FIRE Act Matching Funds

[ffemtmjb]

Battle Creek FD - "Now that they have the money, they will go to local private foundations to seek the matching 30 percent required under the application guidelines, or about $130,000".

Westfield FD - "...the department is hoping to get the 10 percent required match from the housing authority".

These two quotes are from the Firehouse.com article entitled "Fire Chiefs React to Fourth Round of FEMA Grant Awards". It struck me as odd that the matching funds for both of these grants do not seem to be secured at this time. The way the article reads, the grants were submitted on the assumption that the matching funds could be raised as opposed to a situation were they were known to be available. I thought that one of the premises of the FIRE Act was that the matching funds were known to be available. Am I right or wrong? Any comments?

For the record, my FD has not heard one way or the other on our application yet, so please don't accuse me of sour grapes or whining about the good fortune of other FD's. Just something that struck me as odd.

[ 08-15-2001: Message edited by: ffemtmjb ]

[blackb16]

We did the samething, it is easier to get money when it is in your hands than when it isn't. None of our matches for either grant was public funds. We didn't even use public bucks for the 1.5 million CDBG grant we just got.

The first thing FEMA asked on the phone was, "do you still have the ability to match the grant and if what you are proposing costs less than what we fund you, DO something in the way of fire prevention because if you send any back or don't spend it we lose it."

[jmkfire]

That was my understanding as well. We made a "wish list" and chopped it about 3 times in order to get the essentials and meet the 10% required of us. We still have our fingers crossed, but no word yet from FEMA.
Just my thoughts. Stay Safe and be careful out there.

[hctrouble25]

I was told by a FEMA Rep that we had to have the money secured to match the fund amounts and it had to be documented on the forms they sent to us. We used our yearly Township budgets to match the 10% of both grants we requested but we had that money in hand and our treasurer was told not to spend XX amount of dollars in case we got the grant and had to match it.