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BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS & NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
A bill pushed by Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi over the past two years to help local emergency volunteers continue volunteering in their communities without fear of losing their state pension if they retire was advanced by the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee.
The bill (A1627) is also sponsored by Assemblymen Anthony Bucco, Robert Auth, and John DiMaio. It cleared the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee on Feb. 8 by an 8-0 vote.
“This bill passed unanimously in both houses of the legislature last session and then inexplicably vetoed by then Gov. Christie,” said Schepisi (R-Bergen).
She thanked Speaker Coughlin for expediting the bill and said she looks forward to getting it signed by Gov. Murphy as soon as possible.
An interpretation of IRS code requires retiring police officers, teachers, government employees or municipal employees who also volunteer in the same town be separated from any municipal roles, including a volunteer position, for a minimum of six months in order to receive their pension payment. As a result, volunteer firefighters, EMTs and other first responders are being forced to resign or risk losing their pensions.
“Volunteers and communities have been in a state of limbo guided by inconsistent opinions from the pension board on whether a volunteer must stop providing services to a community in order to receive a pension upon retirement from an unrelated municipal job,” Schepisi said.
“This bill protects the volunteers and mitigates the effect on towns that struggle to find round-the-clock protection for their community.”
Seventy-five percent of fire departments are all-volunteer in New Jersey, and 18 percent have paid and volunteer responders. There are 579 volunteer fire departments in the state and 49 career fire departments. The volunteers often hold paying jobs with local municipalities.
Bucco, a longtime volunteer who has been with the Boonton Volunteer Fire Department for 37 years, said it’s “unfathomable we would turn away reliable and tested responders.”
He added, “I can’t imagine how our towns would manage without the dedicated and selfless volunteers who drop everything to answer the alarm. Not only do they save lives, their volunteer service provides millions of dollars of tax savings for our residents.”
Auth (R-Bergen), a former volunteer firefighter, added, “Volunteers are critical to our towns, putting themselves at risk to provide life-saving assistance during fires, car crashes, and natural disasters. This bill is our chance to help them help us. We should be applauding their selflessness, not locking them out of the firehouse.”
John Lazar, an Emerson volunteer firefighter since 1973 and a longtime official with the Bergenfield Fire Prevention Bureau who just retired from public service, said the state has generally failed front-line workers.
“It’s not only the firefighters, it’s also the municipal employees’ benefits. They had funds set up—the state set it up. And they said that the employees pay into it, the town they work for pays into it, and the state pays into it.
“The state didn’t put any money into it. When it was called to the attention of the last governor, that the state hadn’t funded it and it was going to go bankrupt, they put a spin to it like they always do: ‘the greedy employees,’” he said.
“How he did that I have no idea. It was the state’s inability to live up to its obligation under the law that caused this problem,” he added.