Pone: Fire districts have taxpayer spending problem
HAMILTON » The township’s big government fire service is spending so much taxpayer money that former councilman Dennis Pone called it “a runaway train” and urged Hamilton Council “to not let this get out of hand.”
With the township’s nine autonomous fire districts collectively operating on a nearly $28 million budget — a 14 percent increase over 2016 budget levels — Pone said he believes “we are getting in a situation where there is a problem.”
Pone, a Republican who lost reelection last year to a fourth term, delivered his remarks Tuesday night at the Hamilton Council meeting. He hammered the Democraticled governing body on the issue of fire district consolidation, saying, “This is an issue near and dear to my heart, because I put so much time into it.”
This year, Hamilton Fire District 5 and Fire District 8 have each hired four new firefighters with consolidation on the horizon. “I’m disappointed. I’m seeing carte blanche. I’m seeing a runaway train,” Pone said. “I’ve put my heart and soul into this for years and this is not what we were expecting.”
Council Vice President Jeffrey Martin, a Democrat, called Pone out for failing to consolidate the fire service last year. Hamilton Council in fall 2016 gained the legal authority to transform the township’s disjointed fire service into a unified department. Pone for much of 2017 served as Hamilton Council president.
“You, sir, had more than 12 months” to make consolidation happen, Martin said in response to Pone’s comments. He said he understands Pone’s concerns but suggested Hamilton Council under Democratic leadership is making “good progress” on the legally complex process of consolidating the fire service.
Hamilton’s two professional firefighter unions initiated the consolidation process in October 2015 by collecting petition signatures in support of the cause. The FMBA unions by November 2016 secured 9,000 signatures, successfully meeting the legal threshold for Hamilton Council to proceed with consolidation.
The New Jersey Division of Local Government Services in January 2017 released its much-anticipated Fire District Dissolution Study that talked about ways of consolidating Hamilton Fire Districts 2 through 9, leaving District 1 off the table due to it having “unique bi-county jurisdictional authority.”
In September 2017, the township’s FMBA unions endorsed the Democratic candidates for Hamilton Council. The union leaders accused Republican Mayor Kelly Yaede of “stalling” the consolidation process and said the all-GOP council at that time was serving as “the rubber-stamp of the mayor.”
In November 2017, the Democratic trio of Martin, Anthony Carabelli Jr. and Richard Tighe won election to Hamilton Council, leading to Pone’s ouster and the Democratic takeover of town council.
In a lame-duck session on Dec. 7, 2017, the all-Republican council passed a non-binding resolution recommending the township to opt for a municipal fire department in 2018. Then on Dec. 19, 2017, Hamilton Council during Pone’s final days in office passed a resolution “memorializing the unanimous sense of the Hamilton Township Council supporting the creation of a Municipal Fire Division upon the dissolution of Fire Districts 2 through 9.”
Martin, Carabelli and Tighe each assumed office on Jan. 1 and pushed Republican council members Ileana Schirmer and Ralph Mastrangelo into the governing minority. The Democratic trio on Feb. 6 verbally expressed their intent to soon consolidate Hamilton’s disjointed fire service into a municipal fire department that services the entire 40-square-mile township, basically endorsing the Republican resolution.
Carabelli, serving as council president, flexed his leadership muscles at that Feb. 6 council meeting by announcing the creation of a bipartisan and diverse subcommittee tasked with the duty to produce a consolidation ordinance within 90 to 120 days.
The next step for Hamilton’s fire service to be unified under one entity would require Hamilton Council to pass an ordinance on first read by a simple majority vote and then submit a proposed fire budget to the state’s Local Finance Board for review. Upon securing state approval, the council could proceed with passing a pro-consolidation ordinance on second read.
The current governing structure of Hamilton’s fire service is an antiquated, decades-old arrangement that divides the township into nine autonomous fire districts. Each of those nine districts is governed by five elected commissioners, and all 45 of those commissioners collect taxpayer-funded salaries.
In addition to the big government structure, Hamilton’s fire service at present is not necessarily arranged to always deliver the fastest response time to an emergency. Hamilton FMBA Locals 84 and 284 from the beginning have said consolidation would improve public safety for firefighters and civilians and would promote efficiency. Mastrangelo on Feb. 7 emailed Carabelli with an urgent request, saying: “I believe it would be prudent for you, as Council President, to request in writing that all of the fire districts impose a hiring freeze (unless to replace a retiring member) and a moratorium on large capital expenditures. These actions will facilitate the ability of the subcommittee to develop plans for the municipal fire department.” Carabelli did not heed Mastrangelo’s advice, and a small turnout of voters passed the 2018 budgets for all nine fire districts in Hamilton’s Feb. 17 fire commissioner elections, including the budgets of Fire Districts 5 and 8 to hire new employees. The township as of April 1 had 131 career firefighters, including five fire chiefs, according to a salary sheet obtained by The Trentonian. The township in recent years collectively had 107 career firefighters and 78 volunteers serving in Districts 2 through 9, according to the state study that was made public in January 2017. Shane Mull, president of Hamilton FMBA Local 84, on Tuesday blasted that study for having “inconsistencies” and Fire Chief Steven Kraemer of District 3 said the state failed to provide documentation supporting the dissolution study. Kraemer also defended the hiring of eight new firefighters, saying the DeCou and Colonial fire companies needed guaranteed manpower support in an age where volunteers sometimes prove to be unreliable. If the fire districts imposed a hiring freeze, people “would be complaining, ‘My house burned down. What are you going to do about it?’” Kraemer said Tuesday at the Hamilton Council meeting. Kraemer also suggested the township needs more career firefighters to secure “adequate” fire protection around the clock. He suggested the township’s professional firefighting force is currently not adequate in size. In an interview with The Trentonian, Councilman Mastrangelo said the township’s FMBA union leadership recently suggested the township needs 169 career firefighters to guarantee adequate service. The township’s police force currently comprises 169 sworn officers, but the police department responds to 50,000-plus calls for service in any given year compared with the approximately 6,000 calls for service
that Hamilton’s firefighters tackle on an annual basis.
Mastrangelo, a retired Hamilton cop, at Tuesday’s council meeting said the township’s firefighters “do a tremendous job” but added he has to “look after the taxpayers” as
a councilman.
Mayor Yaede in her 2018 State of the Township address said she looks forward to “receiving an ordinance from the council that will save taxpayer dollars while delivering even better fire services.”
One of the issues that makes consolidation more complicated is some of Hamilton’s fire stations are owned by the districts and some are owned by the volunteer fire companies. The volunteer-owned Colonial Fire Co. at 801
Kuser Road requires over $4 million in repairs, according to Netta Architects’ evaluation of the existing building’s condition. Building a new firehouse probably makes more financial sense, Councilman Martin suggested.
After Pone delivered his public comments Tuesday, the three Democrats on Hamilton Council all championed consolidation as a way to realize cost-savings.
Tighe said he will only vote on a consolidation plan that “increases public safety and
saves us money.”
Carabelli said his focus is on “providing the best service at the lowest cost,” and described himself as being “kind of fiscally conservative when it comes to the taxpayers of this town.”
Martin said he is “not comfortable” with introducing a consolidation ordinance at this time while big-ticket items remain unresolved. However, “I think we made some good progress,” he said. “Some of these legal issues we have to address.”