Volounteer Pay

[JGallagher]

I know that not all departments get a pay. Ours does and well we had a talk the other day about pay and I want your opinion of some of this. They way that it is is that we get a stipens of about $168. This is paid twice a year, half in June and the rest in December. As it works now we are paid by the call by the hour. As it is now it dont really matter who shows up if they call your company or not. It could be a MVA clean up and no company was called you show up you are paid.

What is being looked at now is a point system. This being points towards the end of the year stipens. What would happen is that you get a point only if it is your company called and you show up. They are looking at 1 point for every 2 hour call. You still get your hourly volounteer pay, but if you show up and it is not your company then you dont get that point, only your pay.

At present we have 4 companys. They are A, B, C, D. If it is a small call then they will call 2 out. Though if it is a big call then it is a 10-10 or what you would call a major fire call.

What are your thoughs on this?

You can e-mail me or PM or if you dont with to post here!!

[Whitewater_419]

I'd have to ask our station captain to be sure, but IIRC, we have a certain number of minimum training meetings we have to attend in order to qualify for the full yearly stipend / honorarium.

[bfrd22]

We are paid per call, Hourly rate, one rate for training, one rate for calls.
Each member has a time sheet that is filled out for time and has to be signed off by an officer. All calls rounded to the next hour so if your only out for 1.25 hours it's a 2 hour call.

You get paid for time in, so even if you only get in to help clean an put units back in service you get $ for the hour you were there. Others may get the 3 hours for the call.

There is no set monthly pay or honorarium just for being a member, and if your attendance is not with in guidlines you can be terminated. (usually you go before the executive board for disiplinary action).

It works just like a part time job. As a matter of fact we are all listed as part time town employee's

A number of depts in our area work this way and it works very well.

[Jeff67]

At the department that I work for in BC , We are classified as paid on call members. That means that we get paid for the calls that are paged out to us. We have four halls in our department and if my hall gets paged then who ever shows up gets paid. If a person does not respond to the hall for the page out then they do not get paid. We do not get paid if we do not show up. We get a two hour minimum call out. For practices we get paid for three hours once a week , that is as long as we show up for them..

[TiSme]

We operate much the same as bfrd22. However we do not do the time sheets. That is looked after by the officers.

[wilderness]

We have 4 meetings a month 2 are manitory if you make your two meetings a month you area paid $50.00 being given it at year end
We are on call for a one week period, where you can,t be more then 5 minutes from the hall unless working. you are exspected to respond if a call no matter what it is, if its your week.... now if its a house fire all platoons respond
We are paid $18.00 dollars an hour with call minium pay being $18.00
If you make all meetings you are given $600.00 at the end of the year, our fire calls are direct deposit once a month

[WFD999]

Still Broke :eek: No Cash :p Un-paid ;) I'm not trying to be a jerk here but if your are getting paid are not a employee and no longer a volunteer? I know some of the amounts you guys are talking about isnt much. Buy its payroll all the same. How big is the tax base in your community that it affords payroll? Is all your gear up to date? Correct me if Im wrong, JGallager in a earlier post did you not say your departments running a 35 + year old unit. JGallager I'm not pickin on you. You started this thread and I'm using you for a bit to make my piont (Promise I'll put you back in one piece). Lets just say that if you have 20 members each getting $600.00 per year thats $12,000.00. Thats a pretty nice deposit into a truck reserve account. JGallager I hope that was painless for ya. Thanks

[JGallagher]

I belive it is that old!! I am not 100% sure.

[bfrd22]

WFD999: To answer your question. the Official Clasificaton of the Dept is Part Time unmanned. But you see, people, as a general rule only reconginze Full time or Volly. And I have put in way more hours for free than I get paid for.

As far as equipment. We are right where we should be, Bunker gear is on a 7 year Rotation. SCBA, bottles are upto date on Airflow testing and Hydros and we are also on a replacement cycle on packs, bottles and Currently switching over to the new Fibercomposite, We have 4 rigs on service, 2001 E-One 6 man custom Cab, 1500 gpm w 800 gallons; 1998 Frieghtliner / Superior Topmount Enclosed 1250 gpm w 1100 gallonw of water. 1980 Chev/Pierce 16 ft walk in heavy rescue. Just went thru a level 2 referb and our faithful 1980 Chev / Superior 1050 / 500 reserve brush unit.

We work hard to get what we have and are fortunate to have a community around us that recognizes the importance in good equipment and well trained emergency services. Interestingly It suprising how many people think we have a full time station and we aim to keep it that way.

[WFD999]

And I have put in way more hours for free than I get paid for. Never doubted it bfrd22. That goes for all you guys. With your deparment classification thats whole differnt twist on honorarium's and getting twenty bucks a metting. Sure it would be great to get paid. Be it beer money or something nice for the wife for putting up with being woke up at three in the morning because of the tones. All that said our education, bunker gear the trucks the BA and all the rest of our tools should be up to snuff. Before we draft a check because those are the pieces that make sure we get to go home to that wife and family after each call.

