Bipartisan bill introduced to allow fire departments more flexibility in hiring, training practices

A bipartisan bill to assist local fire departments in saving money and hire more trained first responders was recently introduced in the Senate by U.S. Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

The Firefighters Retention Act of 2017 gives fire departments the ability to use Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grants to shift part-time personnel or paid on-call personnel to full-time status.

“Part-time firefighters serve on the frontlines of their communities and have the experience to effectively and efficiently respond when emergency strikes,” Peters said. “This commonsense legislation would give fire departments greater ability to promote trained, experienced firefighters, which will save money and reaffirm the critical role these men and women play in keeping our neighborhoods safe.”

The legislation also aims to save money by allowing departments to direct resources towards firefighters who are already trained, compared to allocating funding to recruiting and training new firefighters.

Current law stipulates that departments only use SAFER grants to hire and train new personnel, but are prohibited from use grant money to promote current part-time personnel. In total, $340 million in grant funding was awarded to fire departments across the country through the SAFER program in FY2015.

Approximately 70 percent of the total firefighting workforce in the United States are comprised of volunteer personnel.

Since the bill’s introduction, it has received support from the International Association of Fire Chiefs, the National Association of Counties, the International Association of Fire Fighters, and multiple local fire departments.