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Commission debates countywide volunteer incentive policy, weighs hours vs. percentage
Summary
The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Commission spent the bulk of its meeting hashing out a proposed volunteer-incentive policy that would award documented hours toward a payment roughly in the $500–$750 range; members debated eligibility metrics, documentation and auditability and asked chiefs to return with recommended hours or percentage thresholds.
The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Commission discussed a draft volunteer-incentive policy intended to reward volunteers for service, training, meetings and call response with creditable hours that would support a payment roughly in the $500–$750 range.
Staff described the draft as a recruiting and retention tool and asked each department to review the list of qualifying activities and bring back suggestions on specific thresholds. "This is a new program that starts the day we start moving forward," said Speaker 5, arguing the initiative cannot retroactively reward past service and should be designed to encourage future participation.
Commissioners and chiefs split on whether eligibility should be based on a hard hours total or a percentage of each department's call volume. Some members said a flat-hours minimum would be simpler to audit; others said a percentage helps smaller, low-volume departments. "If you set 20% for 1,500 calls a year, that's 300 calls — that's a lot," said Speaker 5, noting differences in call volume between departments. Speaker 10 suggested a hybrid or a weighted 'bucket' that counts active call time more heavily to incentivize front-line response.
The group also debated how to count on-call time. Several members warned that allowing unlimited credit for on-call status would let every volunteer claim 24/7 availability and render the metric meaningless. "If everybody says they're on call and they get 100 hours, there's no credit," said Speaker 4, urging a cap on credited on-call hours and clear certification from chiefs.
On documentation and auditability, participants discussed a range of recordkeeping options — from chiefs certifying rosters and hours to department-maintained logs or a central app. Speaker 8 suggested exploring commercially available tracking apps to simplify logging and centralize records. Several chiefs warned the tracking burden could be significant and asked staff to consider a simple, auditable submission format to the commissioner of the revenue.
No final threshold was adopted. Multiple members said 200 hours per year was a plausible starting point for discussion in many departments, while others put forward numbers ranging from 100 to 300 hours or proposed a mixed hours/percentage approach. Staff asked chiefs to take the draft to their departments, identify additional qualifying tasks, and return with specific recommended hours or percentage rules so the commission can finalize language and include the policy in the FY2027 budget process.
The commission did not take a final vote on the policy; instead members directed staff to collect more input and prepare a refined draft for consideration before the budget deadline.
