Halifax councillors mull $1.1-million boost for volunteer firefighters

Halifax councillors pushed back a decision Tuesday on whether to put more money toward volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention.

Fire Chief Doug Trussler says the boost in spending on volunteer firefighters could be what’s needed to improve response times which right now aren’t meeting the standard in rural areas.

“In our rural areas, we know we’re not getting the four firefighters on the scene within 10 minutes travel time,” he said.

READ MORE: Latest Halifax firefighter staffing proposal would cost millions

Two options presented by Trussler take different approaches but have the same price tag. The first option would raise the honourariums paid to volunteer firefighters, while the second would launch a paid on-call schedule for volunteer firefighters.

Trussler says the additional pay would encourage more people to join the volunteer program

If council decides to delay the decision to a later budget, the fire departments budget will be $275,000 less than last year’s budget. However, if council goes ahead with one of the proposals it will cost roughly an additional $500,000 in the upcoming budget and $1.1 million in the subsequent years.

Councillor Barry Dalrymple wanted to amend the fire service’s budget at Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting to immediately reflect the additional spending on volunteer firefighters, but other councillors were more hesitant. He says there’s inequality in the service because fire response times are being met in urban and suburban areas but not rural areas.

READ MORE: Halifax Fire removing barriers to bring in career firefighting recruits

“You cant ask all of HRM to pay for just fires downtown, or firefighters downtown,” Dalrymple said.

“If we’re going to tax everybody then we have to be able to supply that service to everybody.”

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Ultimately council decided to sideline a decision on the additional money for volunteer firefighters until at least March. At that point councillors will have the entire budget in front of them and can decide on what if any additional items they want to add, based on the implications for the budget.

When the budget process started, councillors promised to keep tax rates steady, although it is not clear yet if that will happen.