Supervisors add fire, emergency medical tax

The fire and EMS taxes in 2018 total 1 mill

EAST FALLOWFIELD » As volunteerism continues to decrease nationwide, supervisors added a fire and emergency medical tax to next year’s budget to help fund new equipment and to assist with EMTs’ salaries.

East Fallowfield supervisors voted 3-0 on Tuesday night to approve the additional fire and EMS taxes in 2018, with Supervisors Carol Kulp and Ed Porter absent. The township tax is currently at 1.25 mills for general millage. It was raised to 3 mills total, which includes 2 mills general millage; 0.44 mills emergency medical services; and 0.56 mills fire tax millage. Most of the 1 mill for emergency services will go toward capital funds, such as replacing outdated fire apparatus and toward the salaries of the EMTs.

East Fallowfield Township, which doesn’t have a fire company in town, is covered by nearby Westwood and Modena Fire companies.

Westwood Battalion Chief John Sly explained that with less and less volunteer firefighters, it’s requiring more paid staff members. Westwood and Modena both have two EMTs scheduled per shift and the fire companies are covered 24 hours a day for seven days.

“It’s been a long time coming. This has been a multi-year project that we’ve been working on, trying to get additional funding for the fire departments. There have been a couple different municipalities involved for tax purposes. I know it’s a difficult decision for the board to make to raise taxes,” Sly said to the supervisors during the meeting and he thanked the residents for their support. “It just shows that the board has acknowledged the importance of emergency services to the residents by doing this, and I want to thank you very much for

“It’s been a long time coming. This has been a multi-year project that we’ve been working on, trying to get additional funding for the fire departments.” — Westwood Battalion Chief John Sly

making that difficult decision of doing the right thing to help increase the level of care being provided.”

During a nine-year span with an increase of 28,000 residents living in Chester

County, there was a 13-percent decrease of volunteer firefighters in the county. Currently, there are 1,332 volunteer firefighters in Chester County, down from 1,831 about 15 years ago, according to county emergency services officials.

There are now 85 fulltime paid firefighters employed throughout Chester

County. Volunteers constitute 70 percent of the country’s nearly 1.2 million firefighters, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

“We talked about the lack of volunteers we have for the fire service. We can’t even get people to volunteer for Park and Rec,” Sly said. All five positions on the

township’s park and recreation board are vacant.

Modena Fire Chief Frank Dowlin echoed that there is a decrease in volunteerism and said that the amount of training to learn the basics of firefighting is a time commitment. He agreed with Sly and said that there are fewer volunteers, making it more difficult to provide

coverage without having paid staff members.

“Volunteers are dwindling,” Dowlin said. “I haven’t had a junior member in about six years.”

Sly and Dowlin thanked the supervisors for adding the tax. Supervisor Steve Herzog thanked them for their service to the community, and Supervisors Wilson

Lambert Jr. and Randy Doan echoed his sentiments.

Visit Daily Local News staff writer Ginger Rae Dunbar’s blog about journalism and volunteering as a firefighter at FirefighterGinger.blogspot. com.