Memorandum 16-156 FEMA FY2015 SAFER Assistance to Firefighters Grant Award

Memorandum 16-156

TO:                       Mayor and the City Council                                 

FROM:                 Jenny Carroll, Special Projects & Communications Coordinator

THROUGH:       Katie Koester, City Manager

DATE:                  September 23, 2016

SUBJECT:         FEMA-FY2015 SAFER Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program Award

The Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency recently announced recipients of FY2015 SAFER Grant Program grant funds.  This “Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response” grant program assists departments to improve or restore staffing levels to ensure they have adequate personnel to respond and safely perform at incident scenes, providing protection from fire and fire-related hazards in the community.

The City of Homer was awarded $248,421 to fund an Assistant Fire Chief position (salary and benefits) for two years.  Due to attrition, this position has been vacant since 2009 when the Assistant Chief departed.  An assistant chief position has remained on the books but not funded due to budget constraints. In the meantime, call volume and demands on the fire department have increased.

SAFER funding restores HVFD staffing levels to attain a more effective level of response, a safer incident scene, ability to meet NFPA 1720 Assembly requirements and redundancy at a high command level to provide leadership when the Fire Chief is away on trainings or vacation/sick leave and during larger, complex emergency incidents. 

The grant does not require that HVFD maintain funding for this position beyond the two years of funding, although mechanisms for maintaining it will be explored.    It does require that HVFD maintain current staffing numbers throughout the grant period. 

Funding is dependent on the City Council formally accepting the grant award.