Our Volunteer First Responders Deserve a Tax Break

By Senator Michael A. O'Pake (D-Berks)
Senate Democratic Whip

          Harrisburg, February 8, 2007 -- Pennsylvania’s volunteer fire and emergency service first responders literally save us billions; not to mention the fact that they’re often called upon to risk their own lives to save others.
          At the very least, they deserve a tax break for the critical public service they provide -- a service they provide without pay; a service we cannot do without.
          The fact is, ever since Ben Franklin’s “bucket brigades” in 1736, no other state in the nation has relied more heavily on volunteers for fire protection and emergency service response than Pennsylvania.
          And that’s why, as the new legislative session got underway, I again introduced legislation (SBs 23 & 24) – for the third session in a row -- that would grant our state’s active volunteer firefighters and active volunteer EMS personnel a $250 state income tax credit.  The bills – cosponsored in the new session with broad bipartisan support and by a majority of Senators -- have been referred to the Senate Finance Committee, where I understand action may finally occur soon.
          It is long past time for these bills to be brought up for consideration and passed.  Aimed at providing a tangible recruitment and retention tool to bolster the ranks of our volunteer responders, my legislation was one of the key recommendations of the special, bipartisan Senate Resolution 60 Commission that issued its final report on improving Pennsylvania’s emergency services more than two years ago (November, 2004).
          Since that report, there have been numerous other studies and reports.  A new 300-page study released in January, and which surveyed some 5,000 volunteers nationwide and was prepared on behalf of the National Volunteer Fire Council, identified tax credits as the “number one” recommendation “in terms of what would keep volunteers serving.”  Similarly, in a survey of more than 700 Pennsylvania volunteer firefighters for a study released in May, 2006, by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, 91 percent “strongly agreed” that a state income tax credit would “encourage them to continue to volunteer” and 82 percent “strongly agreed” that it would encourage new volunteers to sign up.
          Adding further impetus to the need for action here, New York state, just last summer, enacted a state income tax credit for volunteer first responders and Maryland has now passed the first decade mark of their successful volunteer fire service tax credit program which provides an average $250 annual tax savings per active volunteer.
          The bottom line is simply this:  While Pennsylvania state government has stepped forward in recent years with a $25 million annual grant program to help our volunteer fire, ambulance and rescue companies pay for needed equipment and facilities, Pennsylvania state government – in partnership with our local municipalities – can and it must do more to address the issue of recruitment and retention.
          Over the past 20 years, the number of Pennsylvania volunteer firefighters has shrunk by more than half from an estimated 152,000 in 1985 to 70,000 or fewer today.
          And with the cost of hiring paid firefighters to replace the services of Pennsylvania’s volunteers conservatively estimated at more than $2 billion annually, we can ill afford not to act to keep the volunteers we still have and do all that we can to sign up the next generation of recruits we desperately need.
          Because, let there be no doubt, all of us as Pennsylvanians will be poorer as a society -- both financially and otherwise – if we lose our community-based volunteer fire and emergency service organizations and, most especially, the dedicated men and women who answer the call for just about every imaginable emergency in the vast majority of Pennsylvania’s hometowns 24/7, 365 days a year. 

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