Transcript Abbottstown & New Oxford Fire Companies Merger Membership Meeting 6/8/08 WORKING TOGETHER FOR

WORKING TOGETHER FOR
OUR FUTURE
Abbottstown & New Oxford Fire Companies
Merger Membership Meeting
6/8/08
1. Definition of merger. As defined by the PA legislative
Budget & Finance Committee’s feasibility of regionalizing
PA’s volunteer fire companies, June 2005.
In its simplest sense, a merger occurs when two or more
fire companies legally resolve to become one entirely new
entity. Typically, the largest of the involved parties
becomes the surviving entity and assumes all liabilities and
assets of the predecessor organizations.
Mergers between fire companies may be the logical result
of companies that have a history of cooperation, for
example, through contractual agreements or automatic
mutual aid. Company officers may through experience
come to see the benefits of cooperation and agree to extend
the relationship by combining resources to enhance the
capabilities of their organizations and their mission.
Mergers may be undertaken for various reasons.
Typically, mergers are undertaken to improve
and/or equalize fire protection throughout the
service areas of the merging departments. For
example, two departments located within a few
miles of each other in a rural area may
contemplate merging due to the recognition that
they are competing for the same resources. If
one or both of the companies is experiencing
manpower or financial difficulties, combining
their assets may be a way to alleviate those
problems. The closing of stations is not usually
an immediate result of a merger, as more efficient
and effective utilization of manpower is often
one of the goals sought through merger.
Introduction
• The first meeting on this topic was held
Monday April 12, 2004 amongst various
members of five area departments.
The five departments were:
• Abbottstown
• East Berlin
• Hampton
• Irishtown
• New Oxford
WHY ARE WE HERE
1.
The April 12, 2004 meeting opened with a
question from Dale Reichert and Kevin Moul
from Abbottstown Fire Co. asking:
“Where is our department going to be in 10
years?”
From that, other questions came about, such
as:
“Is our hall making us any money?”
“Is it worthwhile to invest money in our hall to
make upgrades if we aren’t making money?”
“What are our alternatives?”
The original question was posed to each of
the individual departments, “Where are you
going to be in 10 years?”
Where it went from there
In late 2004 the five departments
all agreed that now was not the
time to try to join together 5
departments. The East Berlin
and Abbottstown Fire Companies
then spent about 2 years looking
at a consolidation.
Things
seemed to be progressing but at
the eleventh hour, East Berlin
voted at their meeting to
discontinue the venture.
In December of 2007 the incoming
officers of New Oxford informally ask the
officers of the Abbottstown Fire Company
if they would consider revisiting the idea
with them. At both Companies December
meetings the membership voted to revisit
the merger idea. The first meeting was
held in January 2008. At that meeting it
was decided to ask the Irishtown Fire
Company if they also wanted to be
involved due to their close proximity to the
area. Also at that meeting we visited pros
and cons of moving forward.
• Neither AFC or NOFC is currently
in any financial difficulty at this
time…
• We are not closing either station.
• We have a 2 year plan of replacing
or renovating the Abbottstown
station.
• We are not looking to make this a
paid department.
• We will not be lessening the
services offered.
The Positives
• What we are looking to create is a
more efficient emergency services
partnership for the common good of
the communities involved.
Benefits of Merger
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
More efficient use of resources with
improved services.
Elimination of duplicated equipment.
Cost reductions through volume
purchasing and combined equipment
planning and maintenance.
More efficient personnel allocation.
Unified training and operational
guidelines as well as standardization.
Potential ISO (insurance rating) rating
improvement for the community
resulting in lower homeowners
insurance costs.
8. Regionalized public information and
education programs
9. Improved planning including fire
protection master planning and the
strategic location of specialized pieces
of apparatus and equipment.
10. Potential for improved response times.
11. Centralized fire service management
and reduced administrative costs and
personnel.
12. Reduced need for fundraising which
time can be transferred to more
important needs such as training and
equipment maintenance.
Personnel
• Problems were acknowledged of having
problems with recruiting new members and
keeping the interest of the ones we already
have. We discussed putting a team together to
bring in new members who are willing to take
trainings and be involved in the departments.
• Retaining members – several larger
departments offer LOSAP, a program designed
to give volunteers a “retirement plan” after a
given amount of years of service,
• With a larger group, new friendships will be
created.
• With new developments popping up all over the
area, there could possibly be a person assigned
to working with planning commissions on
building codes and water supplies.
• The addition of The York Water Company into
Abbottstown will increase the development
