Advanced Search
Welcome to Omgili,
Omgili (Oh My God I Love It ;) is a search engine for discussions. With Omgili you can find answers and solutions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, opinions and more... To learn more about Omgili click here.

This is a complete preview of the discussion as it was indexed by Omgili crawlers. Use this preview if the original discussion is unavailable.
Click here to view the original discussion.

Funding/Money matters

Hi all, Just wondering what the feeling is out there re: funding.

Specifically I was thinking about corporate sponsorship/branding (which I am against the branding), council support and most importantly government funding. Also, what ever happened to that idea about the SES receiving insurance company money similar to the fire-service levy? What prompted this was the ad on TV for the ambo\'s advertising membership.

No membership and they send you a bill for services, just like the fireies do.

I wonder why we don\'t???

The problem I see with funding from insurance companies is they\'ll expect preferential treatment during storm damage jobs. If they were to charge a levy through insurance policies, then my insurance would go up even higher.

Yes I think insurance companies should support SES, but they can use funds from thier already huge profits. After all we reduce the further damage caused in a lot of cases.

You could really open a can of worms here cam.

I am a volunteer in the NSW VRA whom only get $750,000 per year for all our squads state wide, including marine, cave rescue, wicen, swift water rescue and general land/road rescue units.

Basically each squad receives approximately $3000 which covers the insurance for our equipment, depending on size of squad you may get nothing out of that $3000 after this insurance is paid.

We do get a sponorship from NRMA Insurance of $75000 per year for PPE which equates to $1000 per unit.

Overalls cost $130 per pair, don;t even think of buying boots buy your own.

Now if I remember reading the annual SES report last year they got $12 million from the NSW government and more indirect through grants etc from Federal government.

Most of VRA squads will assist with storm damage within their area and some even do it on behalf of SES as no SES unit in area.

Do VRA then charge the SES for our assistance or doing this work on their behalf.

VRA members have to find raise for trucks, PPE and rescue equipment, yes I know so do most SES units, but as there is an act of parliment that requires the local council to fund 50% of vehilces and supply a suitable headquarters for SES, when VRA don\'t.

So you can see why some of us VRA guys get our noses out of joint, yes just jealous I know. So should the Insurance companies pay more towards both our organisations YES, and I work for one.

I believe there should be more parity between volunteer rescue accredited units whether SES or VRA and scaled down from there to units just doing flood/storm work then to storm only groups with adjustments made for number of jobs.

Basically road rescue should get priority, then flood/storm units depending on job numbers and then storm only units again adjusted for number of jobs.

I travel a bit through NSW and top of Victoria and to see the $7 million dollar SES shed with five trucks at Seven Hills, storm only I think, then go see a Road rescue unit in the country, yes limited jobs, driving around in a 20yr old truck for primary rescue beats the hell out of me.

Oh I forgot the politicians don\'t live out there so they don\'t care.

He would if he had an accident out there and the truck to long to get to him. It a an arguement thats going to go on and on buts its my ten cents worth.

The fireies get huge funding here in Melbourne and yet they still hit people up with a bill even for attending a legit fire.

They tell the people to give it to their insurance companies.

I always thought it was a free service.

The bills are even higher for corporates with false alarms.

Same with the ambos...I mean, if you are not a member then they hit you with sometimes thousands of dollars for a flight in the chopper.

See where I am going with this? I reckon we could charge for callouts if we wanted, but town are a bit scared that we\'d \"lose business\" if we did. I seem to recall a year or so ago some talk about the legislated fire-service levy being redistributed to include other services.

I also remember they were talking about getting councils to charge it according to rates so that way everyone paid, not just people with insurance. I just wonder what would happen on a busy storm night if we handed a resident an invoice and asked them to pass it on to their insurance company...whether they\'d end up paying or not?

Out here we have a fire levy collected on the rates.

One of the problems is residents think they pay for the rurals so if they want a burn off etc why should they pay more.

It\'s like they pay the levy so the rurals work for them mentality. Imagine the storm damage.

