Volunteers Oppose Paid Firefighters as Stone Harbor, NJ, Restructures Borough Operations

STONE HARBOR — Members of the Stone Harbor Volunteer Fire Company worry that a proposed restructuring of borough fire services will sideline them and potentially end their company.

Lou Donofrio, a lieutenant with the volunteer company, read a letter on behalf of the members at the Wednesday meeting of Borough Council, outlining a July 31 meeting with borough officials.

“At this meeting, to our surprise and dismay, we were presented with a proposed plan outlining the restructuring of the fire department,” Donofrio said. “As it stands, the proposal would significantly reduce the presence and role of the volunteer fire company — and conceivably, eliminate it entirely.”

The move is part of an extensive restructuring of Stone Harbor’s municipal operations as the borough struggles to stay within state limits on spending increases.

Council plans to take a referendum to the voters seeking approval to exceed the state cap next year and enact changes that council members say will allow operations to continue in the future.

The plan would include promoting four current paid firefighters to captain and hire four new firefighters to replace them in the rank and file. That would allow the paid crews to work in four shifts. There are currently nine firefighters in the budget, and eight on the job, with a proposal for 12. That includes the four captains.

New Stone Harbor Administrator Joseph A. Clark said at the meeting that volunteer and paid firefighters endorsed the plan, including a unanimous buy-in from the four candidates for promotion to fire captain.

Clark said the plan would include the volunteer company, not eliminate it.

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But it did not sound like the volunteers were on board.

“To state it plainly, we are firmly opposed to this plan and to any other restructuring plan without a collaborative and transparent process that includes both the borough and the fire company,” Donofrio said.

Mayor Tim Carney came in on the side of the volunteers. In Stone Harbor’s form of government, he does not have a vote on council but can be heard at meetings.

“I tend to agree with the volunteers,” Carney said. “It ain’t broke, so why are we tinkering with it?”

He said the current system works just fine, with some of the best response times in the state. Carney also argued the plan would increase borough spending on fire services from more than $800,000 to about $2.6 million, numbers that council members called into question but Carney stood behind. He said if the borough can’t operate within the state’s budget limits, spending more won’t help.

“I would just ask that we think this through, not force this through,” Carney said. “I think it’s fine just the way it is.”

But it won’t be for long, responded council President Jennifer Gensemer. Like other volunteer companies around the county and state, Stone Harbor is having increasing difficulty attracting volunteers, even with the implementation of a stipend.

And to take a budget referendum to the voters, the borough needs to have an exact number for the cost by which the cap will be exceeded, including the cost for fire services.

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The borough has already undertaken a restructuring of the Police Department and merged its construction office with Wildwood Crest, Gensemer said, and has been working with the state Division of Local Government Services, which has been advising the borough on budget issues.

“Are you concerned at all that the fire department in its present form is not sustainable?” Gensemer asked Carney. Without major changes, Stone Harbor would just come in over cap again next year, and the year after that, and on into the future, she said.

“We’re going to have to do things differently in Stone Harbor eventually,” Gensmer said. “Whether you’re going to kick the can down the road, whether you’re going to deal with it three years from now, five years from now, unfortunately we’ve been handed this and we have to deal with it.”

Carney and Donofrio believed the council planned to vote on the restructuring before the end of the month, but council members said the timeline would not be that tight. There was also talk of a nonbinding ballot question in November and a referendum on exceeding the state cap in February, but the current plan calls for a borough referendum in April, after the budget for 2026 is approved.

The volunteers had raised concerns about a falling number of new members who live in Stone Harbor and recommended creating a paid department to work with the long-running fire company.

Council member Frank Dallahan said the proposal makes much more sense for emergency services and for sustaining a fire company. The current system does not work, even in terms of the shifts for the paid crews.

“To get somebody into a program where you’re on 24 (hours), then you’re off 24, then on 24 hours again is stupid,” Dallahan said. “It’s a stupid idea, but we’ve been doing that for the past years.”