potential of our respective response areas.
• As a group, difficult positions to fill could be
done through one person to cover all
departments.
TRAINING
• At our initial meeting each department spoke of
having problems getting members to show up for
training. When you bring together members from
two departments, you can do much more training.
• Training leads to safer fire ground operations.
• The time is coming where you may have to be
certified to be a firefighter, similar to required
certification for an EMT to provide patient care.
Better training could better prepare our personnel
for when that time comes.
Note: Grant applications request info about how
many personnel are FF1 certified. Points are based
on this information. The more trained personnel we
have, the more likely it is that we’ll receive grant
money. That means less time fundraising.
Training Continued
- A diversified group of people with
different professions and experience will
help each member with different views
of how to handle situations.
- Expanded EMS/Ambulance Service with
potential for more income
- The need for an excessive amount of
fundraisers could be much less with
greater support from municipalities, thus
relieving personnel from time spent
raising money and could spend time
training and with our families.
- We are more likely to gain community
support by working together amongst
ourselves.
• We feel this would be taking a huge step
for volunteer fire departments.
• We would be asking our members to be
willing to put aside hundreds of years of
“Tradition”, hard work and countless hours
that went into the individual departments for
the betterment of the communities we serve.
•
Our goal is for our members to be able
to do more training and provide quality
emergency services with less time spent
doing fund raising to prevent burn out of our
members
•
•
•
•
WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT WHAT IT IS
EXACTLY WE WANT TO ACHIEVE
We discussed the previous experience
between AFC and EBFC.
From that we learned it is much easier, more
cost effective and timely for one or more
departments to merge into a parent company
than to consolidate into a new company.
We discussed the geographic area.
A merger between the 2 companies would
mean they serve the following municipalities:
– 100% coverage - New Oxford Boro,
Abbottstown Boro & Berwick Twp
– 90% coverage - Oxford Twp
– 70% coverage - Hamilton Twp
– 50% coverage - Paradise Twp
– 15% coverage - Mt Pleasant Twp &
Straban Twp
3. Creation of a new organization.
- Combined colors and station identity.
- more efficient use of resources
- new department number 33?
- new department name
member contest
- improved service levels
- reduced apparatus needs and reduced replacement costs
- centralized fire service management and reduced
administration costs
- new single set of by-laws
- new single set of training requirements and SOG’s
- single pager activation
4. Officers.
The new department would operate under
one set of officers for both fire and
executive sides of the business.
Fire Officers:
- Chief, voted
- Deputy Chief, voted
- Asst. Chief, voted
- Captain(s), voted
- (2 or 4) Lieutenants, minimum of 1
from each station, appointed
- Chief Engineer, appointed
- Fire Police Capt and Lt – appointed
- EMS Officer, appointed
Executive Officers:
- President, voted
- Vice President, voted
- Treasurer, voted
- Secretary, voted
- Asst Treasurer/Secretary, voted
- (3) trustees, voted
The relief association would enact the same
administrative officers as the fire department.
5. Accounting
The new organization would downsize bank
accounts down to (3) accounts. They would be
fire department, firemen’s relief and EMS.
Their would be a complete re-evaluation of all
fundraising activities to reduce the amount of
activities and only do fundraisers that create a
large enough profit as needed by the budget and to
help prevent volunteer burnout.
Anticipated Call Volume
AFC
NOFC
Total 700
AFC to NOFC
NOFC to AFC
Total aid calls
600 - 1/2 Mutual Aid Calls
Total Calls
AFC
601
558.5
NOFC
500
Total
391
400
AFC to NOFC
300
NOFC to AFC
210
200
Total aid calls
100
58
27
0
85
Total Calls - 1/2
Mutual Aid
Calls
Fire Company Combined Income vs Expenses Estimates
ABBOTTSTOWN
FIRE CO.
NEW OXFORD
COMBINED
FIRE CO.
ANNUAL AVERAGE GROSS INCOME
General
$80,000.00
Fund Raising
$8,000.00
$130,000.00 $210,000.00
$210,000.00 $218,000.00
ANNNUAL AVERAGE GROSS EXPENSES
General
$49,000.00
Fund Raising
$4,000.00
$240,000.00 $289,000.00
$134,000.00 $138,000.00
NET INCOME
Net Income
(no fund raising)
$31,000.00
Net Income
(with fund raising)
$35,000.00
($110,000.00) ($79,000.00)
($34,000.00)
$1,000.00
Relief Assoc. Combined Income vs Expenses Estimates
ABBOTTSTOWN
RELIEF ASSOC.
NEW OXFORD
RELIEF ASSOC.
COMBINED
INCOME
$35,000.00
$75,000.00
$110,000.00
$15,000.00
$52,000.00
$67,000.00
ANNNUAL EXPENSES
PROJECTED BALANCE
2008
$581,000.00
2009
Major Purchase, New Engine $325,000
$189,000.00
2010
$234,000.00
2011
$279,000.00
2012
$324,000.00
Major Purchase, New Rescue, Balance Available $367,000
2013
Estimated Cost Savings of Merger
ESTIMATED COST SAVINGS BY MERGING BOTH DEPARTMENTS
Insurance
$7,000.00
Building Maint. Costs
$2,600.00
Administration
$1,000.00
Janitorial
$2,000.00
Fuel
$150.00
Membership Banquet $1,000.00
Truck Maint.
$1,000.00
TOTAL SAVINGS
$14,750.00
SWITCH TO STREETS AND TRIPS MAP VIEW
6. TIMELINE
Abbottstown & New Oxford Fire
Companies Merger Timeline

