Commission to study offering health coverage to volunteers

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Commission to study offering health coverage to volunteers

NEWSDAY

 

By JOEL STASHENKO

Associated Press Writer

September 25, 2004, 12:55 PM EDT

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Volunteer fire and ambulance corps in New York want to study whether health insurance coverage could be an incentive companies can offer to keep current members and to improve the increasingly challenging process of recruiting new members.

Gov. George Pataki has signed legislation creating a commission to report by the end of next year on the feasibility of companies, local governments or the state itself offering full or partial coverage for volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians. The task force will be made up of government and volunteer services officials.

"We think that this type of thing would not only be a really strong retention item ... but that it may get (recruit) the young 18-to-25-year-old who has a tendency to not have coverage," said Kirby Hannon, legislative director for the Firemen's Association of the State of New York.

Hannon said the task force will study a range of options that lower or eliminate health care coverage costs for the volunteers while being affordable for taxpayers and an effective inducement for people to stay in companies or to join them in the first place.

Over the last decade, FASNY estimates that membership in volunteer fire companies has sagged from about 175,000 to between 100,000 and 110,000 today. Volunteer EMT numbers have fallen from 70,000 to less than 50,000, Hannon estimated.

The trend, which is occurring on a national level as well, puzzles fire and EMT corps because volunteerism overall appears to be up in the United States. Experts say fire and EMT companies may be suffering because their headquarters are less often serving as local community centers than they once did, or because residents work elsewhere and are less oriented to their local communities.

Assemblyman Robert Sweeney of Long Island, sponsor of the legislation, said he suspects the heavy time commitment required of firefighters and EMTs also accounts for the difficulty in recruiting and retaining corps members.

Hopes that the terrorism attack of Sept. 11, 2001, and the heavy loss of life among New York Fire Department members and EMTs, would spur volunteers did not materialize, Hannon said.

"It remained absolutely unaffected by 9-11," Hannon said. "On a statewide basis there was no uptick. A lot of departments and companies are really scratching their heads now with this window of young people and what it takes to get them to volunteer."

FASNY is forming focus groups around the state trying to sharpen recruitment and retention efforts.

For a third academic year, the state is also offering scholarships to volunteer firefighters or EMTs. At least 330 scholarships worth up to $4,350 an academic year are being offered to new students this year, bringing to more than 1,100 the number of volunteer-students receive the special state incentive.

Local governments are also authorized by New York state to offer volunteers tax breaks as an incentive to stay in their corps or to sign up.

Nationally, the National Fire Protection Association says the number of fire company volunteers had dropped from 884,600 in 1983 to 816,600 in 2002. About 300,000 others are professionals in fire or EMT companies.

Maryland, Delaware and South Carolina have instituted state income tax breaks for volunteer firefighters and EMTs, according to spokesman Craig Sharman of the National Volunteer Fire Council. Connecticut has a program like New York's where localities can offer volunteers property tax breaks.

Several other states have discussed pension improvements for volunteer services members or even offering them stipends to serve, Sharman said

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I think getting Health Insurance for volunteering is definetly an interesting concept.

It would defeintly be an incentive to join, and an even bigger one for retention. Especially for those who cant get it otherwise.