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Firehouse.Com News
On Nov. 26, President George W. Bush signed into law H.R. 2620, the
"Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, and
Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2002." Within this appropriation
lies the funding for the next FEMA grant program for fire departments across
the country, $150 million.
Fire departments can now know for sure that the grant program will go
forward and preparation of applications for money to be disbursed by Sept.
30, 2002 can get underway.
But there are efforts ongoing in Congress to get even more money for the
next round. A supplemental appropriation bill is currently in front of the
Senate Appropriations committee dealing with additional Department of
Defense money for the current fiscal year. Language in that bill, H.R. 3338,
adds $300 million to the grant program. If this bill makes its way through
Congress and is signed by the President, the grant program could reach $450
million.
That too is dependent on other Congressional action being considered at this
time. The maximum authorized to be spent in FY 2002 on the grant program is
$300 million. Changing that to $900 million is part of the reconsideration
being given to the Department of Defense Authorization Bill wherein the
grant program lives.
If that change happens, then the $450 million could be realized. If that
change is not made, it could still grow to $300 million with the
supplemental appropriation. If the appropriation does not go through, the
$150 million will probably be the number to deal with.
But for Brian Cowan, Director of Grants Program Office for FEMA, it is a
matter of "planning the program with what we have in hand."
For him, everything else in not reality. "We will deal with more money if it
comes," Cowan said. But his mission now is to establish the 2002 program
around what is appropriated now, currently the $150 million.
And this year there is more time, Cowan said, to set up the program based on
last year’s experience, complaints and comments. There are still a lot of
details to be worked out. They will be able this year to utilize five
percent of the money to establish a permanently staffed office for the 2002
program and to monitor the grants awarded in 2001 which is part of the
ongoing process.
In most ways, Cowan said, the program will operate the same with an
application deadline and panels of experts reviewing the requests and giving
them a priority on a list according to category. A change this year, he
said, is language within the bill requesting the inclusion of Emergency
Medical Service as a category. They are not sure how this category for fire
department based EMS will be described but are working to include it as a
grant category.
By the end of December, the FEMA/USFA web site should have details about the
program such as a process timeline. They are also working on scheduling
January and February workshops to assist grant writers with their
applications according to USFA spokesman Marko Bourne. "We are working with
FEMA regional offices across the nation to set these up," he said.
Bourne also said a goal this year is to make available for those who want to
use it, the application process completely online. "It will be a process
where the application can be worked on, saved, worked on some more then
submitted. It will make the process much more efficient and more
streamlined," he said.
At the same time, those who prefer paper applications will still be able to
file that way too, Bourne said. They hope to have the application, both on
line and hard copy, available by March 1.
"We learned a lot from last year and we will take all that into
consideration to make a better program for 2002." Cowan said.
