Speak Out: Should Springfield Have A Volunteer Fire Department?

A Part-time/Volunteer Springfield Fire Department is a good first step in actually reducing our taxes for a change. About 2.5 million in salaries benefits saved equals reduction in our taxes.

Why fund the salaries we are presently paying, not to mention a fortune in longevity benefits, pension, overtime, medical and time off when we can staff our firehouse with part timers, have the same or better coverage at a fraction of the cost?

We cannot afford to pay "big city" salaries for our extremely slow department. Towns in our area cover fire protection on an all volunteer basis w/o issue; why are we still following a model that is not feasible or affordable?

If we do not look for ways to reduce our burden, increase efficiency in our town government our property taxes will continue to rise pricing residents working double and triple jobs out of their homes. There is NO GOOD REASON not to transfer our FD to all part time with a volunteer compliment.

Slow towns of our size cannot afford to pay salaries that rival and surpass large, busy departments that do more than the 3 or 4 calls daily (and 3 or 4 actual structure fires per year at the most) our dept does.

Residents, lets gather our ideas and ask our elected officials to streamline our emergency services to create a model that makes sense in today's difficult and uncertain financial times.

I don't understand how it is acceptable for our FD to make the money they do and have such a small workload while we all work several jobs to keep our homes and do without.