Each time the whistle blows at a local fire company, the dollars are rolling through the roof. It costs money to respond to calls, and fire company officials in Antis Township are hoping the supervisors can do something about it.
\nAt a recent meeting of the supervisors, Melvin Pfahler, chief of the Pinecroft Volunteer Fire Co., asked officials if the township could draw up an ordinance which would allow the fire companies to bill insurance companies for costs associated with the response.
\n\u201cI think this is something that we really need to take a hard look into,\u201d said Pfahler. \u201cEverything is costing more and more these days and it\u2019s really taking its toll on the companies. That\u2019s why we believe that if you give us the authorization to seek these repayments, we\u2019ll be able to keep our heads above water even longer.\u201d
\nAccording to Pfahler, a number of communities have already adopted similar ordinances. He cited Duncansville\u2019s policy as reference, as well as the fire tax agreement that\u2019s in place in Logan Township.
\n\u201cThey do it over there and it seems to work pretty well for them,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no reason to believe that it wouldn\u2019t work here also. We\u2019re actually behind the times when it comes to this.\u201d
\nAccording to Pfahler, Duncansville averages about $500 a month in recovery bills.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve tried here before to get a fire tax here,\u201d said Pfahler, \u201cbut the supervisors kept voting it down.\u201d
\nSupervisors questioned Pfahler about who would be responsible for the costs. Pfahler was animate that the bill would go directly to an insurance provider rather than the property owner in regards to the call responded to.
\n\u201cWe do not want to put any liability on the people themselves,\u201d said Pfahler. \u201cWith an ordinance like this, we\u2019ll have the authority to go after the insurance company and recover these much-needed funds.\u201d
\nVice-chairman supervisor Ray Amato agreed with Pfahler and said the companies definitely need an ordinance that will help them recover some funds.
\n\u201cThey may not be able to get it all back, but it will be some,\u201d said Amato. \u201cI know how hard it is to pay for things nowadays. This isn\u2019t a surefire way, but it does give the companies something to lean back on.\u201d
\nTownship leaders directed the community\u2019s solicitor Patrick Fanelli to look into the matter and bring a report to the next meeting of the supervisors, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. on June 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Each time the whistle blows at a local fire company, the dollars are rolling through the roof. It costs money to respond to calls, and fire company officials in Antis Township are hoping the supervisors can do something about it. At a recent meeting of the supervisors, Melvin Pfahler, chief of the Pinecroft Volunteer Fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}