Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutR-2006-080 Homeland Security Assistance Grant ApplicationRESOLUTION NO. R-2006- 80 A RESOLUTION ratifying application for a $300,000.00 grant from the Federal Department of Homeland Security Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response or SAFER program) and authorizing the City Manager to execute all necessary contracts and other documents to accept and implement the grant, if awarded. WHEREAS, the United States Department of Homeland Security Office of Domestic Preparedness has funds available to increase the number of frontline Firefighters to assure that communities have adequate protection from fire and fire -related hazards through the "SAFER" (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) Grant Program; and WHEREAS, the Yakima Fire Department has applied for funds from the SAFER program to finance a portion of the costs associated with providing three previously unfunded Firefighter positions; and WHEREAS, if the grant is awarded, the Yakima Fire Department, the City of Yakima and the Federal Department of Homeland Security will be required to execute a five-year agreement to share costs associated with the full-time employment of the three additional Firefighters; and WHEREAS, the Yakima Fire Department expects that the addition of three Firefighters will result in significant overtime savings to the City, enough to pay for the positions through the corresponding reduction in overtime; and WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Yakima deems it to be in the best interest of the City of Yakima to ratify the SAFER grant application and authorize the City Manager to accept and implement the grant, if awarded, now, therefore; BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF YAKIMA: 1. The $300,000 Department of Homeland Security Office of Domestic Preparedness SAFER grant application submitted by the Yakima Fire Department is hereby ratified. 2. The City Manager is hereby authorized to execute all necessary contracts and other documents necessary to accept and implement the grant, if awarded. ADOPTED BY THE CITY COUNCIL this 1e day of Ma , 2006. ATTEST: Ha -AP -1#' City Clerk avid Edler, Mayor Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response SAFER Grant Summary April 25, 2006 The Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant is a grant program managed by the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Domestic Preparedness under the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program. It was created to provide funding directly to fire departments to increase the number of frontline firefighters. The goal is to enhance the ability of fire departments to attain 24-hour staffing and thus assure that their communities have adequate protection from fire and fire -related hazards. SAFER grants help fire departments meet minimum standards for firefighter staffing. The SAFER grant provides a 5 -year grant to assist fire departments in paying a portion of the salaries of newly hired firefighters. These newly hired positions must be in addition to authorized and funded active firefighter positions. Grantees are required to match an increasing proportion of the salary awarded over a 4 -year period; in the fifth year of the grant, the grantee must absorb the entire cost of any positions awarded as a result of the grant. The Federal share of salaries and associated benefits is limited to a total of $100,000 per position over the course of the performance period (5 -years). Federal funding is limited as follows: Year One: Year Two: Year Three: Year Four: Year Five: 90% of the actual costs or $36,000 per position 80% of the actual costs or $32,000 per position 50% of the actual costs or $20,000 per position 30% of the actual costs or $12,000 per position No Federal share — all costs borne by grantee STANDARD: We are obligated to train and certify the newly hired firefighters to Firefighter I level within their first six (6) months of employment and they are required to be trained to Firefighter II level or equivalent within the first two years. They also must be trained to be EMT's (Emergency Medical Technicians). ELIGIBLE COSTS: Eligible costs are limited to the salary and associated benefits for the new firefighter positions. Overtime costs, administrative and indirect costs, training and equipping costs, uniform costs, physical exam costs are not eligible costs. The new employees' salaries during training are eligible costs. Funds provided under this grant cannot be used to supplant normal operating budgets and must be used to support new additional hired positions. A recruitment period of 90 days will be provided to all grantees. The five-year period of performance will start 90 days after the grantee is notified of its award. The period of performance will commence after this recruitment period whether or not the grantee has filled the new firefighter positions. If a grantee fills its awarded firefighter ScottSafer Junel6, 2005 (4/25/06) 1 positions during the 90 -day recruiting period, it will be afforded credit toward the 12 - month period of the grant performance period in which the grantee is to absorb the entire salary. Costs that may be claimed are the actual payroll expenses incurred net of any employment gaps, so if one washes out, we will need to hire a replacement immediately. No extensions of the grant performance period will be considered. Awardees will draw the Federal share of the awarded amount on a reimbursement basis no more frequently than quarterly. City of Yakima Fire Department SAFER GRANT Budget Matrix (September 2006 Hire