggressive interior fire fighters are really REALLY missing the point.

The current administration is not helping the overall growth of the department by coming up with petty and unprofessional ways to piss on the volunteers (though the previous poster hit it on the head about the breakdown of ambulance billing negotiations). However, if the volunteers wanted to rectify the situation and get to a position of mutual respect and team spirit, they'd elect and nominate representatives to the PGCVFRA and Fire Commission that have some sort of experience in civic affairs in the County, that have some sort of experience working together with current members of the county council. Diversity isn't putting the boat lady on the commission, it's biting the bullet and finding someone with experience in a combination system to come here and try to work things out.

Pride cometh before the fall. Those of you privy to what went on in the negotiations: think about it. You gave up a compromise position that the county was NOT legally obligated to offer because of your pride. You made yourselves look like callous jerks in the communities you "serve" in because you whine about running BLS. Think about who is suffering when you constantly inflate your volunteer staffing totals, then fail on calls.

Career guys. Spend less time worrying about worthless IAFF resolutions and making fun of ticks and try to learn from some of these older guys before they're gone forever. Stop hiding crack in chairs, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on redundant support staff at battalion chief and above.

Get the job done, and stop jerking the citizens around.
 

The fact is, the negotiations on distribution of revenue broke down because the volunteer leadership stubbornly resisted all sensible requests that they submit to standard accounting and bookkeeping practices, and that a clear and documented system of checks and balances be put in place to account for the distribution of funds.


Time will show that this statement is completely false. Stop spreading lies about issues in which you have no knowledge of. Time will show the truth one way or another.
 

This may or may not be the issue with BLS billing, but the issue of accountability is a HUGE reason why the department is so dysfunctional.

Outright lying about staffing numbers is a biggie. Every year, we hear how the PGFD is undercounting volunteers, and every year, nobody comes up with defensible data to counteract it.

The end result is that we have a county that, despite all its issues, is one of the more affluent counties in the United States, has 850,000 residents and a multi-billion dollar budget, that DOES NOT KNOW HOW MANY FIREFIGHTERS/EMTs it has.

Simply unacceptable. And it's not a stretch to see negotiations breaking down because a bunch of volunteer leaders who can't seem to accurately count the men and women they are responsible for sending into fires and report them honestly to the county whose chief has responsibility for ALL of them want to be able to independently keep track of the incoming money.

It's easy to see how this type of independent operation can impact quality of service. It's interesting that some of the more money-conscious VFDs haven't started trolling for BLS calls like they used to do for fires. I can see it now....call for a person in medical distress in your first due, and you're 15 miles away in the parking lot of an old folks home.

This BLS funding issue is just more indication of a total lack of reality. We have one fire/EMS department in Prince George's County. That's the legal, financial, political, and professional reality. There are areas for compromise (less restrictions on fundraising, more oversight over station/maintenence funds) but not when people are polarized and trying to retain independence.

Of course, one way this situation can resolve itself is if the municipalities want to take over responsiblity for Fire/EMS.
 

"Time will show that this statement is completely false. Stop spreading lies about issues in which you have no knowledge of."

If you were right,then why did the county executive offer sit down to the table with the volunteers in the first place?

If you were right, then why did the volunteers walk away from the table?

The county executive's hand was clearly forced in this matter to take such a drastic action.

I'm sorry, but the logical answer isn't the lame excuse that Jack Johnson "hates volunteers".

The only logical conclusion any reasonable person can reach to understand why Jack Johnson chose to issue the executive order is because the volunteers left the table without agreeing to a resolution, and the volunteers refused to stop direct billing for transports.

Time will tell THESE facts to be true....either way, it's likely headed for the courts now, and it's not likely to end well for the volunteers.
 

PG an "affluent County"? - may have a large budget but has many real needs way beyond fire/EMS. This is clearly a money & fairness arguement - dollars are being removed from volunteer corporations and placed into a huge general fund while the County funds provided to support (& grow?) VFDs in the PGFD budget are relatively small and flat - basically 10% of the total.

The fast growing cost is the career staffing component - much of it necessary where VFDs can't provide the primary service for various reasons but there are no good reasons to irritate & choke off dollars from VFDs that are still a part of many of the communities and contribute and avoid the largest cost you incur people.

Money is the main culprit here. As long as I can recall money has always been a problem for PG and high crime & significant challenges for the schools are more similiar to a city than an "affluent county". Forget the arguement about retirement costs - the fringe benefit line item for career is nearly triple the total outlay to VFDs. This career staffing cost will not shrink and will need to grow pay for career staff as stations and areas need to transition.

The earlier references to Estepp & Edwards bring up the an interesting point - even though it's a challenge to be the Chief of a Combination Department they LEAD and managed it as one Department (at least that what it seemed or looked like).

