A bill to facilitate the consolidation of local fire districts was advanced by an Assembly panel on Monday. The legislation was sponsored by Assembly Democrats Herb Conaway, Troy Singleton and Tim Eustace.
“Allowing fire districts to consolidate is a means of reducing costs for municipalities, which ultimately benefits taxpayers,” said Conaway (D-Burlington). “The voluntary, streamlined and transparent procedure for which this bill calls will help districts navigate the consolidation process.”
The bill (A-3006) would establish an optional procedure for consolidating fire districts. Under the legislation, two or more municipalities would be permitted to consolidate fire districts provided the commissioners of the districts adopt resolutions consenting to the development of a consolidation plan, which would be required to include a first-year budget for the consolidated district.
Upon completion of the plan, the governing body of each municipality would be required to hold a public hearing to discuss consolidation and subsequently vote on a resolution to consolidate. Should the resolution pass, the consolidation would become operative after the next fire district election following the final adoption of the consolidation plan by at least 29 days. New commissioners for the consolidated district would be elected at that time.
“Fire district consolidation will yield long-term savings for taxpayers,” said Singleton (D-Burlington). “This legislation will lend some direction to municipalities and those fire districts that believe this is the best direction for them to take.”
“All across the state, municipalities are looking for ways to cut costs without compromising quality of life for their residents, and fire district consolidation can be one of those ways,” said Eustace (D-Bergen/Passaic). “By requiring the development of a plan and requiring municipalities to vote on that plan, this bill establishes an open, ordered route for local governments to take should they choose to consolidate.”
The bill was released by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
[TLS]
Great idea. Next let’s do the BOE’s.
Good idea…… UNLESS it’s YOUR house on fire and you have to wait longer for the FD to get there.
They should do the same for board of education. No reason why every town needs one it should be every county has a board of education, imagine how much $$$ it would save.
They are missing the boat..they would save lots of money if they combine fire companies. Let there be one fire company not 5 like Lakewood has. it would make a better response time and be way more efficient.
Well, good thing lakewood is already in compliance!! We only have one Fire District! Consolidating fire districts doesn’t mean cutting firefighters, equipment, apparatus or delayed responses! If done correctly money would most definitely be saved or spent more on fire related rather than FAT!
hg,
You are misinformed. Lakewood has one Fire Department that operates under one Fire Chief and his 2 assistants. The key words are Department and Company. The 5 Companies you refer to are all part of the same Department, in addition to the 2 career Companies that are also part of the Lakewood Fire Department. It should be obvious that you need multiple companies in multiple locations to adequately cover the township. (Just an FYI, Company/Station location is determined by a 3rd party insurance company.)
You also don’t seem to understand how the Fire Department is dispatched to fires, who covers what etc.
How would having one company result in faster response time?
You are correct that there is one fire district and one chief, but ask any FF and they will tell you how frustrating it is that there is 5 separate fire companies each with its own chain of command. There is no real interaction between companies. A member from one company cant walk into the building of a different company nor respond to a call from a different station if he is closer then his home company.Even more so, if he wants to transfer from one company to another he must start the process from scratch. its a broken system