Windham – The WVFD met for a rescheduled monthly meeting recently. The rescheduled the meeting was due to the fact that the chief needed to be out of town for his full-time job on the date of the regularly scheduled meeting.
The meeting was called to order with all board members, fiscal officer and Chief Rich Gano in attendance. After the approval of the minutes, bank reconciliation and expenditures, they moved on to the chief’s report.
Chief Rich Gano reported that they had to have some work done on the trucks. They had to replace the ball joints on the squads and fix an oil leak this month — all were costly, but necessary. He also reported that due to a bad motherboard on the garage door that opens and closes at inopportune times, they are replacing it. That door has been there since 1985 and is long overdue for replacement. He expects the new door to be installed later in the week. Gano said he has reapplied for the Marks Radio Grant being offered by the Division of Forestry. The grant covers five portable radios and five mobile radios, plus an upgraded system.
The firemen have been working on putting a ramp on the new shed, so they can get the tractor in and out. They are also getting shelving for the shed to keep things organized. He said, “It’s a work in progress”.
Two EMTs have taken a leave of absence and two have resigned and left the district. Which brought up a question on how to reduce the continuous coming and going of EMTs. A few suggestions were brought up to the board. Some of those are, considering adding holiday pay (time and a half) for those who work the holiday, increase the base pay and add incentive pay for those who have remained loyal to the district. The problem isn’t about the working conditions, it’s about wage hopping. They jump to the highest paying department. Windham has lower property values and Camp JAG has a good portion of their land that they don’t receive any tax dollars from making it difficult to compete with other districts on the levy monies they receive. One mill in Windham, only generates about $50,000, according to the fiscal officer. This is causing them to consider asking the voters for an additional 1 mill levy, if they want to be able to compete with neighboring communities. Nothing has been decided yet, but they are considering their options. The fire board did raise wages twice already this year.
For the month of August, there were 35 EMS calls, with only 24 of them requiring transport, six fire responses, one service call, and one false alarm. The 24 transports they had were 20 to Portage Medical Center, two to Children’s and two to Trumbull Memorial. They have had 440 calls for the year. There are currently 25 employees on the payroll with an average response time to calls of 4 minutes and 37 seconds.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
