A Fight Over a Toner Cartridge Has Started a Firestorm ….

[Anonymous]

A Fight Over a Toner Cartridge Has Started a Firestorm  ,MontCo firefighters are denied fax machine toner

When the Glen Echo Fire Department’s fax machine ran out of toner, volunteer Chief Herbert Leusch asked the county-paid station commander to replace it, but he was denied. The county maintains only the fax machines it owns, he was told, but the station’s fax machine was paid for by Glen Echo’s volunteer board of directors. Instead, the county paid for a new fax machine.

"[The county] is having taxpayers spend the money to buy a brand new fax machine when there is a perfectly good one sitting in the station just because they are not willing to pay for an ink cartridge," Leusch wrote in an email to the County Council this week. "We are now going to have two fax machines at Station 11, one owned by the [volunteer fire department], and one owned by the county."

The dispute is the result of a two-year transition from the county’s 19 volunteer fire departments managing their own finances to the county managing their finances for them, said Eric Bernard, executive director of the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire and Rescue Association.

The volunteers used to manage more than $2 million in taxpayer dollars every year, on top of their privately raised funds. In fiscal 2012, their county-funded budget shrank to $412,000 total for all firehouses.

In fiscal 2013 — which starts July 1 — the county will pay for all equipment and other supplies necessary for the firefighters to protect the county, said Assistant Chief Scott Graham. But the county didn’t want to pay for the fax toner because it wasn’t necessary for daily operations.

Graham said he personally handled the fax machine fight by buying a $30 toner cartridge and warning the department — which raises more than $100,000 in private funds each year — that it would be the last time. Fax machines cost as much as $800.

But the tensions between the volunteers and the county don’t end at fax machine toner.

"We have an engine that is basically sitting in our station, and the county has made it clear that they will not support it," Leusch told The Washington Examiner, adding that the largely volunteer department cannot afford repairs.

Because the department doesn’t want to risk the truck breaking, they only use it for parades.

The station also has had trouble paying for trash collection — the $1,200 the county gave them wasn’t sufficient, said Treasurer Marc Hersh.

The problems aren’t just felt at Glen Echo, either. In the Bethesda Fire Department, the system that turns on the sirens and lights when there is a fire broke, but the volunteer department didn’t have the money to pay to fix it, said John Murgolo, president of the department’s board of directors. Firefighters relied on a phone call from the dispatcher instead.

"It’s one thing after another," said Grant Davies, Bethesda’s treasurer.

[Author]

April 24, 2012 at 7:55 AM