Date) April 24, 2006 Note Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 TOTAL Personnel (3 firefighters) $165,000 $175,850 $187,000 $200,000 $203,000 $930,850 Benefits $42,000 $44,000 $48,000 $49,000 $50,000 $233,000 Federal Share (1) $108,000 $96,000 $60,000 $36,000 $0 $300,000 City of Yakima Share $99,000 $123,850 $175,000 $213,000 $253,000 $863,850 TOTAL. $207,000 $219,850 $235,000 $249,000 $253,000 $1,163,850 (2) Estimate $70,000 (3) (4) (1) - Note. 5 -year commitment to retain new positions Maximum of $100,000 per position in Federal Grant Money Year 1 Federal Share is 90% of cost or max of $36,000 Year 2 Federal Share is 80% of cost or max of $32,000 Year 3 Federal Share is 50% of cost or max of $20,000 Year 4 Federal Share is 30% of cost or max of $12,000 Year 5 - No Federal Share - All costs borne by City (2) - Note Approx. City cost in 2006 Budget due to Academy and PPE's and Sept 06 Hire wages prior to reimbursement by FEMA Firefighters Only - "Boots on the Streets" (3) - Note. Estimated Values, actual costs will be known as time approaches. (4) - Years do not align with budget years ScottSafer Junel6, 2005 (4/25/06) 2 Application Number: EMW-2005-FF-00188 FEMA Fire Grant SAFER 2005 NARRATIVE STATEMENT (Submitted June 16, 2005 in Grant Application) FEMA sent us a denial letter on December 16, 2005, we are reconsidered for eligibility in May 2006. Why does the City of Yakima Fire Department need the SAFER grant funds? The City of Yakima Fire Department has a desperate need to add firefighters to our staffing. It is our hope to be awarded a SAFER grant to assist us in increasing the number of firefighters available to respond. We are an agricultural based community suffering a significant downturn in economic health. Our demands for service continue to increase and our access to revenues are not keeping pace, as a result, we are suffering from lack of sufficient numbers of firefighters to maintain a safe community for our citizens and firefighters. The newly hired firefighters will be placed immediately into the City of Yakima Fire Department recruit training academy for eight (8) weeks and achieve Firefighter I certification. They will then be assigned to a shift and emergency response apparatus. These firefighters will enhance a woefully understaffed fire department by adding an additional firefighter to each shift. By increasing shift strength, we will increase the frequency of being able to have six (6) engines in service versus our normal deployment of 5 engines and a two -person rescue unit. The City of Yakima endeavors to comply with NFPA 1710 initial arrival of a "company", one (1) engine and four (4) personnel, by utilizing a three person engine and a command officer, or multiple engines or ladder. The increase in frequency of the 6th engine being in service will increase the compliance of the first in company meeting standard definition. Another option for the use of the additional person would be leaving the two person rescue intact and placing the additional person on the ladder/quint which is currently staffed with three persons and has initial response responsibilities for the Station 91 response area, approximately 1/5 of the city. It is our current position that an additional engine in service is preferable to a four -person crew on the quint, because it increases the availability of responders for initial coverage for all risks including structure fires, but we will continue to evaluate these options. The benefit to the community of an additional firefighter on each shift is a greater saturation of emergency resources into the community. This will increase the likelihood of having apparatus and personnel available for community protection. The benefit to the fire department is to offer the opportunity for increased availability of resources to enhance the initial response capabilities and improved full assignment abilities. This will mean increased safety for firefighters by having back up and assistance more readily available. Our budget currently authorizes 24 persons per shift, except one shift has a frozen Battalion Chief position so they are authorized 23 positions, and we must by contract allow 5 positions off on leave time. In addition, the Battalion Chief can expend vacation or leave time dropping us below our established 19 person minimum staffing. When we have no injuries/illnesses and only a few people on leave, we are capable of staffing the 6th engine approximately 7.5% of the time. Last year, we were able to fill the 6th engine approximately 14.8% of the time. This decrease is due to contract negotiations that resulted in the 5th slot off for vacations with no increase in shift staffing to accommodate the absence of the 5th firefighter. Any addition to staffing is out of the question without the assistance from the SAFER grant due to our dire financial condition in the City of Yakima. We are just now nearing the end of a Citizen Budget Strategy Team process that has developed Contingency Budget Reduction Strategies that include elimination of positions as recommendations to the City Council in the ScottSafer June16, 2005 (4/25/06) 3 coming year. The award of the SAFER grant can allow us to show an economically attractive means to increase staffing with the collateral effect of providing the disincentive of losing the grant if existing forces are reduced. The grant itself helps reinforce the importance of retaining staffing, since that is one of the conditions of the grant. How are the community and current firefighters at risk without the needed firefighters and to what extent will that the award of the SAFER grant reduce that risk? In 