North Penn could discuss firefighter tax credit

The North Penn School Board could soon take up talks on a new way to help out local emergency responders.

School board members heard a presentation Monday night on a possible tax break for volunteer firefighters and how it could copy a similar effort from several local towns.

“They reached out to the school district over a year ago, about some new legislation providing tax breaks to volunteer firefighters and other volunteer emergency personnel,” said Superintendent Todd Bauer.

“As individuals supporting our community, it’s getting harder and harder to recruit, and we’ve been talking to them for quite some time,” he said.

In 2016, the state’s Act 172 authorized local municipalities to enact credits on local taxes for those who volunteer for emergency response groups, in an effort to acknowledge what those volunteers do for their towns, and to try to help those groups recruit and retain members. After that act was passed, several local towns adopted volunteer incentives, including in Hatfield Township, for the two fire companies that cover that municipality, and in Lansdale Borough, where the borough donates to a stipend program run by the Fairmount Fire Company, and in Montgomery Township for firefighters in the Fire Department of Montgomery Township as well as ambulance and paramedic personnel with the Volunteer Medical Service Corps.

In Montgomery, that township’s ordinance allows for a tax credit of up to $500 on the township’s earned income tax bill, FDMT Chief Bill Wiegman told the school board’s safe schools committee on Monday night.

“In 1970, there was about 187,000 volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania, and now we’re somewhere around maybe 30,000 left,” Wiegman said: “we know we have firefighters who serve in multiple jurisdictions, so we’re not even sure 30,000 is the right number.”

Factors that have caused those numbers to decrease include overall affordability, costs of training and equipment, work-life balance and jobs not allowing firefighters to drop everything and leave for a call, the chief told the committee. North Penn is served by the FDMT, Hatfield, North Penn, Colmar, Towamencin, Upper Gwynedd, and Fairmount fire companies, all seeing the same issues, even since the 2016 law allowing the local incentives.

“In 2020, Act 91 expanded those incentive programs, to county taxes and school district taxes. Montgomery County started with their tax incentive program this year, and it’s looking like less than 200 volunteer firefighters from the North Penn School District applied for any type of incentive or reimbursements from the county’s program,” Wiegman said.

Six of the seven companies serving North Penn are all-volunteer, and FDMT has paid staff during the day who are supplemented by roughly 70 volunteers, thus all would back any incentive offered by the district, the fire chief told the committee. So far, Lower Merion School District in Montgomery County and Neshaminy in Bucks County are the only school districts in the area that offer similar incentives.

“Some give 100 percent of the school tax back, some identify a number — $500 or $800 a year, for active volunteers. But we already have the mechanism in place to figure out who’s active and who’s not,” Wiegman said.

Montgomery County has “already fleshed out” the criteria that set forth how firefighters are considered to be qualified, thus the request from the local companies for the district to consider.

“I’m asking the school district to consider some sort of incentive program, whatever it looks like. I think this will have a positive impact on the firefighters in North Penn School District. The chiefs are fully behind it, their memberships are fully behind it,” he said.

“We’re trying to do anything to get volunteer firefighters — because that ultimately that saves taxpayers money, than a full time fire department — we are trying any incentive program. Almost every municipality has some sort of incentive program,” Wiegman said.

    Fire Department of Montgomery Township firefighters trained with battery operated rescue tools at the department’s fire station in Feb. 2025. (Credit: Fire Department of Montgomery Township)
  

Committee chairman Jonathan Kassa then asked Bauer how he thought such an incentive program could be put in place by the district, and the superintendent said those talks were still in an early stage, then asked for details on how the county incentive operates. Wiegman said that the county uses a point structure that awards 100, 75, 50, 25 or 10 percent of their discount based on participation levels under a point structure, as certified by the fire company when they apply annually.

One consideration: Montgomery’s program gives a flat $500 per firefighter regardless of whether they live in that township or not, which township Manager Carolyn McCreary said is done for several reasons.

“The rollout did not go smoothly. There was some reticence about sharing W2 information, plus the bigger thing was: we have young firefighters who are still living at home with their parents, some are in college, so they don’t have earned income tax, or they certainly don’t have a property tax. So they were getting nothing. And we have retired firefighters, and therefore earned income tax didn’t affect them. We also had firefighters who were renting, and property tax didn’t affect them,” McCreary said.

“We wanted to be fair, and recognize that the service of a firefighter is the same, whether you’re five years in or 15 years in. So we came up with the idea of a $500, per person, payment. The lump sum goes to the fire company, and then they distribute it,” she said.

Bauer then said a flat number would also be his recommendation, and said via back-of-the-envelope math, a $500 rebate for 200 firefighters would total roughly $100,000, less than one percent of the $300-million-plus annual district budget, and specifics will be discussed in the finance committee and full board before any program is adopted.

“We could talk about what the impact could be on the budget, and then have the board give us direction, and then I’m sure we’d had to pass a resolution – those are my initial thoughts,” he said.

Board member Kunbi Rudnick asked how the companies handle incentives for firefighters who live outside the school district, and Wiegman said FDMT has several who live across County Line Road in Bucks County, but do fight fires in Montgomery, and are considered active members.

“If it’s a rebate, which that’s the recommendation from me, they would not only have to live in the North Penn School District,  but also be a property owner in the North Penn School District, because they are paying us property taxes, and we would rebate some of that money,” Bauer said.

Student committee liaison Giuseppe Schiano Di Cola said he also backed the idea: “I know a couple of volunteer firefighters, so I’m definitely going to be talking to them about this,” he said.

“These volunteers are the ones who take care of us, and we have to make sure we take care of our own,” Kassa said.

North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on April 8, the board finance committee next meets at 6 p.m. that night, and the board safe schools committee next meets at 5:45 p.m. on April 28; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.

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