Updates and Future Changes
And it is time for back to school shopping. Don’t worry, your kids won’t grow anymore between now and the time school starts.
For those of you that may not have seen the good news for the fire service, the Senate passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act (S. 870), and it was signed by President Biden on July 11th. This bill reauthorizes the Assistance for Firefighters Grant (AFG) and Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant programs as well as provides funding for the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA).
The funding was set to expire on Sept. 30th of this year. The authorizations are now good through 2028 for AFG, SAFER, and USFA.
On the same day it was signed, I was at the FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grants criteria development planning meeting for annual review of the AFG and SAFER grant application process as one of three volunteer fire service representatives for the NVFC. Other national level groups represented included arson investigators, fire marshals, IAFF, NFPA, Fire Chiefs Association, Fire Service Instructors, research and data analysis professionals, and FEMA program representatives.
We divided into three panels to discuss the application process, grant priority items, Federal Strategic Initiatives, and the changeover of the National fire incident reporting system (NFIRS) to the National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS).
The main recommendation to the FEMA program directors was reduction of some repetitive information in the grant application. The main recommendation from the program directors is for applicants to read the Notice of Financial Opportunity (NOFO) to determine the priority for the grants.
There is a need for more peer reviewers from the volunteer service. If you are interested in becoming a grant application reviewer, FEMA will train you. Contact the FEMA AFG Grants office.
NERIS will be coming out in the fall of 2024 with more information to states and departments. Every emergency response agency will have their own identification number to submit your incident reports under. In the future, the information you enter in NERIS will be directly collected into grant applications.
We will try to have more information on NERIS reporting by the fall fire conference in September.
From an SDFA level, mainly due to postage increases, our newspaper editor, Jeff Gargano, has recommended a change to an electronic version of the newspaper. The monthly SDFA Firefighter will be changing from being mailed out to emailed out. The recommendation will allow for postal billing savings of almost $20,000 next year.
Some of you may have already received notice of the change and a July pdf edition in your email. News, photos, and articles will still be sent to the same place. The official change will take place by the end of 2024. I’m sure there will be plenty of litter boxes without my face on the bottom, anymore.
If you do not have your email setup with us or in your departments GrowthZone membership roster, you will need to accomplish that. This will also be something we will try to collect at membership renewal time.
I hope you have been enjoying your summer and look forward to seeing you at the fall conference on 27-28 September in Fort Pierre.
Stay safe,
Charlie Kludt,
SDFA President