Applying for grants city v/s county

[dogpound]

I am the asst.Chief of a small volunteer dept in an all volunteer county in florida. I am with the city dept and there is also a county dept. My dept is in desparate need of grant assistance. But it seems that every grant we look at has already been applied for by the county. I am to understand that grants are based on many things to include geographical placement. Even though my dept. responds to 90 % of all calls city or county and gets there first and takes care of business then county comes in and takes the credit for it. What should we do? I feel we altleast should get equal grant assistance!

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Grants are based on your primary response area, which the county can't take credit for in their apps. So they can't claim your population, calls, etc, etc. and you can't take credit for theirs. So if the call is in the county area, it's your M/A call. If it's in yours, it's their M/A call.

There's no such thing as equal grant assistance, all apps are judged independently. You both can be involved in apps for regional projects together, but things like PPE and SCBA have to be individual apps. In those when you look at your small area versus their large area, they cover a larger first-due, maybe more people and firefighters. So their numbers are larger and on the same request will score higher making them more competitive for most projects. Doesn't mean you can't get money and be competitive, but population and first due call volume are the higher rated statistics.

Also begs the question of why there isn't one department covering the whole county. Doesn't make much sense for there to be a county department covering everything but a small city area, especially if you run M/A with each other on every call.

[islandfire03]

Are you a county wide volunteer fire dept. or individual vol. depts.?
If you are county wide then you will have to work out with whoever is writing the grants to get equal opportunity in applying. There shouldn't be a restriction if you are individual 501c3 depts that contract for service with the county.

[ktb9780]

Dogpund it appears to me that you are being bamboozled by the bigger boys. Who told you that you could not apply? I'm down here in Polk County so give me a call and lets talk and I bet I can get this straightened out for you. 863-551-9598.;)

[dogpound]

Dogpound here! I will be sure to give you a call when I get a chance. I am very interested to know the facts when it comes to grants and who gets them and who don't. Your probably right we are being misled. I recieved some paper work just the other day that outlined the guidlines for the Firefighter Assistance Grants. The way I read them is that because we share the same facility right now we are less likely to get a grant because if the county applies first even if they get it or not it makes us ineligble. Maybe I do'nt understand it completely but thats not right to declare my dept. inelgible just because we share the same facility. We have two different coverage areas. Somebody asked why there is'nt a county wide dept. instead of two dept,s well my dept. orginally covered the entire county for many years until approx. 2 years ago when some of our members decided they did'nt like the way things were arranged. They went to the county commision and fed them a big bowl of horse____ and they ate up every bit of it. Now here we are two years later doing the counties dirty work while they take all the credit for it. Majority of our calls are M/A calls in the county and we are usally there first and have down sized the incident by the time county arrives on scene. I ca'nt count the times I have responded to the station to stand-by for M/A and had to sit there and wait for county to make it to the station before they could even respond to let me Know to have our engine enroute to assist. Most of the time if it's a structure call we go ahead and roll even though we have'nt been offically requested because we know that minutes count during incidents like that. Well i've gotten cared away but I'll be sure to give you a call ASAP to see what advise you can give.

[ktb9780]

I'll look for your call then.;)

[SLY4420]

I think the issue here that wasn't previously stated is that there is a "shared facility."

[ktb9780]

I think the issue here that wasn't previously stated is that there is a "shared facility."
Yep, that's the killer here for sure. Amazing how one little piece of information left out of a post changes the entire persepctive.:(

[dogpound]

Yes I failed to mention that detail earlier I was not aware at the time that sharing a facility was a big deal. After readind the guidlines for my self I understand and feel that it is logical for the feds to see it that way. We are currently in the process of aquiring land to build a city station. We have been told by the city council and their grant writer that there should be no problem getting a grant to build a station. What are your thoughts? I feel that being in our own station should give us that edge when it comes to grants in the future. We shall see! You'll have to excuse the minor info. that was not given earlier. I'm green at this whole grant thing ,I just want to see my dept. get the credit and equipment we deserve. I appreciate your thoughts and your willingness to help!
, Dogpound