I pay my levy and you will get here now and fix my roof and clean my yard and remove the debris too.

Admittedly it would only be the minority who felt this way. If your Local Council isn\'t providing enough funding, then give them a reason to.

Provide a strategic plan, giving alternative methods of funding as well.

It may take a long time to raise the level of priority within their ranks, but it\'ll be worth it.

ASNSW is funded by NSW Dept Health. Need I say more? I\'ll just shut up now, in fear of getting sacked.

Just a note on storm damage.

If you look at the guidelines sent out by Vic SES HQ on what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do, it leaves us with \"damaged property\" like cars and houses only.

Not power lines, trees on roads, not trees in gardens, over drives etc.... I believe we get called to, and sometimes do jobs that muddy the water about what the SES is all about.

We often end up doing jobs as a community service, wrongly or rightly, or in place of the local council after hours crews etc... So to charge for all this work, we would have to first have some changes made to our SES Act, add a lot of guff in it for how we do this, and I am worried that customers would expect more out of us.

The fire services have time limits on their calls and geared up to be able to respond to a call in X number of minutes.

Could we get tangled up in this sort of stuff for storm damage? I thought we were around for the big, nasty, tornado like severe storm damage nights.

The majority of calls I/we get called to a contractor should be doing.

Look at our training manuals for storm and water damage.

They talk about major damage. I am not convinced this is the way to go.

I think we should be targeting Government for funding in specific areas and sorting out our own response, training and equipment before going for funding arrangements from insurance companies.

I do not like having to be sponsored to pay for life saving equipment.

I would have to say that I agree with BDST and not only because he comes from the best state in Australia.

It is up to the Local Councils to make sure the units are adequately equiped and funded for their role within their Counter Disaster Plan.

If they don\'t have the money then they should go to the rate payers and decided if there should be a small levy.

I am constantly amazed when I hear about volunteers in SES, RFS etc spending their time on top of training and activations, fundraising to keep their units operating.

This is one thing my LC has said will never happen. We have no problems getting anything we want if there is a justifiable need eg activations stats.

We operate very well with council & state funding.

Currently awaiting the arrival of our new \'Barge boat\' to assist us service the Bay Islands. Having said the above I have been involved in lots of major storm damage operations in SE QLD and Northern NSW in the last few years and I feel that the insurance companies definately have their part to play. Approx half the calls that I have attended have informed our team on arrival that \'their insurance company told them to ring the SES immediately to prevent further damage\' when the next storm hits in the next few hours/ day.

There needs to be a pool of funding from all the insurance companies that is allocated to a range of SES, VRA, RFS services.

This would also prevent favouritism as all would contribute according to the number of members. I have always said that it is going to take a huge natural disaster to shake up the volunteer service priority and funding system in Australia.

Unfortunately this is going to be too late for the sleep deprived/ under resourced volunteers and the victims. Anne-Marie Bennett

I believe in SA that the government did put an emergency service levy on rate payers.

From what I have heard it has not been sufficient for the SES to gear up as alot goes to other services.

And also becuase of this levy they find it hard to fund raise and get sponsorship from their communities.

Maybe somone from SA SES can comment on how they find this arrangement. David

G\'day everybody!

Well, I\'m standing tall on my pulpit so here goes.

Whilst you belong to a volunteer organisation like the SES that has to rely on charity and whatever crumbs the government seems fit to fling your way, you will always struggle for funds.

The only time the politicians might give a toss about your plight would be if the roof of parliament house is blown off in a storm and then they might come to realize what a vital service you provide.

However that is unlikely to happen so you must face the stark reality that standing on a street corner rattling a tin, or selling barbequed sausages at the roadside, isn\'t going to get you what you need (No matter how yummy they are…mmmm sausages, drooling noise).

Governments love charitable/volunteer organisations such as the SES because you won’t question or complain about the inadequate funding arrangements they allocate to you.

They know that you see it as a challenge to continue to operate with whatever limited resources given to you, whilst other “paid/professional” organisations are flush with funds.

