Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response

SAFER grants provide financial assistance to help fire departments increase their ranks of firefighters or to rehire firefighters that have been laid off. The programs goals are to assist local fire departments with staffing and deployment capabilities so they may respond to their communities’ emergencies and provide adequate protection from fire and fire-related hazards. SAFER offers grants to support activities in two categories: (1) Hiring of Firefighters and (2) Recruitment and Retention of Volunteer Firefighters. Both of these activities center around NFPA 1710 and 1720 minimum compliant staffing levels regulations.

This program is usually offered in late spring and of the average 2,000 applications submitted, approximately 186 are awarded. In 2009 there were 2,128 applications requesting a total of $1,249,663,398. The total budget for 2009 was $210,000,000. With these numbers, 91% of the dollars that were applied for went unfunded. In 2009, Grantmasters had 4 of the 5 SAFER applications we submitted receive funding.

The great majority of this program’s funding goes for hiring and job retention of career firefighters and the remainder goes to the recruitment and retention of volunteers.
Some examples of projects that have been funded for recruitment and retention of volunteers includes:

• Insurance packages, such as accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D), disability, health, dental, life, etc.
• Reimbursement to the member while attending required basic training, i.e., compensation for lost wages, mileage, lodging, per diem
• Marketing costs to recruit new volunteer members
• Salary and benefits for a recruitment and retention coordinator
• Physicals
• Explorer, cadet, and mentoring programs
• Staffing needs assessment
• Tuition assistance for higher education
• Length of service awards and other retirement benefits