FARMINGTON — Most residents at an informational meeting Wednesday night said they favor adding four-full time firefighters to the town’s volunteer department after hearing a plea from the fire chief.

Fire Chief Terry Bell told group of about 30 residents Wednesday night at the Community Center that adding four full-timers would increase the 2016 budget $32,979 from last year’s, for a total department request of $434,492.

Bell, the department’s only full-timer, has a department of 25 volunteers who work on call and per diem shifts. In 2015, the department had 434 calls for service, a number that Bell said has increased over the years as the roster has decreased. With the unpredictability of per diem availability, average turnout per call has gone from 11 firefighters in 2006 to six firefighters in 2015, he said.

The average age of a Farmington firefighter is 53, and few young people are joining, Bell said Wednesday night, so adding full-time staff members was the only way he knows to fix the staffing problem so the department can guarantee an effective response.

“I, as the fire chief, can’t guarantee (we) can respond as we should,” Bell said.

With four full-time firefighters/emergency medical technicians, Bell proposes to provide coverage with two full-time firefighters working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The full-time firefighters would rotate two days on and two days off, with one per-diem continuing to work 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. On call firefighters would will supplement the staff for emergencies.

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Farmington police Officer Bridgette Gilbert, the school resource officer at Mt. Blue High School, said Wednesday she has had to call the Farmington Fire Department on many occasions for a variety of reasons, from accidents in the parking lot to fire drills, and each time the number of firefighters on duty or available on call firefighters reflects how fast the school day can get back underway.

“I think they have a great proposal,” Gilbert said. “If they don’t have someone available, it takes longer for them to respond; and we have 800 students that we are responsible for.”

The large regional organizations that the Farmington Fire Department covers were a point of contention among some residents Wednesday. With the University of Maine at Farmington, Mt. Blue High School, Franklin Memorial Hospital and large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Hannaford in town, but used by people who live in surrounding communities, some said the town bears an unfair burden.

Ryan Morgan, former chairman of the Board of Selectman, pushed for regionalization among Franklin County’s fire departments.

“We’re now looking to create a full-time fire department for Farmington when every (department) is having the same problem,” Morgan said.

He stressed that “times are tough” and selectmen and department heads should push to keep budgets down. “I would really encourage collaboration,” he said.

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But most of those present seemed to favor the proposal.

Resident Cheryl Best said that given everything the department is tasked with and how hard the small roster has been working to make up for the staffing shortages, Bell’s proposal is an obvious solution.

“We have a state of the art high school that needs to be protected,” said Best, who said she’s a 22-year resident of the town. “Give them what they want. I can’t believe we’re quibbling over this. We, people, have got to start thinking.”

In January, the Board of Selectmen did not recommend adding any full-time firefighters and instead recommended a status quo budget of $401,513.

The following night, the Budget Committee accepted Bell’s request as its recommendation. The ultimate decision of whether to add four full-time firefighters will be up to voters at Town Meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m., Monday, March 28.

Selectman Michael Fogg, who favored accepting Bell’s proposal during the budget review, told residents Wednesday that he thought Bell, as the fire chief, is the expert in the situation and his solution to the staffing problem should be taken as a serious warning.

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“Will it cost the town more money to do this? Yeah,” Fogg said. “But we have a fire chief, and this is the solution he gave us.”

With the $32,979 increase from last year, Bell said that the effect on the tax rate would be 7.2 cents per $1,000 of valuation. However, the proposal covers only 39 weeks of the 2016 fiscal year because if passed at Town Meeting on March 28, it wouldn’t kick in until after that. Bell said for a full year it probably would be an increase of $52,000 to $54,000.

The problems Bell cited — a lack of volunteers and an aging force, combined with more duties, tougher fires and lack of money, are being felt across rural Maine and other areas of the country.

A commission made up of firefighters and others were behind bills in the Legislature last year that would provide an incentive for people to become volunteer firefighters, including providing volunteers with workers’ compensation coverage, tax credits at the state level, eligibility for state employee health insurance programs, forgiveness of student loans and providing retirement benefits.

The Legislature also considered recommendations that would provide more support for small departments by establishing a firefighting training center, funding grants for municipalities and their fire departments, funding a statewide database for personnel and establishing another fire marshal position.

Two of those bills, L.D. 164 and L.D. 500 passed and became law last June without Gov. Paul LePage’s signature, but were not funded.

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Bell, with an immediate problem facing his department, said he doesn’t want to wait for the Legislature to take action and there is no guarantee that it will.

“There are days that we are not adequately staffed to task what we are responsible for,” Bell said Thursday. “I don’t know if it’s going to (pass), if there is going to be funding or how that’s all really working.”

Lauren Abbate — 861-9252

labbate@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @Lauren_M_Abbate


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