They rely on your stoicism and dedication to duty to offset their indifference to your plight, but it is not a hopeless cause. You want more funding, more training, more equipment, more recognition, perhaps even a little more respect??

Then you\'re going to have to get militant and mean.

You going to have to become an embarrassment to the SES management and the government, so that they will dip into the slush fund they have available that allows them to all fly off on junket trips to warmer climates during the winter and give you more than the needed funding to shut you up.

You\'re all going to have to put aside that altruistic, dedicated, charitable streak you have inside of you and say to all and sundry \"No More\"! \"No more will I risk my life and well-being by going out in the pouring rain and gale-force winds to patch up someone\'s roof during a wild storm, using second-rate, El-Cheapo equipment.

No more will I risk my life and well being by going out to the roadside somewhere to extricate another victim of a vehicle crash with a second-rate vehicle and third-rate extrication gear.

No more will I risk my life and well being by going out to search for some lost hiker without the proper clothing, radios, training and equipment.

No more will I risk my life and well-being by going out and standing at a busy intersection, rattling a tin and all the time avoiding aggressive /inconsiderate drivers who try to run me down.

No more will I risk my life and well being by going out to assist the local police with a line search for evidence at a crime scene in all climatic conditions for hours on end, whilst my full-time employer seriously considers laying me off because of my time spent away from work.

No more will I risk my family’s future security by going out without any government support in case of death or injury, or support and incentives for my full-time employer to allow me to undertake my duties as a SES Volunteer similar to what members of the Defence Force Reserves get!” (Which is tax-free pay, free uniforms, incentives/recognition/tax-breaks for employers to allow their employees to serve in the reserves, time off to attend full-time training and more). Stand up for yourselves, don’t just use this forum to air your grievances, go forth and spread the word and take action.

Do you really expect more funding to just suddenly come your way magically?

No! Of course it won’t, funding has to be hard earned, always remember that you are competing with other organisations for what limited dollars there are so don’t stand at the back waiting, start pushing your way through the crowd and make yourself heard above the roar.

To Quote: Peter Finch’s famous line from the movie “Network” (1976), in that “I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: I\'m as mad as hell, and I\'m not going to take this anymore!” Remember that you are volunteers and that you perform in a specialised field.

Who would undertake your role if you chose not to?

What would be the consequences if you threatened to withdraw your services, your willingness to devote your own time and energy?

They can’t sack you;

They can’t replace you, face facts!

There isn’t a horde of people waiting around at unemployment offices somewhere just waiting to step into your shoes.

They can’t use the paid emergency services to replace you, as they are too busy themselves with their own tasks.

They can’t use the Defence Forces to replace you, as they aren’t trained in the tasks you perform, like RCR (Plus they’re too busy chasing illegal boat people or looking for WMD under a sand dune somewhere). Start charging people and organisations for the services you provide, that’s a sure way to get funds.

If you attend a traffic collision, send a bill to the TAC or car insurers for the services you provided based on the registration number.

If you attend a house that is storm damaged, send the homeowner a bill that they can recoup from their insurance company.

If you attend a horse that’s stuck in the mud, send the farmer a bill that they can recoup from their insurance company.

If you search for a lost hiker, send them a bill for your services that they can recoup from their insurance company (I know that insurance companies don’t insure hikers, but if it is suggested to them that it’s another premium for them to collect, they’ll do it).

If none of these people have insurance, that’s too bad!

You then send in the revenue collectors.

The ambulance isn’t a free service;

People do end up with big ambulance bills because they made a choice to go without ambulance subscription in the hope that they would never need it, they gambled and they lost, tough!

If the police call you out for a line search or extra lighting or any other task that requires your resources, then send the police a bill.

If the ambulance service calls you out because they need a hand to lift an obese person onto a stretcher, then send the ambulance a bill.

Same with the fire brigade or Grand Prix Corporation or any other organisation that utilises your services, send them a bill for the services that you provide and the resources that you use.

