Inside

This toolkit is designed to help you and your company prepare for either a large or small Home Day event—whatever fits your needs. We recommend that Home Day events be held by the FAMA/FEMSA fall meeting in October so we can discuss our successes at the meeting. You can also download the complete Homeday Toolkit in pdf format.

Letter from the GAC co-chairs Checklist Calendar (pdf) Sample invitation letter 1
for a member of Congress whom you know Sample invitation letter 2
for a member of Congress you do not know General guidelines
for visiting with congressional members and staff FAMA/FEMSA
membership list (PDF) 2010 TOP FIVE
Legislative priorities Suggestions/options for
Home Day activities General guidelines on giving gifts to Members of Congress and their staffs

HANDOUTS

BROCHURE
Ten Key Facts about the Fire Service and Industry MAP
FAMA/FEMSA Member Companies HANDOUT
FAMA/FEMSA GAC Top Five Goals FLIER
MAP Firegrantdata.com

2010 top five legislative priorities

As business leaders involved in the fire and emergency equipment and services, we are unified in our concern for ongoing federal support for the safety of first responders and the vitality of our businesses. As such, we have identified the following as FAMA/FEMSA legislative priorities for 2010. These key issues are also identified as priorities for our Home Day alliance partners, the IAFC, IAFF, NVFC, and CFSI.

1. Educating Congress on the importance of the Fire Grants Program to the nation’s 1.1 million firefighters

The Fire Grants program serves the network of first responders all across the country and equips them to save lives in the event of daily tragedies, natural disasters, and catastrophic events. It is supported by the host of firefighting and local government organizations because it works and provides the dual purpose of needed equipment for daily public safety and response to both natural disasters and terrorism events.

The Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program (AFG), which provides grants to local fire departments to purchase apparatus, PPE, SCBA, and other essential equipment, has consistently been funded (appropriated) at levels far below the authorization levels. The president’s proposed FY 2011 funding for AFG is less than a third of the authorization proposed in the Fire Grants reauthorization currently being considered by Congress.

		appropriation
fiscal year	authorization	president’s proposed budget	actual
2005	$900,000,000		$650,000,000
2006	$950,000,000		$545,000,000
2007	$1,000,000,000	$293,000,000	$547,000,000
2008	$1,000,000,000	$300,000,000	$560,000,000
2009	$1,000,000,000	$300,000,000	$565,000,000
2010	$1,000,000,000*	$210,000,000	$390,000,000
2011	$1,000,000,000*	$305,000,000	TBD

* amount proposed to be authorized in H.R. 3791, the Fire Grants Reauthorization Act of 2009, currently being considered by the United States Senate (see below)

The Fire Grants program is:

The most efficiently administered program within DHS, with an administrative cost of only 5%.
Awarded directly to fire departments based on need and most effective use of grant funds.
Judged by peers and experts in the fire service.

Congress can rest assured that these funds are spent on giving first responders the tools they need. For example, 57,000 first responders lack sufficient personal protective clothing and one-third are not equipped with self-contained breathing apparatus.

Half of all fire trucks are 15 years old or older and the majority of the U.S. fire departments do not have an apparatus replacement plan. This poses a threat to not only the safety of our firefighters, but impairs their ability to perform their job of saving lives and property. Older vehicles lack critical safety features such as anti-lock brakes and enclosed cabs. By upgrading to equipment that meets the latest NFPA Standards the risk of serious injury or death resulting from injuries sustained in accidents or operations of these vehicles can significantly be reduced.

In addition to active involvement of FAMA in apparatus safety standards, FEMSA has taken an active role in promoting safety for our first responders through the implementation of a Personal Responsibility Code (PRC) for users of all firefighting and emergency equipment.

In summary, the Fire Grants program is one of the most successful federal programs in existence. It is efficient, based on need, judged by peers, and equips first responders to save lives on a daily basis as well as respond to natural and catastrophic disasters.

We encourage our membership to strongly support full funding for the Fire Grants program.

2. Reauthorization of the Fire Grants program

The Assistance to Firefighters Grants, though funded in FY 2010, was previously authorized through FY 2009, which ended September 30, 2009. SAFER’s authorization expires at the end of the current FY 2010, September 30, 2010. H.R. 3791, the Fire Grants Reauthorization Act of 2009, which would reauthorize both programs for five years (FY 2010 through FY 2014) has been passed by the United States House of Representatives and is currently being considered by the Senate. It is extremely important that the program be reauthorized to demonstrate the strong support of Congress and the administration for AFG and SAFER. The FAMA/FEMSA GAC strongly supports a basic reauthorization that preserves the major components of the existing programs.

3. Educating Congress on the importance of the U.S. Fire Administration

The U.S. Fire Administration has a core mission of building and maintaining the nation’s fire service and its first responder functions. FAMA/FEMSA members support the recent DHS restructuring which placed USFA in FEMA, where it can better do its job. The U.S. Fire Administration was funded at only $43.3 million in FY 2008 and $45 million in FY 2009—two-thirds of the authorized levels for those years—and $45.6 million in FY 2010, well below the authorized level of $72.1 million for FY10.

We encourage our membership to support full funding of the U.S. Fire Administration.

4. Continued support for the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Program

The purpose of the SAFER program is to award grants directly to volunteer, combination, and career fire departments to help the departments increase their cadre of firefighters. Ultimately, the goal is for SAFER grantees to enhance their ability to attain 24-hour staffing and thus assuring their communities have adequate protection from fire and fire-related hazards. The SAFER grants have two activities that will help grantees attain this goal: (1) hiring of firefighters and (2) recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters.

		appropriation
fiscal year	authorization	president’s proposed budget	actual
2005	$1,030,000,000		$65,000,000
2006	$1,061,000,000		$110,000,000
2007	$1,093,000,000	$0	$115,000,000
2008	$1,126,000,000	$0	$190,000,000
2009	$1,159,000,000	$0	$210,000,000
2010	$1,194,000,000	$420,000,000	$420,000,000
2011	$1,194,000,000*	$305,000,000	TBD

* amount proposed to be authorized in H.R. 3791, the Fire Grants Reauthorization Act of 2009, currently being considered by the United States Senate (see above)

The Recruitment and Retention of Volunteer Firefighters Activity provides assistance to awardees for periods of up to four years. The purpose of these grants is to assist with the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. Volunteer departments, combination departments, and local or statewide organizations that represent the interests of volunteer firefighters are eligible to apply for assistance under this activity.

We encourage our membership to support funding of the SAFER program, separate from and not at the expense of the Fire Grant program.

5. Clarity and communication within the grant process

The uncertainty of the timing of the Fire Grant review and release process has had an adverse impact on municipal budget planning cycles and production efficiency of the equipment manufacturers supporting our first responders. This lack of efficiency in the Fire Grant administrative process has resulted in the deferral of fire department purchasing decisions based upon a “wait and see” attitude in anticipation of grant application approval. The result for manufacturers and distributors of equipment is that production planning cycles are disrupted, which can result in the layoff of the employees necessary to fill the demand. We would therefore recommend a well-structured, set schedule for the administration of the grant process to enable fire departments and manufacturers to accurately predict the timing of the approval process.