Weed Council approves $50-per-24-hour volunteer stipend with two-volunteer cap

The Weed City Council voted to adopt resolution 19-2026 to change how volunteer firefighters are compensated, approving a $50 stipend for each 24-hour on-call period and directing the city manager to limit stipended volunteers to two at a time.

City staff and the fire chief told the council the change was intended to make volunteering more attractive amid a national decline in volunteerism. The city manager described the proposed shift as replacing a prior $12-per-call model with a flat $50 per 24-hour period "so volunteering is more attractive," and said the $5,000 annual cost estimate is projected and may be offset because the city will stop paying the per-call rate it previously paid.

Council members pressed for fiscal safeguards and operational limits before voting. One councilor asked whether the resolution included a cap and staff confirmed there was no numerical cap in the draft; the council then directed that the stipend be administered for no more than two volunteers on any given 24-hour period and that the city manager govern deployment to avoid budget overrun.

Public commenters, including a volunteer and a resident, urged the council to support the stipend to preserve local coverage. As one supporter said, the stipend is a small cost compared with the public-safety risks of being short-staffed.

The council moved and seconded the resolution with the two-volunteer stipulation; the motion carried. The council will rely on the city manager and finance staff to track actual expenditures and report back if costs exceed projections.

What happens next: Implementation details (eligibility, scheduling rules, and the fiscal accounting of stipend payments versus prior per-call payments) will be managed by the city manager and finance director; council members asked staff to return with clarified numbers if the program expands beyond the intended cap.