Why does a city have a volunteer fire department? The primary reason is the tremendous cost of the manpower. From a recent job posting, the City of Huntsville had a job posted for firefighters ranging in salary from $35,000 to $53,500 per year. For the sake of easy math, let us say $40,000 is the annual pay for a small town firefighter (realize this also doesn’t account for experience, level of certification, or seniority due to rank). Then you add employee benefits (insurance, state retirement, worker’s comp) of around 40% and you are up to $56,000 per person. Then you have, at a bare minimum, 9 firefighters and 1 chief. Those 10 people are 3 firefighters per 24 hour shift, and one chief, covering an entire city from one station. How realistic does that sound? The City of Decatur has 8 fire stations with more than 3 on shift at one time. Anyway, those ten firefighters would cost $560,000 per year. Our nearly 40 member department would cost the city $2.24 million per year. That doesn’t include the operating cost for the trucks/station/equipment. Per the year 2000 census, the Town of Priceville had only 1631 people living in it. Imagine the taxes those 1631 would have to pay… When you start looking at the numbers, you can see how much of a service a volunteer department provides.
Why do all of the people listed in the “Members” tab volunteer? We don’t get any pay or any tax breaks from the state. Despite that, it is easy to answer: being able to help someone in need makes everyone feel good at the end of the day. It is infectious. It has an effect on your mind, body, and soul. Besides that, you become part of a social network of truly fine individuals. You get to learn new skills to apply to your life. You earn the respect of those around you.
Click on the picture next to this article and open it in another tab. This is a commercial recently aired on television. It had such a powerful message that it got me off the couch and right to the computer to share with you. It demonstrates the necessity of giving back to the community. Although we here at PricevilleFire.com are partial to the volunteer fire service, there are many ways of giving back. You can feed the hungry, read to the elderly, coach a little league team, help the local Habitat for Humanity, teach CPR with American Heart Association or the Red Cross, volunteer at your church, or any other function that fulfills the needs of those around you. There are so many, it would be hard to list them all. In these poor economic times, there are many foundations looking for support with many more that need the support. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Like the commercial says, “Don’t almost give…”
Why do all of the people listed in the “Members” tab volunteer? We don’t get any pay or any tax breaks from the state. Despite that, it is easy to answer: being able to help someone in need makes everyone feel good at the end of the day. It is infectious. It has an effect on your mind, body, and soul. Besides that, you become part of a social network of truly fine individuals. You get to learn new skills to apply to your life. You earn the respect of those around you.
Click on the picture next to this article and open it in another tab. This is a commercial recently aired on television. It had such a powerful message that it got me off the couch and right to the computer to share with you. It demonstrates the necessity of giving back to the community. Although we here at PricevilleFire.com are partial to the volunteer fire service, there are many ways of giving back. You can feed the hungry, read to the elderly, coach a little league team, help the local Habitat for Humanity, teach CPR with American Heart Association or the Red Cross, volunteer at your church, or any other function that fulfills the needs of those around you. There are so many, it would be hard to list them all. In these poor economic times, there are many foundations looking for support with many more that need the support. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Like the commercial says, “Don’t almost give…”
RSS Feed