Abbottstown & New Oxford Fire Companies Merger Membership Meeting 6/8/08

1. WORKING TOGETHER FOR OUR FUTURE Abbottstown & New Oxford Fire Companies Merger Membership Meeting 6/8/08 1. Definition of merger. As defined by the PA legislative Budget & Finance Committee’s feasibility of regionalizing PA’s volunteer fire companies, June 2005. In its simplest sense, a merger occurs when two or more fire companies legally resolve to become one entirely new entity. Typically, the largest of the involved parties becomes the surviving entity and assumes all liabilities and assets of the predecessor organizations. Mergers between fire companies may be the logical result of companies that have a history of cooperation, for example, through contractual agreements or automatic mutual aid. Company officers may through experience come to see the benefits of cooperation and agree to extend the relationship by combining resources to enhance the capabilities of their organizations and their mission.

2. Mergers may be undertaken for various reasons. Typically, mergers are undertaken to improve and/or equalize fire protection throughout the service areas of the merging departments. For example, two departments located within a few miles of each other in a rural area may contemplate merging due to the recognition that they are competing for the same resources. If one or both of the companies is experiencing manpower or financial difficulties, combining their assets may be a way to alleviate those problems. The closing of stations is not usually an immediate result of a merger, as more efficient and effective utilization of manpower is often one of the goals sought through merger.

3. Introduction • The first meeting on this topic was held Monday April 12, 2004 amongst various members of five area departments. The five departments were: • Abbottstown • East Berlin • Hampton • Irishtown • New Oxford

4. WHY ARE WE HERE • The April 12, 2004 meeting opened with a question from Dale Reichert and Kevin Moul from Abbottstown Fire Co. asking:“Where is our department going to be in 10 years?”From that, other questions came about, such as:“Is our hall making us any money?”“Is it worthwhile to invest money in our hall to make upgrades if we aren’t making money?” “What are our alternatives?”The original question was posed to each of the individual departments, “Where are you going to be in 10 years?”

5. Where it went from there In late 2004 the five departments all agreed that now was not the time to try to join together 5 departments. The East Berlin and Abbottstown Fire Companies then spent about 2 years looking at a consolidation. Things seemed to be progressing but at the eleventh hour, East Berlin voted at their meeting to discontinue the venture.

6. In December of 2007 the incoming officers of New Oxford informally ask the officers of the Abbottstown Fire Company if they would consider revisiting the idea with them. At both Companies December meetings the membership voted to revisit the merger idea. The first meeting was held in January 2008. At that meeting it was decided to ask the Irishtown Fire Company if they also wanted to be involved due to their close proximity to the area. Also at that meeting we visited pros and cons of moving forward.

7. Neither AFC or NOFC is currently in any financial difficulty at this time… • We are not closing either station. • We have a 2 year plan of replacing or renovating the Abbottstown station. • We are not looking to make this a paid department. • We will not be lessening the services offered.

8. The Positives What we are looking to create is a more efficient emergency services partnership for the common good of the communities involved.

9. Benefits of Merger • More efficient use of resources with improved services. • Elimination of duplicated equipment. • Cost reductions through volume purchasing and combined equipment planning and maintenance. • More efficient personnel allocation. • Unified training and operational guidelines as well as standardization. • Potential ISO (insurance rating) rating improvement for the community resulting in lower homeowners insurance costs.

10. Regionalized public information and education programs • Improved planning including fire protection master planning and the strategic location of specialized pieces of apparatus and equipment. • Potential for improved response times. • Centralized fire service management and reduced administrative costs and personnel. • Reduced need for fundraising which time can be transferred to more important needs such as training and equipment maintenance.

11. Personnel • Problems were acknowledged of having problems with recruiting new members and keeping the interest of the ones we already have. We discussed putting a team together to bring in new members who are willing to take trainings and be involved in the departments. • Retaining members – several larger departments offer LOSAP, a program designed to give volunteers a “retirement plan” after a given amount of years of service, • With a larger group, new friendships will be created. • With new developments popping up all over the area, there could possibly be a person assigned to working with planning commissions on building codes and water supplies. • The addition of The York Water Company into Abbottstown will increase the development potential of our respective response areas. • As a group, difficult positions to fill could be done through one person to cover all departments.

12. TRAINING • At our initial meeting each department spoke of having problems getting members to show up for training. When you bring together members from two departments, you can do much more training. • Training leads to safer fire ground operations. • The time is coming where you may have to be certified to be a firefighter, similar to required certification for an EMT to provide patient care. Better training could better prepare our personnel for when that time comes. • Note: Grant applications request info about how many personnel are FF1 certified. Points are based on this information. The more trained personnel we have, the more likely it is that we’ll receive grant money. That means less time fundraising.

