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months was $95,860 and the max would have been about $188,210.

Were I able to track each member's hours, I could obviously come up with a better estimate. One of the great things about volunteers is that they don't track their hours all the time. Our hours are a gift to society, to the Village or to whatever organization benefits from our work.

We're talking hourly rate here, too. Accounting professionals like myself recognize that you should also include benefits when looking at the cost of an employee. Just statutory benefits alone add 10% to the cost and if benefits like health insurance and other insurances are included the percentage can grow to 25% and more.

The Civil Service rate of $12.02 works out to $25,000 yearly. With benefits, one full-time EMT costs between $27,502 and $31,252 yearly. The ambulance must be staffed by at least one Basic level EMT and a driver. Normally there on two EMT's in a crew. You need three crews per day if you run an 8 hour shift and we'll ignore weekends and vacations for now. Your yearly cost to cover five days a week for the entire 24 hours will run between $165,011 and $187,512. To add crew members for vacation and weekend coverage will increase those totals.

The Village pays about $8,800 for insurances for the Corps, primarily workers' comp. That is the only cost to the Village of East Rochester for our personnel. In return it receives well over $95,000 in cost-free volunteer labor.

I think it's fair to say that volunteers are irreplaceable. Or, to phrase it a little differently, you can't afford to pay for what volunteers do for free.

Learn more about this author, Charles Simmins.
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