They had their battles with the VFDs as all Chief will(wrong or right) however basic Trust & Respect (not always happy people) were still there at the end of each day and they both promoted the System as one Department. Current PGFD website & Annual Report barely mention that many active VFDs even make up a a fairly large portion of the Department/Services and no mention of their contribution other than the pictures of the apparatus the VFDs purchased. Estepp promoted success (career or volunteer) any time he could (sometimes to criticism) but this is smart whether you like him or not.

The fact that these particular VFDs felt they could not work direct with this Fire Chief or outgoing Fire Commission is a huge red flag. The career folks have also had their fair share of really embrassing screw ups in the past several years that are as serious of any of the VFD examples mentioned.

No one in the public cares whether you are career or volunteer when they dial 911 as long as someone show up in a timely manner and does a reasonable job. The Public Safety Director & County Executive need to follow thru and start looking at overall (career & volunteer) accountability, which includes rewarding contributors no matter who they are!
 

"No one in the public cares whether you are career or volunteer when they dial 911 as long as someone show up in a timely manner and does a reasonable job.

I'm a citizen in PG. "Timely manner" and "reasonable job" are the actionable phrases here. While there are some good volunteers in PG, in too many instances, volunteers in the county fail to meet those critical "timely manner" and "reasonable job" expectations.

I AM concerned about the quality of response, and I am concerned for my safety, the safety of my home, and the safety of my family. I know for a fact that paid crews are vastly more reliable than volunteer.

I appreciate that volunteers augment the paid force in the area where I live, but flat out, I expect the professionals to be in charge, and in control.

Animal control has a lot of part-time volunteers too, but for goodness sakes, they don't run the shop there. Why on earth should they be permitted to run the shop in the fire department?
 

Prince George's County has the 49th highest average household income in the United States (out of approximately 3,600 counties). Now, maybe the dumbasses that voted in TRIM can look at the schools and the public safety issue and realize exactly WHO is not pulling their weight.

The situation is getting ridiculous, and as Jack Johnson gets nearer the end of his second term, and with 8 of the 11 councilmembers about to be term-limited out, don't be surprised if some MAJOR changes come about.

With the disparities in apparatus, staffing, volunteer levels, and the differing levels of sheer, plain competence between companies, one way to solve the problem is to simply have one volunteer staffing component: if you want to volunteer in Prince George's County, you volunteer FOR Prince George's County, and you get stationed (like in a real fire department) at whatever station needs your services.

Another option that will make things much more bearable and easier for the inevitable transition to come is consolidations. The county leadership may have the occasional administrative problem with 9 or 33, but they can COUNT on those two companies to get the apparatus out the door, fully staffed. Some areas of the county are a complete joke: between 5, 8, 17, and 38 you have enough volunteers to maybe man one station for a week. 1, 11, 12, 14 when school's not in session? Similar case.

The funny thing about this debate is the complete lack of reality and cognizance of what is going on. The volunteers are technically employees of Prince George's County. Every station in this county that has career staffing is a county work location subject to oversight by OCS. The county is the only legally authorized entity allowed to bill for BLS service. Sometimes, the volunteers are lucky that there are even negotiations.
 

This whole ambulance billing issue will be all but forgotten by early next week. Just wait - the next shoe is about to drop.
 

Jack Johnson wants the money from ambulance billing to bail out PG Hospital.
 

You hit the nail on the head. All this arguing back and forth was for not. Jack Johnson is playing every paid and volunteer. The paid employees of PG will see furloughs in about 4 weeks. Money will be taken from every budget he can think of. You will soon see who is on the inside and who isn't. Maybe we need to go back to the county government before 1970. Before 1970 PG had a Board of County Commissioners. You won't believe what is about to take place. You be happy just to have a job. You better make nice with any volunteer in the county. I don't care what job they do because PG is about to rely on them heavily all the while the people at the top keep getting their pay checks.
 

Ha ha ha! That about right! Brother this brother that, you fire department people need to get it straight. I need about 10 volunteers to help me do my job. And you complaint they are taking your job away. Tell that to dudes that don't have damn job, you ungrateful SOBs. That is all they are. Half the damn firemen who get a pay check don't live my county. I live here, work here send my kids to school here so don’t sit there and pretend to tell me that we don't need volunteers. The last thing anyone in my county needs is more taxes to pay so you can go around with your shiny ass cars and pretty ass white shirts telling us who struggle to who survive in my county we need more firemen who get paid. Yes, my damn county I live here. My fire department is the Boulevard Height Volunteer Fire Department, not some county something fire department. Has been and always will, you with the county patches just get a pay check and go home every day. It is hard to get men to volunteer their time but my men and ladies down at the firehouse GET IT DONE.