[bfrd22]

Oh we treat the Spouses also.. They have organized themselves in to a support group of sorts. They get together once a month for a nice dinner, movie night, Bowling and they get together to help oganize family / special events. We call it the Fire Dept Auxillary for lack of a better term. The events that they plan as a group are Funded by our Fire Fighters Association. Just our way of saying thanks.

[WFD999]

Very Cool :cool:

[firefighter9calt]

In our dept. we get nothing for pay. Everything we do is for free. We have 2 meetings per month, a general meeting and an officers meeting. We train every Monday night except for hloidays. Over the last few years we have averaged 125 calls per year. We also do our Major training ie. MFR, Hurst, and controlled burns on Weekends. We have 8 pieces of Equipment ranging in age from 1987 to 2004.

[Michael13]

that is true volunteering! I dont need that check every year, it doesnt amount to very much. FF's probably loose money. The extra gas, insurance on vehicles, wear and tear accounts for a bit when you think of it. Plus the time lost, if you wanna put it that way, missed family events. But thats why its called volunteering.
we providing a service to our community. I cant picture myself without it. I love it, it's a passion.

[Hamp42]

When I first joined it was all free time and no money. We have since went to a paid on call system very similar to bfrd22. We do however, get an annual honouraium and are paid quarterly. Training sessions are paid as a session and not hourly. There is no pay for being on duty call week (waiting for a fire call in town limits, unless you have to work).
As Fire Prevention Officer, I do all my FPO stuff for free during the year.
Our trucks and gear are all up to standards and we have a new fire hall. Oldest truck is a 1982 tanker (was refitted in 1998, next to be replaced in 5 years).

[Whitewater_419]

Wilderness already pointed out our pay system, so I won't rehash it :)

When I joined the dept, though, I took "volunteer firefighter" literally - When our hall captain asked for a blank/void cheque and a direct deposit form to be filled out, I was surprised as all heck that we got paid for this stuff :)

As WFD pointed out, we also put in a *lot* of unpaid hours. Not just post-call and monthly meetings, but the Association events, too (Pancake Breakfast, Christmas Parade, Demolition Derby).

We were at one structure fire on a river-side where I was on the frozen river with another FF for about 4 hours, minding the porta-pump - hardly the most glorious of jobs, but someone's gotta do it. After about hour three, with the required amount of bitching about what a boring task this was (thank Ghu our bunker gear is toasty!), we both agreed that despite some of the crud jobs, we'd *still* do it for free if pay wasn't an option :)

[DFCSmash]

We get $10.00 per meeting attended regardless of the length. $10.00 per hour for calls. Pd to the half hour. As Deputy, I get $120.00 per year. The Chief gets $240.00 (rich bas***:D ).

The trucks are old in years, but with one exception, (1971) all perform right up to snuff. Rest of equipment is ok. Built a new hall in 2003. 6 bay 7000 sq ft, plus 2400 sq ft mezzanine. Turnout gear on rotation. Hose on rotation.

But I remember getting my first fire cheque in 1983. Asked the training officer what it was for. Amazing. All these wonderful toys, and they pay us too?! Coooool! I don't look at it as pay anyway. I think of it as clothing allowance for all the decent clothing I've turned into shop clothes or shop rags over the years. Most I've ever made was probably $800.00 in a year. And I never missed a call that year.

Councils put about $10,000/year into a fire reserve. It built our hall and will purchase the next pumper next year. Then will come the "truck rotation" Won't be an easy sell, but that's why we get the big bucks. :D :cool:

[dougemt]

We are a small town in rural Sask. and get very few calls each year. It is nice to offer the boys just a little bit of added incentive to come to training sessions, so they know what to do when that odd fire does happen and our town council tends to agree with that. We get $10.00/hour for training as well as for fire callout, paid 3 times/year. All our gear is up to date and we participate in fund raising efforts (unpaid) to help pay for equipment that the council turns down. I agree the term volunteer indicates that one should not recieve pay, but we look at it as a re-imbursment of hours lost from work. It doesn't amount to a whole lot, but it's a small price to pay to ensure you have trained personnel doing the job!

[mcleodkent]

I come from a hall that did not recieve any pay. But we are now paid on call. It's really not bad pay either. We get paid an hourly rate when we are at calls, meetings, practices, and weekend duty crews. The rate depends on the rate of training that you receieve. I think I am up to about $19 something. Plus I also get a $75 a month honouriam for being a Lieutenant. So when said and done by the end of the month, I get about $200-$350 a month.

So? does this make me a professional firefighter? No. We still consider ourselves volunteer. I think the proper classification to use now is, Volunteer and Career. And trust me we still do a lot of work that we don't get paid for.

And No we don't have to put our money back into the firehall for better trucks and so on we are lucky enough to get that all paid for as well.

Ps we don't do like a thousand calls a year either. about 120 - 140 a year.

[Snider]

at our hall we get 50% of a starting career firefighter wage on an hourly rate. Does not amount to much, and some of that will be going into different funds etc.