Just before going into recess for the November elections, Congress awarded first-time funding to start up a new federal program to help fire departments with direct grants for hiring and recruiting firefighters next year.

Homeland Security Appropriations for fiscal year 2005, passed over the Columbus Day weekend, funded the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Program, known as the SAFER Act, at $65 million.

Fire service groups actively lobbied for the establishment of the federal program to help fire departments address dangerous staffing shortfalls since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the International Association and Fire Chiefs and the International Association of Fire Fighters called on President George W. Bush and Congress to establish a grant program to hire 75,000 more firefighters across the country. The primary objective was to hire enough firefighters to raise the staffing level of fire departments throughout the country to four firefighters per fire company. Most fire departments operate with only three firefighters per company.

Obviously, next year's appropriation will fall short of achieving that goal. But in the context of the growing federal budget deficit and cuts to many other programs, Bill Webb, executive director of the Congressional Fire Services Institute, called it a fire service victory. The FIRE Grants started with a modest appropriation of $100 million in its first year in FY 2001 and incrementally grew to appropriations of $750 million in FY 2003-04, until it was cut by $100 million this year. “With SAFER, hopefully we'll see the same progression in funding,” Webb said.

In October, DHS staff had not yet announced any specifics for the freshly funded program. The program was authorized in the SAFER Act of 2003, which passed in a FY 2004 defense authorization bill. The SAFER Act amends the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act of 1974 to require the establishment of an office within the U.S. Fire Administration to administer a grant program to make direct four-year grants to career, volunteer and combination fire departments for staff increases.

The bill authorized $7.6 billion from FY 2004 to FY 2010 to maintain the program and allows for a maximum federal contribution of $100,000 over four years (adjusted for inflation) per firefighter. It requires grantees to retain the hired career firefighters for at least one year after grant termination.

According to the authorization legislation, the program is to be modeled after the highly successful FIRE Grants program, and grants will be awarded on the basis of need. The federal government will contribute up to 90% of the cost of each new firefighter in the first year, 80% in the second year, 50% in the third year, and 30% in the fourth. The jurisdiction is then required to pay the full amount for at least one additional year.

Of the appropriations, 10% must go to hiring in volunteer and mostly volunteer departments. Another 10% is set aside for volunteer retention and recruitment.