13. Training Continued • A diversified group of people with different professions and experience will help each member with different views of how to handle situations. • Expanded EMS/Ambulance Service with potential for more income • The need for an excessive amount of fundraisers could be much less with greater support from municipalities, thus relieving personnel from time spent raising money and could spend time training and with our families. • We are more likely to gain community support by working together amongst ourselves.

14. We feel this would be taking a huge step for volunteer fire departments. • We would be asking our members to be willing to put aside hundreds of years of “Tradition”, hard work and countless hours that went into the individual departments for the betterment of the communities we serve. • Our goal is for our members to be able to do more training and provide quality emergency services with less time spent doing fund raising to prevent burn out of our members

15. WE ALSO TALKED ABOUT WHAT IT IS EXACTLY WE WANT TO ACHIEVE • We discussed the previous experience between AFC and EBFC. • From that we learned it is much easier, more cost effective and timely for one or more departments to merge into a parent company than to consolidate into a new company. • We discussed the geographic area. • A merger between the 2 companies would mean they serve the following municipalities: • 100% coverage - New Oxford Boro, Abbottstown Boro & Berwick Twp • 90% coverage - Oxford Twp • 70% coverage - Hamilton Twp • 50% coverage - Paradise Twp • 15% coverage - Mt Pleasant Twp & Straban Twp

16. Creation of a new organization. • - Combined colors and station identity. • - more efficient use of resources • - new department number 33? • - new department name member contest • - improved service levels • - reduced apparatus needs and reduced replacement costs • - centralized fire service management and reduced administration costs • - new single set of by-laws • - new single set of training requirements and SOG’s • - single pager activation

17. 4. Officers. The new department would operate under one set of officers for both fire and executive sides of the business. Fire Officers: -  Chief, voted -  Deputy Chief, voted -  Asst. Chief, voted -  Captain(s), voted -  (2 or 4) Lieutenants, minimum of 1 from each station, appointed -  Chief Engineer, appointed -  Fire Police Capt and Lt – appointed -  EMS Officer, appointed

18. Executive Officers: -  President, voted -  Vice President, voted -  Treasurer, voted -  Secretary, voted -  Asst Treasurer/Secretary, voted -  (3) trustees, voted The relief association would enact the same administrative officers as the fire department. 5. Accounting The new organization would downsize bank accounts down to (3) accounts. They would be fire department, firemen’s relief and EMS. Their would be a complete re-evaluation of all fundraising activities to reduce the amount of activities and only do fundraisers that create a large enough profit as needed by the budget and to help prevent volunteer burnout.

19. Anticipated Call Volume

20. Fire Company Combined Income vs Expenses Estimates

21. Relief Assoc. Combined Income vs Expenses Estimates

22. Estimated Cost Savings of Merger

23. SWITCH TO STREETS AND TRIPS MAP VIEW

24. TIMELINE Abbottstown & New Oxford Fire Companies Merger Timeline ·4/24/08 - Provide the committee with each department’s by-laws, SOG’s, 2007 & 2008-current financial statements and a report of each dept’s 5-year plan. ·       5/22/08 – Committee to have draft of Power Point presentation prepared and ready for review defining the pros & con’s and format of the merger. ·       6/8/08 – Presentation of the Power Point program to each of the department’s entire membership and to entertain questions & answers for the memberships.

25. ·6/26/08 – Committee to review comments received from presentation and address any concerns or corrections to the timeline or program. • 7/24/08 – Preparation of documents to handle the final vote for each department. • ·    8/5 & 8/6 – Abbottstown and New Oxford general monthly meeting, respectively, will vote to proceed with merger. • ·       8/21/08 – Organizational meeting of the committee to begin assignments of tasks to be handled by sub-committee’s for completion of merger. • ·       8/28/08 – A presentation explaining the merger to each of the (8) municipalities which will be affected. • ·

26. 9/25, 10/23, 11/27 & 12/18/08 – Committee continues to meet evaluating each sub committee’s progression and addressing issues and concerns. ·       1/1/09 – Inaugural date of conception of the newly named & renumbered “xxxxx” Fire Dept. ·       1/7/09 – First general monthly meeting of new named department at the New Oxford headquarters’ station.

27. Questions, Comments and Concerns We have thrown a lot of information at you in a short period of time, there has to be questions, comments and concerns. We will do our best to provide answers. Merger Committee Members: New OxfordAbbottstown Fire Chief Steven Rabine Fire Chief Dale Reichert President Jeff Blystone Deputy Chief Kevin Moul Past Chief Steven Sipe Assistant Chief Jakob Chronister Past Chief Dan Poist Captain Nevin Lehman Past Chief Ike Felix Fire Police Capt. Frank Smith Past Deputy Chief Tim Reichert How to contact us later: Steve Rabine chief13@pa.net Dale Reichert reicherts1@comcast.net 324-0341 Jeff Blystone jablystone@embarqmail.com Kevin Moul kmoul@thefirestore.com