Stop being a charity that gets used and abused by everybody, start being a professional organisation so you can earn the funds and respect you deserve. Oh!

I’m out of breath and exhausted.

That’s not a bad effort if I do modestly say so myself.

I should have been a speechwriter for Osama Bin Ladin, if I wasn’t too claustrophobic and pampered to go and cower in a cave somewhere in the Himalayan Mountains.

Then again, I wouldn’t mind an all-expenses paid trip to the sunny resort of Club-Med Guantanamo, three meals a day and all the torture and humilation that I could enjoy courtesy of the friendly resort staff there.

Osama could even have used this speech, just change some of the words such as “SES management” to “The Great Satan” and mention “Death to America” a few times.

By the way, this contribution I’ve posted isn’t a union recruiting drive, nor does it have anything to do with the current industrial action that MAS is going through at present.

It is simply my own personal point of view.

Perhaps the SES (And MAS for that matter) should do what the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) have done in recent times.

They ditched their whole subscription scheme and adopted a levy system whereby a percentage of all electricity bills are paid to the QAS.

If you pay an electricity bill in Queensland for home, industrial or commercial purposes, a percentage of it goes to the QAS (There are a few exceptions such as churches, hospitals and the like).

Now the QAS has a huge amount of funding, maybe other organisations should follow their lead.

Quote: Stop being a charity that gets used and abused by everybody, start being a professional organisation so you can earn the funds and respect you deserve. Well said. I used to be a volunteer firefighter in the USA (just north of New York City) and we had a saying...\"Volunteer firefighters....unpaid professionals\" with all the pride to match.

It was never an issue whether you were paid or volly once your uniform was on...if fact it was impossible to tell the difference.

All training was done together and, if anything, the paid crew were often taking the back seat to the volly\'s.

Sad to hear after all these years as a Voluntary organisation commited to \"Assisting Victorians in their time of need\" that the Government still wont come to the party and support SES fully in their time of need. I guess we all have stories of hours commited to training and Operations, that take us away from our loved ones, and then to top it all off even more hours spent foot slogging and tin rattling to raise enough funds to purchase a vehicle (in some cases a second hand one). Why is it that SES have been made to feel like the emergency services orphans for so long?

Isn\'t it enough that they are all Volunteers giving up their time to assist others. The unit I served with was luckier than some our council supported us financially not only meeting the Government allocation but doubling it. That being said money was still scarce and only ever covered the day to day runnings of the Unit and the operational outlay. It\'s time that SES Volunteers spoke up loudly and clearly and had their voices heard, this issue has been raised time and again since Year Dot. I have been out of the service for some 6 years now (miss it heaps) and I lost contact with the day to day matters that seemed to distract volunteers from their real purpose. Surprised after what seems like years to hear that tin rattling is still an SES volunteers responsibility if the Unit is to obtain what should be allocated with Government funding.

Phil. Well Said. As a SES Vol and an Ambo, the difference between funding is obvious and Significant, even though there is almost twice as many SEs vols as Ambos inVictoria. Professionalism is a state of mind, not a pay packet! That\'s all i\'m gonna say or i\'ll end up making a post like Phil\'s!! PS After mentioning Osama Bin Laden twice and \"Death to Amercia\" and \"the great Satan\" have the FBI been in contact.

All you left out were the words BOMB and Death to Dubya!

Many many years ago there was a push from the Government to fund VICSES through the insurance but the SES knocked it back :roll: saying it would detract from our charitable staus or some other crap like that :!: 8O This was reported in an old edition of the SES magazine (Before Phoenix), can\'t remember what it was called or the exact specifics...

Luke, Funny how things change seeing that you are now \'sponsered\' by an insurance company :!: even though the dollars are less than a poofteenth of what is required!!! At least now there is not the expectation that you \'jump start cars\' as with RACV :wink:

Discussion Title: Funding/Money matters
Title Keywords: Funding/Money  matters 



Omgili Home About FAQ Plugins Usenet