2004 we were able to meet our objective of initial company response time of 4 minutes only approximately 80% of the time and that is of great concern to us, as we recognize the importance of timely delivery of adequate personnel and equipment. We currently do not meet the expectations of NFPA 1710 and as a result, our citizens are not getting the fire protection that would be provided by a 1710 compliant department and our firefighters do not have the safety that would be afforded them if we were 1710 compliant. The time it takes to deliver mitigation personnel to the emergency scene is one of the most significant determiners of outcome and the sooner mitigation is started the safer the structure is to operate in. Improved service translates into reduction in death statistics and property destruction, as well as reduction of death and injury to firefighters. It would be strategically appropriate to add an additional 40 firefighters to our force and open more fire stations, to provide greater saturation of coverage and increase our ability to deliver timely resources for early mitigation of the emergency. Unfortunately we live in an economically depressed locale and will consider ourselves to be fortunate just to be able to add the 3 "SAFER" grant firefighters requested. We are limited to being able to fund the City's portion for the 3 positions in spite of our desire to add several more than 3 to take advantage of this opportunity to add firefighters at 'a discount'. We expect that the addition of 3 firefighters will allow us greater opportunity to increase manning on duty, increase the number of emergency response vehicles available and improve our service delivery. Although only three additional firefighters will make for negligible impact on improving our service and safety, the fact remains, any improvement in service delivery could translate into the saving of lives and prevention of suffering. An explanation of our inability to address the need without Federal assistance. The State of Washington cities have been constricted by the action of the voters in several key state initiatives and referendums, by increasing exemptions in the sales tax and by the overall weak economy. Initiatives 747 and 695 dramatically affected the already frail taxing structure and have created profound negative financial impact on all Washington cities, including Yakima. In the City of Yakima for 2005, we predict a 1.6 million dollar increase in costs for General Government from the previous year. This amount is derived from unfunded mandates and collective bargaining agreement impacts, oil and fuel cost increases, health care costs and utilities. The City of Yakima has already reduced 1.2 million dollars of general fund expenditures in programs and services (elimination of several FTE's) in the first quarter and Public Safety has be essentially excluded thus far, with the exception of a frozen Battalion Chief Officer position. The Fire Departments Capital budget has been frozen and nearly eliminated. The SAFER grant not only provides us with a financial incentive to eke out the funds representing the City's share to support 3 additional firefighter positions, it affords us the ScottSafer June16, 2005 (4/25/06) 4 opportunity to stabilize staffing and protect us from staff reductions. With fear looming of future elimination of firefighter positions, it is critical for us to have additional personnel and justifications to avoid position freezes or cuts. Maintenance of staffing levels is a significant aspect of the conditions required by the grant. This requirement and the financial disincentive associated with failure to comply with maintaining the current level of staffing will be a great motivator for our council persons to find budget reduction options in areas that would not result in reduced safety for our citizens and firefighters. How will our Department ensure, to the extent possible, that they will seek, recruit, and hire members of racial and ethnic minority groups and women to increase their ranks within our Department? The City of Yakima Fire Department has been a leader in minority recruitment for the past 2 decades. We reduced our hiring age from 21 to 18 as one method to capture the talented and capable high school seniors before corporations seeking to increase their minority hiring numbers lure them from the community. We have started a "Cadet" vocational program that provides firefighter training to high school students in a vocational curriculum setting. This program attracts a student population that is diverse in race, ethnicity, and gender representative of our community. Our cadets, high school Juniors and Seniors from 8 area school districts, have been successful at finding employment on professional fire departments and 85% of our cadets are working as volunteers for surrounding fire departments. We have been very successful at maintaining a diverse workforce and have females and minorities promoting through the ranks without disparity. Part of our minority and female hiring success may also be attributable to our community outreach recruiting at job fairs and a frequent presence in our local schools. We formerly had a three list hiring system that afforded preferential hiring to minorities and women. This was a practice that was eliminated approximately 7 years ago by state initiative (I-200) prohibiting any type of preferential hiring based on gender, race or ethnicity. In spite of that, we continue to hire a well -diversified group of firefighters. All job -opening announcements encourage women and minorities to apply and it is our policy and commitment to maintain a