[ktb9780]

Yes I failed to mention that detail earlier I was not aware at the time that sharing a facility was a big deal. After readind the guidlines for my self I understand and feel that it is logical for the feds to see it that way. We are currently in the process of aquiring land to build a city station. We have been told by the city council and their grant writer that there should be no problem getting a grant to build a station. What are your thoughts? I feel that being in our own station should give us that edge when it comes to grants in the future. We shall see! You'll have to excuse the minor info. that was not given earlier. I'm green at this whole grant thing ,I just want to see my dept. get the credit and equipment we deserve. I appreciate your thoughts and your willingness to help!
, Dogpound

I think they are in for a shock. Brick and mortar grants are few and far between. You have the USDA Rural Facilities Grant Program and sometimes the Community Development Block Grants and that is going to be about it from the Fed side of things and both have huge restrictions and limited funding.:rolleyes:

[firechief47]

To add to Kurt's last post- I've watched two local departments jump through the hoops of a USDA Rural Development Grant for a station. I don't know about your area, but our office has a maximum funding of $150K. That's not much when engineering fees are almost half that! Dogpound, once you get into your own station, you shouldn't have any trouble getting what you need. Virtually every fire department in our county, including our City department have been awarded at least once, and many of us twice, three and even four times. Good luck!

Ben

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Each office can only allocate 50% of their annual funding to one project, so if they have $150k to play with max to one project will be $75k regardless of what your matching/eligibility is. But very nice people to work with, plus they have the loans that can be stretched to 40 years to help out also.

[ktb9780]

Each office can only allocate 50% of their annual funding to one project, so if they have $150k to play with max to one project will be $75k regardless of what your matching/eligibility is. But very nice people to work with, plus they have the loans that can be stretched to 40 years to help out also.

Welcome back, how's the tan?:D

[k3twpfire]

I'm happy to announce we will be receiving USDA funding for a brush truck chassis. We applied for $28,000 and they are giving us $20,460. Just got the call today! It is a lot of hoops but well worth it. They staff at USDA was great.

[ktb9780]

I'm happy to announce we will be receiving USDA funding for a brush truck chassis. We applied for $28,000 and they are giving us $20,460. Just got the call today! It is a lot of hoops but well worth it. They staff at USDA was great.
Way to go Steve! It is my understanding that limeforever just took delivery of their new mini-attack truck and it is going in service today also as well.;)

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Not back yet, sitting here at one of the hotels with a public access beach and free broadband. I can't go in the sun right now, helped my father in-laws with a 15 yard concrete pour on Monday and got some nice 1st and 2nd degree chemical burns on the legs from splashing concrete. They use more lime in the mix than the states so more caustic. S'alright, I can still hit the golf course one more time tomorrow and the beer and rum are enough to drown the pain. And skin, I'll make more. That's what Neosporin is for. :)

[Limeforever]

We did just take delivery of the truck and it was just about completly paid for through the USDA First Responder Initiative, which I don't think exist any longer. We also have the Rescue unit just about up and going, just need to put the finishing touches on it as well. I will get some pics posted as soon as we get it settled in. We have been working on another station for about two years, and have had pretty good success. The fed grants for a building are difficult to say the least, but it just takes some time to get everything in line and to mmet all of the requirements, but hopefully if all continues to go well, we will have a new station under way within the next year. The USDA paperwork is not that bad, we had the local Area Development District helping on some of the requirements that I did not understand, and the USDA regional rep was a great help as well. We had to change chassis due to the new emissions stuff, so we contacted him, he told us to write it out for him and explain why we would have to have more money and a bigger chassis. Then he came through with additional money that moved us from a 125K truck to a 178K vehicle. More than helpful, he will be getting a christmas card from us for sure.