4/24/08 - Provide the committee with each
department’s by-laws, SOG’s, 2007 &
2008-current financial statements and a
report of each dept’s 5-year plan.

5/22/08 – Committee to have draft of
Power Point presentation prepared and
ready for review defining the pros & con’s
and format of the merger.

6/8/08 – Presentation of the Power Point
program to each of the department’s entire
membership and to entertain questions &
answers for the memberships.
6/26/08 – Committee to review comments
received from presentation and address any
concerns or corrections to the timeline or
program.

• 7/24/08 – Preparation of documents to handle
the final vote for each department.
8/5 & 8/6 – Abbottstown and New Oxford
general monthly meeting, respectively, will vote
to proceed with merger.


8/21/08 – Organizational meeting of the
committee to begin assignments of tasks to be
handled by sub-committee’s for completion of
merger.

8/28/08 – A presentation explaining the
merger to each of the (8) municipalities which
will be affected.
• 9/25, 10/23, 11/27 & 12/18/08 – Committee
continues to meet evaluating each sub
committee’s progression and addressing
issues and concerns.

1/1/09 – Inaugural date of conception of
the newly named & renumbered “xxxxx”
Fire Dept.

1/7/09 – First general monthly meeting of
new named department at the New Oxford
headquarters’ station.
Questions, Comments and Concerns
We have thrown a lot of information at you in a short
period of time, there has to be questions, comments
and concerns. We will do our best to provide
answers.
Merger Committee Members:
New Oxford
Fire Chief Steven Rabine
President Jeff Blystone
Past Chief Steven Sipe
Past Chief Dan Poist
Past Chief Ike Felix
Abbottstown
Fire Chief Dale Reichert
Deputy Chief Kevin Moul
Assistant Chief Jakob Chronister
Captain Nevin Lehman
Fire Police Capt. Frank Smith
Past Deputy Chief Tim Reichert
How to contact us later:
Steve Rabine
[email protected]
Dale Reichert [email protected] 324-0341
Jeff Blystone
[email protected]
Kevin Moul
[email protected]