Fed Funding...About Dang Time

[apatrol]

I find it truly amazing we asked for grant money several months ago and got a stipend. Now all of a sudden we are America's last line of defense and worthy of 1 Billion....

On a positive note I am glad to see this funding and hope we can use it to provide better protection for our customers.

[Dalmatian90]

What's amazing is how shamelessly politicians and lobbyists will act to take advantage of an emotional situation like 9-11.

Several of IAFC's requests where good **and** relevant. Gas masks for metro fire departments, expansion of USAR and Medical response capabilities, Communications (my humble opinion...the entire new 700mhz public safety allocation should be designed a single, nationally-interoperable system similiar to MED Channels), make FEMA officially the "point of contact" for outside of state resources.

The request for full FIRE Act funding has nothing, nadda, zip to do with terrorism and is simply trying to get some elbow room at the trough of federal excess. All the fire prevention, bunker gear, equipment, and apparatus ain't gonna do squat against another terrorist attack.

The request for 75,000 Firefighters also at it's face seems simply trying to exploit tragedy to achieve other goals. If it's like the COPS program, at best it means communities will hire Firefighters three years earlier than they normally would do to normal attrition (how many cities in this nation have seen a lasting increase in their staffing due to COPS? You know, something that lasted much longer than the three year grants did?) If you focussed a hiring program like that on hiring more personnel so you can free other personnel to attend terrorism response training and free personnel also to focus intensely on planning for terrorism response, that program would address the problem (terrorism) and do it effectively...simply adding 75,000 bodies won't do that.

[ccfire]

What is really amazing is before all of this the fire service asked for 5 Billion and they offer half. Why don't they have the cops perform the service?

[fftrainer]

Actually what is REALLY amazing is that every funding post turns in to FD vs. PD? What's the point? Haven't we learned that we can all lose are lives together, fighting the same battle?

I think what we're missing out on is a unified voice of reason rather than a voice of complaints and gripes. The PD obviously has people who stand up and act rather than sit back and complain. I'm not saying that I'm down in DC lobbying for us, but I am saying we need to be together in demonstrating our needs constructively rather than criticizing after the fact.

The true unfortunate part of this is that this funding is like anything else in the fire service - a change only takes place after lives are lost. Maybe it's time we stand up and use our numbers and our voices contructively and not like some combination of monday morning QB' and little old wash-woman (or however that phrase goes )

Stay Safe!!

[Dalmatian90]

I guess I'd still like to know where all those "100,000 Cops" of the Federal COPS bill are.

Between 1993 and 2000, there number of cops per 10,000 population increased by 9%. That's a good jump -- and at first glance one would say, see, there's the COPS.

Of course, between 1993 and 2000, the number of firefighters per 10,000 population increased by 9%. Wait a minute, I thought the fire service was the forgotten step child of local government. How could it be we grew by the same percentage relative to the population we serve...without the benefits of a COPS bill?

Before we get envious of past bills like COPS, let's look at the hard & cold numbers and see if they were effective. Are there anymore cops on the street today than there would've been without COPS? The answer is, No. State & Municipal Government with the benefit of COPS raised the number of Police per Thousand by 9%. State & Municipal Government without any federal aid raised the number of Firefighters per Thousand by 9% over the same time period.

Yeah, them cops. They benefit from all those federal dollars, let's let them handle it all...

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By the numbers:
(Or, how Matt spent his lunch hour...)


1993 State & Municipal Police, w/arrest powers: 542,534 FTE
2000 State & Municipal Police, w/arrest powers: 651,480 FTE
Numeric Increase: 108,946
% Increase: 20%
Per Capita Increase: 9%


1993 State & Municipal Firefighters: 238,250 FTE
2000 State & Municipal Firefighters: 271,785 FTE
Numeric Increase: 33,545
% Increase: 14%
Per Capita Increase 9%


(1st number is Full Time Equivelants, second is # per 10,000 population.)
2000
POLICE-ARREST. . . . 651,480 23.11
FIREFIGHTERS . . . . 271,785 9.64

1999
POLICE-ARREST. . . . 637,628 23.38
FIREFIGHTERS . . . . 265,415 9.73

1998
POLICE-ARREST. . . . 616,363 22.8
FIREFIGHTERS . . . . 261,228 9.7

1997
Police-Arrest 602,524
Firefighters 256,374

1996
No Data

1995
Police Protection-Officers 585,156 22.3
Firefighters 256,001 9.7


1994
Police Protection-Officers 560,805 21.5
Firefighters 252,692 9.7

1993
Police Protection-Officers 542,534 21.0
Firefighters 238,250 9.2


Source: http://www.census.gov/govs/www/apesstl.html