Fire District Budget to Remain within Cap

FirestationThe Lakewood Fire District approved a 2015 budget within the 2% cap, Fire Commissioner Larry Loigman tells TLS.

Staying within the Cap however, means things will be tighter.

“We will be able to maintain our services, and even make some improvements, but it will be a very tight year from a financial standpoint,” Loigman says.

The Fire Commissioners will be holding a budget hearing at their next meeting, next month.

[TLS]

This content, and any other content on TLS, may not be republished or reproduced without prior permission from TLS. Copying or reproducing our content is both against the law and against Halacha. To inquire about using our content, including videos or photos, email us at [email protected].

Stay up to date with our news alerts by following us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

**Click here to join over 20,000 receiving our Whatsapp Status updates!**

**Click here to join the official TLS WhatsApp Community!**

Got a news tip? Email us at [email protected], Text 415-857-2667, or WhatsApp 609-661-8668.

9 COMMENTS

  1. So the man sent in to curb alleged run away spending is now telling us that things are going to be financially tight. Maybe it’s time to stop bashing our Fire Department and give them the support they need. Our fire budget is a fraction of other fire districts and is barely covering (not even) much needed repairs and equipment. At the end of the day the bottom line tax effect on the individual is negligible amounting to a few dollars a year. Some have made it seem as if the fire budget will raise taxes on the individual by hundreds. This is not true! What’s a few more dollars when it comes to protecting lives and property. Some claim the department is over spending. Again, not true! Come down to any fire house in town. We’ll be glad to show you the malfunctioning apparatus and equipment. No, we don’t buy a new truck every time something cool comes out (someone actually asked me that!). The 70 plus volunteers are all dedicated individuals with no motivation other than to serve and protect their town. We don’t care for all the polotics. We all want to go home at the end of the day having perfomed the best we could. To do that we need working reliable equipment and an understanding community. Please support us this upcoming budget vote. Remember, we’re trying to protect your lives and property.

  2. Ok , the budget is going up. In the event that the budget fails to get passed what is going to happen to service and how do you replace the radio equipment that need to be upgraded?

  3. To Just asking,

    What happens is what happened in the past. The Fire Department won’t have a working budget and won’t be able to perform at its best. It’s that simple.
    That is why we’re asking that everyone vote for the budget.
    Donations, from those willing and able, go along way too. This town used to be able to raise thousands from a population of 30,000 people. Now, we’re lucky if we barely get a few hundred dollars from a population of 100,000. If every family donated approx $25 it would help tremendously. Please keep that in mind.

  4. This is a very misleading headline. The fact is that our taxes are going up to support the fire budget. Mr. Loigman was elected because he promised to LOWER taxes. We were told that there were hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasteful spending in the department. So where is it? Please change this headline to a more truthful one, namely, taxes are going up to support the fire budget.

  5. The lack of taxes paid does affect the budget of the town and their emergency services. There is no way around it. More residents More Taxes..you want more services, you have to pay more in taxes. If you don’t like it, stop moving here. The streets are getting smaller, the population is exploding and the houses are getting bigger, what do you expect to happen. I read someplace a few years ago in Lakewood the population is going to top 250k people in 24.6 square miles..what do you think is going to happen. There is no more room and we dont have any more space. Everything Lakewood has is either been bought, in the process of being bought or someone is already building on it.

  6. To jbw
    I am sure what your saying is true , however I think it needs to be explained as when someone who is not knowledgable looks they see a fire house on Monmouth 1 and Monmouth 8. Rt9 and pine. By the stadium. These are 3 minutes driving. Why do we need all the 5 locations. would love an explaination.

  7. Hey Sammy,
    The Firehouses are located so that they can respond quickly.
    I would like to see you drive from RT9 and James to Monmouth Ave in 3 min you must be doing it at 3AM not during the day.

    The locations of these Firehouses are set by insurance industry with these locations our home owners insurance rates are lowered.

    Lastly you are mixing Firehouses. One is a paid station, one is the Hook & Ladder, the other is a Volunteer station.

  8. To Sammy,

    You mention 4 locations.

    Monmouth/8th and Cedarbridge (across from stadium) are the career (paid) companies. These were built relatively recently and placed independently of the other companies to cover each side of town.

    Monmouth/1rst and Rt9/Pine are volunteer companies. These companies were built close to or more than a hundred years ago. At that time they were placed based on the size of town then, volume of calls etc. Although all these years later Lakewood has expanded considerably and it would perhaps be more intuitive to have fire houses built further apart it would be prohibitively costly to close down and rebuild new fire houses elsewhere.

    Regardless of location, the number of fire houses we have are required for a town (really a small city) of Lakewood’s size. While we want to be more spread out we also need to take in to account the concentration of town which will need more resources as opposed to the more spread out parts of Lakewood e.g. Indusrial park etc.

    Placement is based many factors (aside from having been built many years ago) and is not just a matter symmetrical distance from each other.

    I hope this answers your question somewhat. There is always an answer for something that appear unnecessary to the untrained. Fore more info/question you can email: [email protected]

Comments are closed.