MONROE COUNTY, Ga. — Until now, Monroe County's volunteer firefighters received $600 stipends twice a year, no matter how many fires they responded to.
Now, they will get paid for training plus another $10 an hour for each call made.
Chief Matt Jackson says volunteers will now be considered paid on-call personnel.
“We've got a lot of them out there that are running calls almost every day and before they weren’t getting anything for that,” Jackson said.
Alex Harrison has volunteered for a year-and-a-half, and says he enjoys helping the community and boosting the station morale. He says since he and the other volunteers work separate jobs.
The new pay is a bonus.
“Sometimes, it’s kind of hard to encourage people to, 'Hey, after you work ten hours, why don’t you come to the fire station for four hours and we're going to get hot and sweaty and we're going to work on what you do?' It kind of provides some reimbursement for that,” says Harrison.
It also will help with their travels.
“As volunteers, we all respond in our personal vehicles. Everybody knows gas is high right now. That’s something that people don’t think about. We drive from one end of the county all over,” Harrison adds.
Chief Matt Jackson says this payment plan is aimed at keeping current volunteers and he also hopes this brings in more.
“I don’t know that we could ever have too many -- as many as we can get. I mean, I would love to see our numbers double with volunteers,” says Jackson
Under the new payment plan, the county will also pay $25 monthly to active firefighter pension funds.
“The fact that they’re offering to pay that for us so that we have something once we get away from this place, I think that’s really cool,” adds Harrison.
Chief Jackson says to be eligible for the payment plan volunteers must complete three calls and 12 hours of training in a six-month period.
Jackson says you don't need previous training to become a volunteer firefighter.
If you’re interested you can fill out an application on Monroe County Fire's volunteer website or reach out through their Facebook page.