Health insurance bill designed to entice volunteer firefighters amid statewide shortage in Wyoming

CHEYENNE — A bill sponsored by legislators on Sept. 22 would offer health insurance to volunteer firefighters. State lawmakers said the bill was a "recruitment tool" to entice enrollment as Wyoming faces a statewide shortage of fire personnel.

Bill draft 24 was unanimously passed by members of the Labor, Health and Social Services Committee on the second day of their two-day meeting in Saratoga. The bill, as written, would allow volunteer firefighters "to participate in the state employees' and officials' group insurance plan," and requires them to pay 100% of their health insurance premiums.

"The numbers show that we're about 500 firefighters short in the state," said Shad Cooper, president of the Wyoming Fire Advisory Board. "There's definitely a strong need to provide incentives and recruitment retention benefits for our firefighters."

The volunteer firefighter shortage — not just a Wyoming issue

A 2023 report from the U.S. Fire Administration said recruitment and retention were two of the biggest challenges faced by fire and emergency services across the nation. Data provided by the National Fire Protection Association showed a total of 676,900 volunteer firefighters in 2020 — a 25% decline of volunteer firefighters since 1984.

Cooper, who serves as the fire chief for Sublette County, told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle the shortage became a noticeable problem in Sublette County after 2020, when more firefighters were leaving than being recruited.

"Before 2020, we generally had about 100 firefighters, and we would lose about 10% each year due to attrition," Cooper said. "Then after 2020, we noticed that balance had kind of shifted."

A statewide survey was sent to Wyoming fire departments earlier this year, with questions pertaining to the recruitment and retention efforts of professional and volunteer fire personnel. Out of 112 fire departments, the 54 that responded said they looked to recruit a total of 468 additional firefighters.

Action taken by the state

Bill draft 24 is one of four sponsored bills written to resolve the firefighter shortage issue in the state. Bill draft 26, which was also sponsored by the committee Friday, would appropriate $150,000 toward development of a volunteer firefighter recruitment film.

Two other bills were passed by the committee during their meeting in June. One bill would provide state employees leave to work as a volunteer firefighter or EMT, and the other would allow fire departments to rehire retired firefighters while allowing them to receive retirement benefits.

All four of these bills will be proposed during the 2024 legislative session.

Rep. Kevin O'Hearn, R-Mills, asked state fire officials Friday whether bill draft 24 would fix the state's issue of a volunteer firefighter shortage.

"We won't know until we try it," Cooper answered.

Should the bill pass into law, current volunteer firefighters would have 31 days within the bill's enactment to sign up for health insurance; newly recruited volunteers would have a 90-day waiting period before they could register for health insurance benefits.

Legislators amended the bill during the meeting to also include EMT and search and rescue volunteers, which Sen. Eric Baldwin, R-Kemmerer, said were two other volunteer areas where the state is experiencing a "tremendous shortage."

"Our hope is that this is a recruitment tool that will bring some people in that otherwise would not have signed up to be a volunteer fire(fighter), EMS, or whatever," Baldwin said.

The initial number won't be significant, Baldwin said, but the "genesis of the bill" was to grow the number of volunteers in the state over time.