photo by Boyd Loving
Readers Debate Shared Services and County Fire Department Consolidation
County FD sounds good. And since we have the sixth lowest crime rate, maybe we don’t need so many police officers. Parse out the work that police do that an assistant could manage. Maybe have Traffic enforcement (call it community enforcement) be non-police. they could do the meters, construction sites and non essential tasks. To get a full cop salary they should be doing only police work.
Hospitals segmented jobs years ago. Most staff positions are defined by certifications. They do not have their highly paid employees doing things that another lesser-paid employee can do.
The problem with a county fire department is there aren’t enough paid dept’s around to draw from. Are the towns with volunteers going to make them paid so they can contribute manpower? That is a similar problem with police mergers, Ridgewood is a busier town than most around it except Paramus, why would an adjoining town want to merge with Ridgewood. The meters are repaired by civilians, and enforced by civilians already, construction site are staffed by cops but paid for by the contractor, the town budget they billed 150000 dollars in fees to contractors. Not bad. School crossings are already staffed by civilians
what meters are you talking about. and yes we do not need so many police and fire workers in a town like this. come on look what they make. and every town around has a good 3mill in fire trucks. when is this going to stop.we can not keep paying cops and fire workers this amount, and what is going to happen in a few years buy more mill dol trucks.
In some rural areas, the volunteers are ‘fire/police’. In addition to be volunteer firefighters, they do traffic tasks as well. Its important to keep our paid Fire department since their ability to respond quickly is what makes the difference. They do have added responsibilities responding to medical calls. It would also make sense to use them for traffic when needed. (even if the dopey state law would require some extra ‘training’ for that) They could also be trained as special officers, who could then handle parking complaints, etc, that do not require an armed trained officer. They wowuld still be in town, thus able to respond to a fire. Might as well make use of them while they are on the payroll. I’m sure they have some duties at the fire station such as training, but there must be many hours just sitting around waiting too. Its a win win for all. The FD men keep their jobs, and we get expanded services
parking meters #1 you problem is not that we have too many your jealous of what they make. If they made less money you’d be banging down the door to hire more of them. The politicians in the past tried to work a deal to share a ladder truck with glen rock it didn’t work out the story i was told was the spec’s for the 2 towns were different and where would it be stored. #2 what you are describing are ” public safety officers ” this was tried in englewood and clifton and didn’t work out the program was stopped after 2 yrs. or so.
Bottom line…should any police or fire officer in Ridgewood (other than perhaps the Chiefs) make $185K- $225K a year and retire with life-time pensions of $100K – $125K (as much as $1mm – $2mm in retirement compensation alone)? Is that really the appropriate compensation level for these jobs?
well 3 you must be a fire worker because you have a lot of info witch is good. and thank you for your hard work. but no it’s not jealous at all .but the fire dept should do more with other towns. the village at one time was the leader around this hole area,and not just police ,fire, water, dpw, schools, parks, trees. all of it. and now we village dept’s down to such a low amount of workers that it’s just a joke.every town use to look up at us.now they say what the hell happen.
thanks.
You’re right in part. but I’m not a fire worker, I’m a resident / property owner who’s been paying attention and keeping an open mind. The problem the jobs themselves are getting more difficult to perform due largely in part to civil liabilities, A highly restrictive supreme court that grossly favors the criminal, and a very very malcontented public who looks on public emploee’s as cerf’s that are expendable, and are the root cause of municipal financial distress. No one has made mention of the debt. service the village pays due at least in part to a 7 million dollar cost over run on the village hall that was rebuilt in a flood zone, or a 5 year pension contribution holiday to the tune of 950000 dollar ( approx)per year not a dime of the money to the best of my knowlledge was used to pay down debt. when it was so prudent to do so. Workres were laid of and the village spent more money on the 4th of july than it would have to pay the workers to keep them on. Then the council voted the village manger a 12,000 ( approx ) raise. But the powers that be and the people say the cops and fire are over paiid ( when those who state that were never cops or fireman ) How do you know what any job is really worth till you’ve done it.
#6. Having done the law enforcement job, I can assure you that the officers in Bergen county towns are compensated quite well. This isnt’ the ‘south bronx’ and they have many ‘backups’ at the press of a radio button, usually before they take any action other than a parking ticket. The problem in a ‘union’ state such as NJ is that every time there is an inability to reach a contractual agreement, it goes to ‘arbitration’. The arbitrator will award ‘parity’ with the last town that got a big raise. The net present value of a pension could easily reach $3m for a patrolman who retires at 50 and lives to 80, or higher if his wife continues to receive it after his death.
The ‘defined’ pension benefit plans for all municipal and state workers WILL bankrupt this state eventually. Thankfully I’ll be dead by then so it wont bother me. Let my heirs sort it out with whats left.
They wifes pension is half what the employees pension is, the police pension is over 94% funded because police give up a sgnificant amount of life expectancy after a 25 year career arbitrators decisions have come down according to the times .cops and fire contribute 10% as oposed to 5% for other workers and if the cops in the south bronx don’t make enuff money pay them more. The number of cops in Ridgewood has dwindled thru attriton it has one of the lowest officer per resident ratios in the county, this does not bode well for the village. The union made modifications to their contract (posted on the internet ) to enable the town to hire more officers they were supposed to hire 4 new cops but they only hired 2. Further dwindling the roster.
2012 Census data shows that state and local workers cost employers over 50% more (in dollar terms) per hour than non-union private sector workers and almost 8% more than private sector union employees. Further, state and local workers’ “retirement expenses” cost employers over 300% more than non-union private sector employees and almost 26% more than private sector union employees.
https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0655.pdf
A Ridgewood employee, who retires at 55 today is expected to live at least 26 years after retirement. Thus, if this employee receives a $100K annual pension, the retiree can be expected to receive $2.6mm in pension payments, excluding any pension benefits received by his or her spouse beyond his or her death. This is more than 90% of Americans will earn in their entire working lives. In fact, many of Ridgewood’s police officers are among the 5% of highest wage Earnes in the US. One does not have to perform these jobs to know that there is something wrong with this.
https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0105.pdf
Nor does One does not have to have performed a job to understand that when the average Ridgewood police or fire officer receives dramatically more than their peers in NJ and that more than a few of them receive 100% more than the average, they are over-paid.
More importantly, we can’t afford the current compensation/benefit structure for our police and fire contracts. The idea of increasing the number of employees under the current contracts is ludicrous.
Finally, I am not sure what you are talking about with your pension funding data. There are a number of variables that contribute to whether a pension fund is fully funded or under-funded. The contributions are only one element and the meager contributions by employees is not compelling. A more important variable is the performance of the investments in the fund, which have underperformed for some time, creating a massively greater under-funded condition than you suggest.
The census contains info fro all over the coutry and right to work states, it also contain wage info from mining and manufacturing industry’s Both of which were decimated by the nafta treaty. The pfrs pension has already been modified in 2 directions, the uinon in ridgewood modified it’s contract to allow more new hires. The decrease in value of the pfrs pension was brought about by govenor whitman raiding the pension . To compare any workers salary who live in bergen county with the salary of a worker, cop fire or not , who lives in an outside of here is equally ludicrous.
why do we need a paid fire dept. we do not. other big towns don’t have it.if some other towns can do we can to.look how much money this is in a year to run the fire house. the village is taking away jobs in other depts and not replacing workers who left. but in the police and fire dept’s they just keep replacing workers. some scam going on.