Upper Milford Township Supervisors are proposing a grant of up to $50,000 in next year’s budget to help the two township fire departments enhance training of personnel and purchase needed equipment.

The proposal by Supervisor Robert Sentner would provide up to $5,000 for physicals for firefighters, increase the annual training grant (currently $2,500 per station) to $5,000, provide $5,000 to match grants which the fire stations obtain from other sources and allocate $10,000 for vehicle rescue technician certification.

Sentner said the proposal would give the two fire companies flexibility to pursue training and other methods to enhance the safety and health of their firefighters. He noted Western District Fire Company currently has their members get physicals, while Citizens Fire Company doesn’t consider that a priority.

Sentner emphasized nothing in the proposal would require the departments to get physicals or certifications.

Rather, he said, the matching grant proposal would be an incentive to the two fire companies to seek other grants.

Supervisors George DeVault and Daniel Mohr endorsed the proposal and referred it to township staff and Solicitor Marc Fisher to come up with the final wording.

DeVault said, “The idea behind this is to make everybody healthier, safer and more efficient.”

It could eventually save the township money in reduced workers compensation claims, DeVault said.

The grant would be in addition to the money the township already budgets to support the two fire companies. That amount in this year’s budget is $30,150 for each company and it will increase by five percent in next year’s budget.

Sentner said ultimately measures like these would save the township money. “[It’s] peanuts compared to the cost of a paid fire department,” he said.

Joe Sherman, chief of Citizens Fire Company, criticized supervisors for not giving him advance notice of the proposal. He said, of the grant to allow for annual physicals, “Are you forcing this down our throat?”

Sentner again stressed the grant doesn’t require physicals, or anything else, but just provides more money for the fire departments to use as they see fit. “If you don’t want to partake, you don’t have to,” he said.

Supervisors also agreed to ask the fire police to provide traffic control election day at Zionsville Evangelical Lutheran Church, the polling place for the western district of the township. Judge of Elections Edward Prescott had written to supervisors requesting the assistance. In his letter he predicted 2,000 of the 2,500 registered voters in that district will turn out and warned of traffic problems on Kings Highway as a result.

Supervisors also announced the township open space committee will have a meeting 7:30 p.m. tonight, Oct. 26, at the township building at which guest speakers provide information on farmland preservation, development in Lehigh County and the tax options and implications of land preservation.

The meeting is intended to provide information for the public in advance of election day, when a referendum question will ask residents to approve an increase in the earned income tax to provide money for the township to acquire land for preservation and conservation.