Fire Commissioners Response To Budget Hearing

good morning my name is michael dennis chairman of the board of fire commissioners lakewood township um i've been a commissioner for nine years going on ten i've been a volunteer fireman in the township of lakewood for the past 35 years to my left is vice chairman juan ortiz also a member of the fire service for lakewood for over 21 years commissioner for eight years eight years um and this is just in response to the recent budget hearings that we uh had with the township committee and uh just to give you a little overview on what our feelings was and what the response is to the outcome of the budget and and i think the easiest way for me to do that would be to echo uh the awards of deputy mayor steve langer and and we must respond to the voters request with the defeated budget we must respond to what the taxpayers are asking of us and to do that we have agreed with the township to change our buying policies and to now do it through a debt service which will extend the payments over years instead of paying for it up front after meeting with the township committee and with the the liaison budget hearings we were able to do this without compromising any fire service to the community we were able to do this without compromising any safety to our firefighters at the same time the township committee and the commissioners have always worked with a great harmony we'll continue to do that provide the most superior fire service to lakewood as we move forward we are proud based on the size of lakewood as it being compared to a city at this point and i think we all can agree on that as as the population grows that we still are able to maintain a volunteer a predominantly volunteer fire service for the town which is a much lower cost if you compare our town to other cities and municipalities throughout the state and find that most of those cities in our size you'll see that they are a predominantly paid versus a smaller volunteer and we want to continue to move forward and provide a predominantly volunteer service with a smaller paid entity and and that keeps the cost of the taxpayers lower you'll see in the other cities that have larger paid fire services it's a much higher cost to the to the taxpayers we are also very proud of our men and women in the volunteer fire department the fire service that they provide to lakewood in the community and we want to thank them for their dedicated service to the residents of lakewood and we also want to thank the residents for their continued support of the firefighters and the fire service here in lakewood thank you basically mike has said it all and we just want to again thank the firefighters and the community for support