OAT Onset All Together

Very slowly information is being extracted regarding the true costs of running the Onset Fire District, through filing of Freedom of Information Act requests. Source: Onset Fire District Records Officer. The District spent a great deal of money on a lawyer to tell us that they are not about to give us public information.  The irony is that they just completed collective bargaining negotiations, and should have had all of this information collected and in use for negotiations. Some information gleaned from this request: The health and dental insurance benefit is very generous.  When considering total "pay" salary plus benefits plus retirement must be considered together.  Each current employee and a Prudential Committee member receive the benefit of $745.00 a month for a single plan or $1,986.00 a month for a family plan for medical only. The Onset Fire and Water District has 85 employees. The Paid Leave benefits are as much as 33 days a year (6 1/2 work weeks). ...

August, 2017 Attending the Onset Fire Building and Prudential Committee Meetings this week was enlightening and a little distressing. As we discovered at the 2017 District Meeting, we District members have not paid close enough attention to how, when and where our money and resources are spent. Hopefully that has changed and will continue with more and more citizen involvement and oversight. While the committee is diligent in how they see money accounted for, it’s fairly clear that there are areas for improvement and education. The Town of Wareham has refused to discuss the sale, lease or gift of the Hammond School property and adjacent lots, but has thus far refused to issue a denial in writing. This despite several requests from the Prudential Committee Chair to do so. When asked the value of the property in Onset Village owned by the OFD, the Committee stated that they do not know the value as they have not had an appraisal. Thus, they do not know what monies may beco...

Follow us on Facebook Many of us learned a great deal at the spring 2017 Annual meeting of the Onset Fire and Water Prudential Committee. We learned that we pay 99% of the health insurance for employees, and that we pay the Town of Wareham a percentage of the tax base to send out bills. This amount increases as the taxes increase, regardless of the number of bills processed. Since then, I have learned that the Prudential Committee has not investigated any cost savings from bringing the billing in-house or bidding it out to an outside contractor. I learned that they ratified a new collective bargaining agreement with the Firefighters’ Union without knowing the actual cost of negotiated increases in wages, longevity and stipends. I learned that they have paid Plymouth County to help them hire contractors for the new firehouse. I also learned that the Town Administrator gave them a one sentence memorandum saying that the town is not going to discuss the Hammond School properties ...