Paid On call

[Rescuegunr509]

Looking for information about Paid on Call stations. Mainly for SOP's and SOG's. How you system works, good points, bad points etc. We are trying to go paid on call, but need a good starting point.
Thanks

[3Swings]

We are a paid on call department. The town pays us $9/hour for all calls, trainings, and meetings. We answer somewhere around 200 calls a year. I think I usually get about $1200/year paid quartely. Any additional time at the station (i.e. station cleanups, open house, etc.) are on our own time.
For calls......we are paged out like any other volunteer department. We proceed to the station, suit up, and go. At the end of the call we contact our central station with the names of the members present for the call. That info gets forwarded to the town payroll dept. who cuts us a check every 3 months.
Bylays/SOGs..........we have a set of bylaws that we expect members to follow as well as SOGs that reflect NFPA requirements. I could go into more detail if you like. I'm not quite sure what kind of details you're looking for.

[Rescuegunr509]

3Swings, can you email me any of your SOG's just pretaining to the paid on call? I am looking for a starting point to get this off the ground. My chiefs are just looking for the basics, everything else can be figured out.
you can email me @ lt509@florosafire.com
Thanks

[3Swings]

Let me see what I can find....

[ChiefDog]

We have been for years. It is pretty simple: 1) Anyone who responds is on the clock from the time the tones go out until trucks are back in-service.
2) Anyone who leaves early signs out and is paid to closest 1/4 or 1/2 hour.
3) FF are one payrate, Officers about a $1 more, Chief gets about $2 per hour more than FF.
4) We are only paid for calls, no trainings / drills.
5) We are paid quarterly by Village payroll.
6) Some minor things that people or officers take care of are "records only" no pay. (c.y.a.)

We have averaged about 18K-22K in total payroll over the last 3-4 years.

We pay after the quarter EXCEPT for 4th quarter. We cut off so the checks are out to the guys before Christmas for some extra $$$ for the holiday. The rest of the year is on the next budget. We run calendar year budget cycles.

Hope it helps.....

[GreggGeske]

We are a paid on call department responding to 700-800 calls per year. Feel free to look at our SOGs at http://www.ci.chanhassen.mn.us/safety/fire/sog.html

[MetalMedic]

Are you looking at "paid-on-call" or are you talking about "paid-by-the-call"? They are two different things. So far the replies are for "paid-by-the-call" responses. If you are "paid-on-call" you are receiving pay for being "on-call" and not necessarily on a call.

[mark440]

I am a member of a "Paid-per-call" department. We have about 35 members. Run about 400 calls a year. Operate out of 1 station. Everyone is paid hourly for calls. New person, no training will make $7.05 per hour. There is increases for certifications; Firefighter 1, Firefighter 2, EMT-B, EMT-I, EMT/Fire Instructor, ADO, Officer certs. We are paid quarterly also.

*Mark

[sponge]

Sorry, don't have any SOGs pertaining to the pay part. We are considered borough employees and our pay goes through the borough finance dept. Here' basically how ours works.
1. There are several pots and sub-pots of money we get paid out of. Fire, Rescue, and EMS are all separate pots, and our monthly checks have our pay broken down for calls, stand-bys, meetings, and training of each type.
2. Pay is based on your level of training/rank for each service you do. For example, I think I'm getting $10/hr for fire as a LT, $8/hr for Rescue as a rescue tech I, and $8/hr for EMS as and EMT-1. Each fire service area in the borough can set their own rates for firefighters, rescue and EMS are standard throughout the borough.
3. We get an hourly rate for all calls, stand-bys, and fire training. Rescue and EMS training/meetings get a flat rate of $10 per month.
4. We are limited to 40 hours a week of paid work, then overtime kicks in and the bean counters get upset at us for not managing our stand-by time wisely. We are working at getting this changed to a 52 or 56 hour workweek.
5. We currently have 2-person paid stand-by shifts for one of two ambulances during certain weekday hours and most of the weekend. We do fire/rescue stand-bys during bad weather, high fire danger weekends, and bad traffic holiday weekends and are working on developing a fire/first response shift program with a neighboring station. My opinion is that unless we do a real numbers drill, we might hurt ourselves for on-call responders due to the limitations in our work week and our low number of members.
6. We recently had our employee status upgraded. We are now on level with full time employees in terms of having first dibs on job openings in the borough. For benefits, we only have the equivalent of a state 401(k) program and workman's comp.
7. Compensation is considered 'pay' and we have taxes taken out.
8. Our administrator goes through the run sheets and signin sheets and fills out a pay sheet that is forwarded to the finance dept weekly. We get paid roughly monthly (I think the way the borough pay periods work, we might have 13 pay periods a year).
9. Generally, we also put in various hours of unpaid work. For example, an extra body hanging around for a shift (pay clock starts when a call comes in) and people doing assorted tinkering around the station during their free time that they don't ask to be paid for.