healthy work place that is created by having a diverse work force. How do we plan to meet the match requirements for the five years required under the grant award? The City of Yakima match requirements and budget obligation to retain the firefighters for the five years required by the grant will be funded through general fund revenues that come from property tax, sales tax, utility taxes, and special levy revenues that currently exist. There are no new revenue sources available at this time. We are in an environment where our City boundaries are growing at a rapid rate and the demands for service are increasing commensurate with that growth. Increases in tax revenues are being recognized, but at a delayed rate. The increases in geography, population and service demands make the increase in staffing justified and necessary for the safety of our citizens and firefighters. It is our plan to use this grant opportunity to increase our numbers of firefighters. In the absence of the grant our need to increase staffing would still exist, yet would not be financially feasible. It is our expectation to at least be able to maintain our level of staffing through the five year period and well beyond into the future. ScottSafer June16, 2005 (4/25/06) 5 How do we plan to meet the requirement to ensure that firefighter positions filled under this program are not discriminated against for, or prohibited from, engaging in volunteer activities in another jurisdiction during off-duty hours? Several of our City of Yakima Firefighters, all of which are represented by the International Association of Firefighters Local 469, have a long tradition of living in rural areas surrounding the City of Yakima and are contributing and valued members of volunteer fire departments. Dozens of our members have been the core members of the neighboring volunteer fire departments and it has never been an issue. We are proud of the role that they have played and are supportive of their volunteer efforts. We are in the process of regionalizing and have become very close partners with both the paid professional firefighters and the volunteer ranks of departments around us. It is our culture to respect and value the services performed by firefighters regardless of their status. The reality that exists in our region today emphasizes that rural communities typically have volunteer firefighters as a necessity to provide fundamental fire protection within the economic abilities of low-density population areas. As areas become more urban in nature and population density, the economic ability to sustain a paid professional firefighting staff make that likely. Our attitude is that the volunteer departments are part of our team and are a valued resource that we depend upon on a frequent basis. The firefighters hired under this grant will not be discriminated against or prohibited from engaging in volunteer activities. On the contrary, they will be encouraged to be members of their local fire departments. That has promoted the good relations that we have had and continue to have with our neighbors. In summary, the City of Yakima Fire Department staffing represents .85 firefighters per thousand of population. That is substantially below the national staffing averages for professional fire departments. We exist in an economically depressed agrarian environment and are in dire need of additional staffing. The addition of 3 firefighters would be a great boost to the safety we are able to offer our citizens and firefighters. Please allow our request serious consideration and approval. ScottSafer Juue16, 2005 (4/25/06) 6 ITEM TITLE: BUSINESS OF THE CITY COUNCIL YAKIMA, WASHINGTON AGENDA STATEMENT Item No. / 0 For Meeting Of May 16,2006 Consideration of a resolution ratifying the Fire Department's application for a $300,000.00 SAFER grant from the Federal Department of Homeland Security for three additional Firefighters and authorizing the City Manager to execute all necessary contracts and other documents to accept and implement the grant, if awarded SUBMITTED BY: Dennis Mayo, Fire Chief CONTACT PERSON/TELEPHONE: Steve Scott, Deputy Chief 575-6165 SUMMARY EXPLANATION. The City of Yakima Fire Department has applied for a Department of Homeland Security "SAFER" (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant to help cover some of the costs associated with hiring and retaining three (3) entry-level firefighters. Approval for the SAFER grant is imminent and with that approval, the City of Yakima will be awarded $300,000 to apply toward the wages and benefits of the three (3) new firefighter positions. Council authorization is required for acceptance of the SAFER grant and, if SAFER grant is awarded, to increase authorized Fire Department staffing by three (3) firefighter positions. The remaining cost to increase staffing by three (3) firefighters will be covered by the overtime savings associated with the corresponding reduction in overtime demands to maintain minimum staffing. If the grant is awarded to the Yakima Fire Department, an appropriation request will be brought before the City Council requesting funds to cover initial start-up costs. Resolution X Ordinance Other (Specify) Contract Mail to (name and address): Phone: Funding Source APPROVED FOR SUBMITTAL: City Manager STAFF RECOMMENDATION. Adopt the resolution. BOARD/COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION. On May 4, 2006, the Public Safety Committee endorsed this proposal The Committee joins with the Fire Department and City Administration in recommending adoption of the resolution. COUNCIL ACTION: Resolution adopted. RESOLUTION NO. R-2006-80 Scott4/25/06