Muhlenberg Township PA Fire Companies Set for Merger

The two fire companies that have served Muhlenberg Township for nearly a century are being merged into a fire department led by a chief employed by the township.

Within a few months, the Temple and Goodwill of Hyde Park fire companies will cease to exist as independent fire services. The existing stations will still house firetrucks, but the stations will no longer be part of the same organization as their adjacent social quarters, officials said.

Temple Fire Company, 4963 Kutztown Road, is at the other end of Muhlenberg Township and will be the other station in the department.

Berks County has been a leader in Pennsylvania of consolidation of municipal services but many municipalities in the county and the state still rely on a century-old volunteer firefighter system, said Paul Janssen of the Center for Excellence in Local Government at Albright College.

But the volunteer ranks have dwindled about 90% over the past 40-plus years, and many community fire companies are so thinly staffed that they cannot respond to many daytime calls, relying on fire companies in neighboring municipalities —some that employ a handful of paid firefighters — to respond as mutual aid companies, Janssen said.

It's an issue comparable to municipal police services, in which townships or boroughs that don't have their own police forces rely on state police to respond to calls for police service. Only with fire services, there is no state or county fire department as a backup.

The issue is so critical that the focus of the Center for Local Excellence's annual dinner in March is devoted to the state of firefighter services in Berks, Janssen said.

Consolidating independent fire companies allows a municipal fire department to pool equipment and volunteers to ensure the right mix of both resources are deployed on every fire call.

"It's real progressive thinking on Muhlenberg's part and the fact that both entities (Temple and Goodwill) are entertaining this is really forward thinking for them as well," Janssen said. "When all is said and done, everyone will be pulling the oars in the same direction and that's a really good thing."

Long time coming

Temple and Goodwill fire companies volunteers began cross training this month to familiarize themselves with each other's equipment and stations. The fire companies will be merged early this year to form a township fire department.

Muhlenberg Township first looked at the idea of fire company consolidation with a study in 2000 and again in 2010, Commissioner Kevin Lerch said.

Though the studies found that merging would eliminate duplication of services while increasing synergy in the fire services, there was no movement toward putting the two companies under the administration of the township until early 2017, when the commissioners appointed a merger committee.

“There was some reluctance on the part of the township because these are entities that maybe don’t want to merge and you’re moving someone in a direction they don’t want to be moved in,” Lerch said. “Some people may have looked at it like, 'if it’s not broken don’t fix it.' ”

But the days of municipalities as populated and commercially developed as Muhlenberg being served by all-volunteer fire companies are quickly coming to an end, Lerch said.

Though Goodwill and Temple are independent entities, they rely on annual financial contributions from the township to buy fire apparatus and equipment. And as with communities across the country, they struggle to find enough volunteers to answer a growing volume of calls 24 hours a day.

This has insurance as well as public safety implications.

“It’s not an us-vs.-them scenario,” Lerch said. “We all have skin in the game, and we’re all working for the same thing, which is protection of lives and property within the township.”

Lerch said he served as fire company liaison when he was first elected in 2013 as one of the five commissioners. He and the current fire company liaison, Commissioner Steve Wolfinger, have pushed the board to take a serious look at consolidating fire services.

Many of the most-populated Berks municipalities — including Spring, Cumru and Exeter townships — have consolidated the independent fire companies into a municipal fire department.

The merger committee was formed in early 2017. It was composed of Lerch and Wolfinger; Township Manager Brian Harris; attorney John E. Muir of Kozloff Stoudt Attorneys, Wyomissing, who has experience with other fire company mergers; Ted Lavender, co-owner of Berks Fire Water Restorations Inc.; and the volunteer command staff of both fire companies.

The group has met monthly and leaned on Albright College’s Center for Excellence in Local Government for assistance.

The new chief

The move to create a township fire department started to take shape in September when the commissioners voted unanimously to appoint Larry Moyer Jr., a career firefighter, as part-time chief at a rate of $25 per hour. Moyer, who is also employed full time as deputy fire chief with the Reading Fire Department, was sworn in at the board’s Nov. 18 meeting.

In October, the commissioner voted to ask the Berks County Department of Emergency Services to recognize the new fire department as Muhlenberg Township Fire & Rescue and be referred to in dispatches as Company 66.

Lerch said it’s a foregone conclusion that the chief position will eventually need to be full time. When that happens is uncertain. The township already employs a few part-time drivers to ensure trucks are able to roll out of the station during daytime hours and will assess the need for full-time firefighters going forward.

Part of Moyer's job description is to recruit and retain volunteers, Lerch said.

The chief is no stranger to the Temple and Goodwill volunteers. Moyer, a 25-year veteran with the city fire department, said his involvement in the county firefighting community provided opportunities to meet his fellow firefighters in the suburbs, including Muhlenberg.

“They were familiar with me and I was familiar with them before I walked through the door,” he said.

Moyer said he’s excited to be able to lead the department as the merger comes together.

“To be part of that facilitation is a sense of pride for me as well as some of the guys, knowing the history of the two fire companies,” he said. “We’re looking to incorporate all of those volunteers. They’re an integral piece of this.”

Still, Moyer said he expects to lose some volunteers as changes in operations occur, but the merger process so far has gone as smoothly as can be expected.

Moyer said Muhlenberg's decision to create the position of part-time chief represented a great opportunity for him.

Besides being in a leadership position with a relatively large fire department for several years, he fit the job description by being willing and able to take the reins of the new department while working less than 30 hours a week. He has 25 full years in with the city, but at 45 he is too young to retire with a full pension.

Moyer said it would face a tough decision if the position is made full time before he has 30 years in with the city, but added, “I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.”

'Tough at first'

Temple Fire Company Chief Craig Reinhart said the merger seemed inevitable, even to longtime members like him, with 37 years in the volunteer system.

“It was tough at first for people to really swallow this idea,” he said.

The future is not with a volunteer system, he said, noting a new pumper truck costs three-quarters-of-a-million dollars.

“That’s a lot of chicken dinners,” Reinhart said. “How much can you get out of volunteers? We ran 900 calls last year (a record). Now you’re gonna ask guys to come out and do a major fund drive?"

The hiring of Moyer as township fire chief has smoothed some of the ruffled feathers, he said.

“Chief Moyer has done a good job of blending people together,” Reinhart said.

Lerch said he expects the new fire department to take over for the volunteer companies by the end of the first quarter.

A subcommittee has been established to create bylaws, and lawyers need to work out the details of separating the assets and operations of the fire companies from their social quarters.

Representatives of Muhlenberg met with Spring Township representatives who had gone through the same process of separating the volunteer fire companies within the township from their social organizations, Lerch said.

The merger commission held a forum with the volunteer ranks to explain the reasons for the move and to hear their concerns. An email was established to receive questions from volunteers.

Lerch said among the most frequently asked questions was why the township was getting involved in the fire service business.

A big part of the reason is financial. Fire companies can no longer sustain themselves on bake sales and carnivals.

Muhlenberg Township contributes $72,000 to each of the fire companies. The money comes from 0.60 mill dedicated fire tax on properties.

“That’s a lot of money to not have any municipal oversight,” Lerch said.

The volunteers seem to understand that, he said.

“For the most part the vast majority of the volunteers were very supportive,” Lerch said. “Their feedback has been wonderful. We’re not at the point in Muhlenberg where we have to have a full-time paid firefighter staff. But everyone acknowledges at some point most municipalities will have to be in that position. So this is laying the groundwork if that is to happen.”

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