I feel that being of a certain age where I have a good chance that I will someday need their services I would want to have the best trained and most qualified people doing the job.

They rode such a wave of gratitude after 911 and then people just promptly moved on and forgot. People think that things like that can't happen in TV but that is being very naive. We very nearly had a school shooting here.

Would just like to say in checking my Fire Tax on the Tax Bill they're very cheap here. I served in a Volunteer Department up North for 42 years and my taxes were almost 10 times higher then here. I do believe they deserve a raise in both salary & pension. JMO I know I'm going to get some backlash but so be it. Loosing trained Fire & EMS personnel is not good.

I dunno Tom.

By the way, Glad to meet you. Are you new here to The Villages, or just to this forum? I see that you are 36 so I am guessing you are a firefighter or EMS. Thank you very much for your service.

In answer to your question, I will wait and see what happens and then decide. As I stated earlier, in my lifetime, I have voted heavily for School Levies and for fair wages for Fire Fighters and EMS.

I am also tight as a drum in my personal use of money. I guess you would call me a fiscal conservative, or careful, VERY careful, with money.

I think that public servants deserve a good income. However comparing the salaries and benefits of a Villages' firefighter to the national average is wrong. The comparison needs to be made to a person in a similar sized community with similar risk pattern.

A firefighter in NYC is tasked with a much more dangerous job. High rise old buildings, freezing weather, shootings, toxic chemicals, heavy industry and a much higher cost of living. The overwhelming majority of buildings here are single story, no basements into which a structure might collapse, a cooperative citizenry, modern buildings up to code, no realistic expectation of getting shot at or dealing with daily exposures to HIV, Hepatitis B, TB, heroin overdoses and the other common events in a big city. How many fires does the Villages experience in a year? Very few. I suspect most Villages' firefighters don't average one significant fire run a year. Could be wrong.

It is important that our emergency services be competent and compassionate but in all honesty the intensity of services required here is lower than most other places and there really is nothing wrong with younger professionals gaining experience in this low intensity environment then if they wish moving on to more challenging professional environments with appropriately higher benefits. There is a problem if our safety personnel are going from our situation to a similar situation and getting better pay and benefits. I don't know if that is in fact happening.

I would say the majority of the calls here are for medical and accidents but that does not mean we should be ok with a newbie. This is the difference between living and dying. Do you want to be practice for a trainee?

To add another perspective the 33000 salary of the EMTs is 15.00 an hour which is the amount people are fighting to get established as minimum wage.

Let's see. Flipping a burger, or saving a life !!!!!

L I K E.

My husband is a retired firefighter with 33 years on the job.
They see some awful stuff in their line of work, as do police officers.

People have no idea. They think they just sit around and wait for fires. Pulling people out of car wrecks is brutal, especially children.

You underestimate the group of us. Many are in their seventies and older and we have seen a LOT of LIFE. You are singin' to the choir, kiddo. We are on your side. BUT........

I believe to sell anything you should never criticize, condemn or complain.

There has been some good information represented on this thread, particularly about national comparisons and state comparisons for pay. It is true that nothing can compensate for the brave and hard things you do.

What do you think is a fair salary?

I am not criticizing the people who agree with this, I am criticizing the ones who think that just because we are in the Villages and do not have a lot of fires we do not need experienced first responders. I think what they are asking for is not unreasonable 40000 a year is only 19.00 an hour and 57000 is only 27.00 an hour. If I am in an accident or have a medical emergency I want highly experienced people tending to me not people who are doing it for the first time while they learn.

You can learn a lot about the department from the reports on their website:
Village Community Development Districts

Excellent suggestion.

I lived in NJ, 90% of NJ fire depts are vol. , in the depts I belonged to we had icons on industry as members Wiechert Realty and Mennen ( yes the under arm people) as members--it was all about comaderie & community service.

I would consider that comparing apples to oranges.

Lets be fair, minimum wage jobs don't pay a guy wages while he sleeps, shops, or joy rides around in expensive equipment.

Who is good at math on here??

EMTs raised to $40,000 from $33,600 per year...is 20% increase! That is an awfully big increase compared to the
Forbes forecasted "cost of living adjustment" of 3% for 2017. (COLA for 2016 was zilch)


The firefighters would also like to see the starting salary for a paramedic increased to $50,000 and a starting lieutenant’s pay raised to $57,500...What are the current salaries for these positions?