Fire departments staffed with help of grants

The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides grants that allow the Marysville and Yuba City fire departments to hire additional staff and pay for employees’ salaries over a three-year period.

At the Yuba City Fire Department, the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant funds nine positions, according to Fire Chief Jesse Alexander.

FEMA paid approximately

$1.3 million for the life of the three-year grant and Yuba City was responsible for matching $873,537 to hire all individuals.

“We recently had one individual resign for another fire agency, so we will be recruiting to fill the missing grant position,” Alexander said in an email.

Yuba City’s grant expires on Dec. 9. Alexander said the city has already applied for another SAFER grant. The current

grant funded positions at the department that were removed from the budget in 2014.

“Having the ability to hire those nine individuals is extremely important in that it allowed us to keep all five fire stations open and maintain our daily minimum staffing level of 16 personnel on every day,” Alexander said.”

Since 2004, Yuba City has been awarded four SAFER grants, according to Alexander.

“We’re still trying to secure

positions to be permanent in the regular budget,” Alexander said.

Once a grant expires, the city has to decide whether to fully fund the positions, reapply for a grant or cut the positions. Alexander said the application for the next grant is for six positions. The difference with the upcoming grant is that there is no matching requirement from cities. Alexander expects a competitive application process this time around because of the no matching and the struggle many fire departments have with

funding.

“I would expect more cities to apply,” Alexander said.

One of those cities applying for another SAFER grant is Marysville. The department currently has three positions funded by a SAFER grant. That grant expires in March 2023. Fire Chief Ron Karlen said the city matching costs will go up over the three years. In the first two years, the city will match 25 percent of the three positions’ salaries and match 65 percent in the third year.

The estimated cost to absorb the

three positions at the end of the grant is $92,000.

“We are looking for funding mechanisms to keep those positions on,” Karlen said.

Of the three firefighting positions the current grant funds, one is for a fire engineer so that the department can have two drivers on duty per shift.

If the city is awarded another SAFER grant, it would allow the department to have five people on duty per shift who could staff two vehicles to help deal with more than one call at a time.

“Our biggest issue is overlapping calls,” Karlen said.

Without the grants, Karlen said he would not be able to hire more staff through Marysville’s general fund. If the city is approved for the non-matching grants, it would free up money that could be used for other city needs.

“The FEMA program has been huge for us,” Karlen said.

The Linda Fire Department, the Wheatland Fire Authority and the Olivehurst Fire Department currently do not have any SAFER grant funded positions.