OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company this week got approval from the city to hire a recruitment and retainment coordinator after agreeing to pay the position’s salary for the first two years.
Volunteer fire companies across the region and beyond have been experiencing a drain on membership rolls in recent years and the Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company has not been immune to some degree. The Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company (OCVFC) has a maximum membership number of 125 in the first-due response area and that number has steadily dwindled to around 77, or around 67 percent of the ideal figure.
To that end, the OCVFC is taking a proactive approach to reversing that trend with the hiring of a recruitment and retainment coordinator, who, as the title suggests, will seek new recruits for the fire company, but also manage the existing members to some degree to ensure they don’t drop off the active roles. The OCVFC is so confident the new position will help reverse its membership drain, it has agreed to pay the hired individual’s salary for the first two years.
On Tuesday, OCVFC President Jay Jester presented the proposal to the Mayor and Council as the new position would ultimately be an employee of the city. Jester said the company needed the city to pay for the position’s benefit package.
“This is a rare occasion,” Jester told the Mayor and Council on Tuesday. “The last time I came before you asking for something was a decade ago when I asked for a fire chief and that endeavor was very successful. I hope this will be as well. We’re looking for a continued partnership with the city we’ve enjoyed for well over a century now.”
Jester said his membership was strongly in favor of the new position.
“The volunteers are so behind this and so comfortable that this is going to work that we’re willing to foot the bill for the salary for this individual for the first 24 months,” he said. “What we’re asking from you is to foot the bill for the benefits package for that first 24 months. You are in a much better position to do that because of the vast number of employees you have. If I was to try to do that for one employee, it would be much more difficult.”
Jester said there was accountability built into the proposal. If the new position achieved the desired results as expected, the city would assume full responsibility for the employee’s salary and benefits in the third year.
“Every six months we will come back before you and report on exactly what we’ve done,” he said. “We’ll give you a report on the successes we’ve had with this new position. We want to minimize the losses we’ve had from the department for whatever reason, and we want to maximize bringing in new people to the department.”
Jester said the intent is to reverse the slow drip of membership losses.
“What we feel would be a healthy organization would be losing no more than five percent of the membership each year and gaining a maximum of 15 percent for net gain of 10 percent,” he said. “Obviously, anything better than that would be great.”
If the new position achieves those desired goals as expected, the OCVFC could see its membership rolls approach the maximum allowed in a short period of time, according to Jester.
“Our bylaws dictate that we have a maximum number of active rolls within our first-due response area of 125,” he said. “We are currently sitting at 77. I would like to see that number maximized again with a two-year period. It’s aggressive, but the high bar is what we should be shooting for.”
The council voted 5-0, with Council President Lloyd Martin and Councilman Tony DeLuca absent, to approve the new position. As proposed, the OCVFC will pay the salary in the $33,000 to $43,000 range for the first two years, while the city will contribute the benefits package. If the new position achieves the desired results, the city would take over the salary and benefits in the third year. Councilman Wayne Hartman asked about the trends in volunteer fire company membership rolls.
“What’s the trend over the last 10 years?” he said. “I know volunteer companies across the state and around the country are struggling to retain and grow membership.”
Jester said the OCVFC has not been immune.
“We’re no different,” he said. “We’ve certainly been holding our own over the last two decades. It has been a downward trend when it comes to the active membership. We saw that happening many years ago and we made some adjustments. You’re just not going to get an 18-year-old kid who just graduated to come to Ocean City and buy a condo. It just doesn’t work that way.”
Jester said the OCVFC has been successful in supplementing its rolls with members outside the first response area.
“We had to have some mechanism in place where we keep those rolls bolstered so we can continue to provide the service,” he said. “We have some ancillary roles out there with people who don’t live in the first-due response area but still have a commitment to the fire company and the city. That role has increased in the last several years.”
