CENTER TWP — Supervisors heard an early plan to improve daytime fire department services in Butler County's northwest corner during their Monday night meeting.

Nathan Wulff, chief of the Unionville Volunteer Fire Company, gave a brief presentation on a proposal he and other fire personnel are considering. The plan is to unite several municipalities into one cooperative organization that would station a few paid firefighters in their area to supplement diminishing volunteer firefighter staffing and increasing call volumes. The tentative name is the Moraine Fire District Cooperative.

Such a cooperative, Wulff emphasized, is only a plan. Various fire department chiefs met over the past weekend to discuss the idea. If anything is to move forward, their staffs will need to vote in favor. None have yet voted, including Wulff's own group.

“We're in the preliminary stages of planning for a paid staffing program for fire services in 16 municipalities, pending fire departments' approval,” Wulff said after the meeting.

If fire departments' staffs are all on board, the idea would eventually go to municipalities for consideration. Wulff wasn't actually asking for the Center Township's supervisors' opinions on Monday — rather, he wanted permission to ask township staff, namely the township's solicitor, legal questions about moving forward.

Board Chairman Ron Flatt said Wulff, who is currently pursuing this as a citizen rather than as the Unionville chief, could direct inquiries to him. Flatt would then contact the township's attorneys himself.

Flatt and Wulff both spoke on why such paid teams may be needed. Volunteers are hard to find, Wulff explained, particularly during daylight hours. Such a move would lessen the need for volunteers who can work days.

“We're not to the point quite yet where we're in crisis mode, but it's coming down the pipe,” Wulff said. “A lot of these fire departments, including us to some extent, are one or two crucial members away from being in a crisis.”

The exact boundaries would depend on who chooses to participate, but Wulff provided a sample map. They're looking to include all municipalities in the northwest corner, with Center Township as the southeast corner. Two stations, each manned with two paid firefighters, should provide similar or better response times than current volunteer arrangements, Wulff estimates. Volunteers would still be dispatched, but their staffing volatility would no longer affect immediate service.

Paying for those staff members would require financial input from all the covered municipalities. How that would work and the exact dollar amounts needed are up in the air, but Wulff mentioned needing $130,000 per year for $15-per-hour wages.

The shifts would be split among a pool of several part-time firefighters.

Other business

The board voted unanimously to give Flatt permission to write a letter to Cambridge Healthcare concerning drainage issues at the Abie Abraham VA Health Care Clinic. Flatt said he would bring back the draft for approval before sending it.

Such a letter would spell out fixes expected by the board before the company, which developed the VA building, would be allowed to receive its $679,000 bond.

Solicitor Sean Gallagher confirmed that the energy company Stonehenge Appalachia has agreed to pay the township $20,000 for repairs on Brown Road. The work was handled by township staff.