Volunteers Need Recruits, Want City Support for Stipend Program

The Bowie Volunteer Fire Department has seen a 37 percent decline in its ranks since 2008, according to Deputy Fire Chief Pete Mellits.

But the volume of calls for service in 2011 is on track to exceed last year’s numbers, according to Mellits.

To recruit and retain more volunteers, Mellits asked the council for the second year in a row to fund a $210,000 incentive program at Bowie’s four fire stations, which are staffed with a combination of career firefighters and volunteers.

Mellits said the hundreds of hours of required firefighter/EMT training along with burnout are behind the reasons for the lower numbers of volunteers.

But Mayor G. Frederick Robinson said the money was not there in this year’s budget to fund the proposed program.

“We won’t be able to do anything in this fiscal year, but maybe as the year progresses we can have some discussions,” said Mayor G. Frederick Robinson.

The incentive program would give volunteers the opportunity to earn a stipend of up to $4,000 per year. Based on an average of 50 volunteers, the program would cost the cost $200,00 plus an additional $10,000 for expenses.

Mellits said the proposed program is modeled after other similar programs across the country.
 
In other business, more than 190 Bowie senior citizens are on a waiting list to get upgrades to their homes as part of the city’s green housing rehab program, which is funded largely by federal grant money.

The program helps low-income seniors pay for things like new roofs, new windows, insulation, heating and cooling systems and energy-saving appliances.

Since the program began four years ago, the city has upgraded 63 homes at an approximate cost of about $1 million and is on track to do about 10 more this year, city grants administrator Jesse Buggs told the city council Monday. 

The program has been in such high demand that the city stopped taking new applications for the program in January 2010.

Buggs estimated that 80 percent of the homes in the program are concentrated in the Levitt sections of the city.

“We have a huge list of people who are in some serious need of this assistance,” Buggs said. “We are getting to them as fast as we can.”