Brookfield firefighters and emergency medical personnel have received cash bonuses under a state program that distributed American Rescue Plan Act funds.
Brookfield Fire Department chose to accept the Ohio Impacted Ambulance Industry Stimulus Funding for the retention of current full- and part-time employees. The amount of money a staff member received depended on the number of hours worked between Jan. 1 and June 30, said Capt. Nick Cresanto.
“We wanted to reward those who worked more, so that’s why we broke it down into a tiered system,” Cresanto said. “The more you worked, the more you got awarded.”
Brookfield was awarded $55,681, said Fire Chief David Masirovits. Full-timers who were hired prior to Jan. 1 got between $6,000 and $8,000 each.
Trustee Dan Suttles said that while he thought it was “great” that the fire department members received the money, the award came at a cost to the township. The fire department had to pay into the full-time members’ pension plans at a rate of 30 percent for each career firefighter.
Although Masirovits said the pension contributions – a total of $15,795 – were available in the fire budget, Suttles called the local outlay “concerning.”
“It costs us money,” Suttles said.