The Stafford County Fire and Rescue Department needs 50 more staff members over the next few years, but with limited funding, they’re looking to the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant to fund some of the cost.
According to county documents the need for the additional fire and rescue staff is coming from increased population growth, as well as increased business development and less volunteer fire fighters working in the county.
“If successful, our grant application would provide us with the staffing to ensure minimum four-person staffing on our career-staffed engines for the grant performance period,” said Mark Lockhart, County Fire Chief for the Stafford County Fire and Rescue Department, continuing, “This is a first step toward our Public Safety Staffing Plan that provides direction for the department’s staffing. It is our hope that our grant will be approved so that we can continue to move forward to ensure the safety and well-being of our residents.”
The US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the agency that will provide Stafford the funding, if they’re awarded the grant.
The grant would help both fire departments and volunteer fire departments in Stafford, providing more trained staff, which would incident response times and overall public safety in the county, according to board documents.
If the county is awarded the SAFER grant funds, the Stafford County Board of Supervisors was given three options for how they can disperse the grant to help with staffing of fire and rescue.
With the funds, they could hire 16 full-time firefighters that would cost $850,000 in salaries annually, from the allotted grant funds. The board could also hire 21 fire fighters that would not be full time, to cover gaps in current staff, which would cost $1,104,000, according to board documents. The third option would be to hire 32 firefighters to provide minimum staffing, as well as adding a full-time fire engine, which would cost $1,685,000 annually, according to board documents.
The board decided to select the first option.
“The County has requested $2.3 million for 16 full-time positions for the two-year grant performance period,” said Lockhart.
The financial impact on the county would depend on the decision the board makes of the three options, as well as the total grant funding given to the county, and this would impact the county’s fiscal year 2018.
