As a statement of principle, a call by township officials for a special legislative session to address a looming shortage of volunteer fire and emergency management personnel is the right move.

As a practical matter, however, there's a reason that the old joke about the difference between a regular session and special session (bills in the former are white, bills in the latter are green) rings true: They rarely result in substantive action.

Though there are exceptions to every rule.

In September 2016, Gov. Tom Wolf asked lawmakers to convene a special session to fight opioid abuse. By November, the Democratic governor had bills on his desk awaiting his signature.

The difference, in that case, is that Wolf had cooperation from Republican legislative leaders, who saw the need for action, and actively participated in the planning and execution of the special session.

That year, like this year, was an election year. So there might be some motivation on the part of lawmakers to emulate that example.

And the frustration on the part of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which passed a resolution Tuesday calling for that special session, is understandable - and justified.

But it's not necessary. The work that commissioners want to see completed can be finished within the framework of a regular legislative session - if Wolf and lawmakers set aside their differences and once again work for the common good of all Pennsylvanians.

The need is real

Volunteers at local fire companies, for instance, have dropped from a high of 300,000 in the 1960s and 1970s to fewer than 50,000 volunteers today, Association President Shirl Barnhart told supervisors during their annual meeting this week.

"If state and local governments don't find a way to recruit and retain these very necessary volunteers, communities will be forced to pay nearly $10 billion a year for fire service, according to figures cited by the state fire commissioner," Barnhart, a supervisor and volunteer firefighter in Morgan Township, Greene County, said.

Right now, legislative and executive branch attention appears focused on the work of a bipartisan commission, created earlier this year, aimed finding ways to improve the delivery of emergency services and to developing the legislation that would make that happen.

It's supposed to finish its work by June 30 of this year.

Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee Chairman Randy Vulakovich, R-Allegheny, who sponsored the resolution creating the commission along with Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa of Allegheny County, said the township supervisors' resolution highlights the importance of the volunteer shortage issue.

The commission also has the backing of the Democratic Wolf administration, which highlighted its own efforts to deal with the volunteer shortage.

That included encouraging volunteers by modernizing a grant program to make it almost entirely electronic; creating a new fire and EMS administrative leadership course; improving training programs at the State Fire Academy, and sparing the Volunteer Companies Loan Fund from being raided last year to help balance the state budget.

Vulakovich, a former police officer, said he'd support a special session if Wolf called for one. But he stressed that "we are working on this issue. We are dedicated to working on this issue."

Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana, said House Republicans have not discussed the call for a special session. But Reed acknowledges that "this is a hugely important issue" with impacts statewide.

But Vulakovich has spoken of extending the commission's deadline through November 30, which coincides with the end of this year's legislative session.

That would be a mistake.

If there's one thing we know about what happens in those dark days after Election Day in an even-numbered year, it's that nothing happens at all, and lawmakers concentrate on getting out of town as quickly as possible.

Township officials, their lobbyists, emergency service workers, first responders, and voters, should make sure they hold policymakers' feet to the fire to ensure the bipartisan panel finishes its work by its original deadline and that at least some of its work product ends up in law before the General Assembly breaks for the summer.

The unacceptable alternative is for the commission's work to sit on a shelf where, let's face it, it would only be a fire hazard anyway.