ARRA Vehicle Acquisition Program / $600 million avaiilable

[jam24u]

Thanks for the call on this Kurt. Rob and I definately gotta take advantage of this.

[ktb9780]

USDA has a special program running with applications accepted through Sept 30, 2010 to fund police, fire and EMS vehicles and other office equipment etc. through the Community Facilities Grant Program. This is a special clause to that normal program through ARRA. It is one time only money through ARRA allowing, and pay close attention here, municipally controlled public safety agencies serving rural populations under 20K. Read that to mean that if you are for-profit, non-profit or stand alone you are NOT eligible.
They will award from 35% up to 75% of the money ( according to their economic demographics) in an outright grant up to a $100K cap to an eligible agency. Folks $600 million for vehicles is more than 2010 AFG has in total funding this year! For those of you who qualify you need to call your local regional office of USDA ( http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/recd_map.html ) find out how to apply.If you are a municipally controlled public safety agency serving under 20K in population this is well worth a phone call... no peer review panel, no computer scoring HHHMMMHH! This sounds made to order for many of you.

[Fightin23rd]

Kurt, or anyone else, can you tell me what makes a company a municipally controlled public safety agency?

Thanks

[jam24u]

Kurt, or anyone else, can you tell me what makes a company a municipally controlled public safety agency?

Thanks

Well, a municipally controlled public safety agency is basically one who is controlled by your local government. You use your towns employer ID number and sales tax exemption number is a good clue.

[BC79er]

The fun thing about that program is that they are not deviating from the usual USDA eligibilities. It is service area not location, so make sure that they calculate the MHI for the entire service area and not just the city.

Of course the other part is that there aren't too many incorporated cities that control the fire department or EMS in the sense that they seem to mean. So might just be a situation where a lot of cop cars end up getting bought since no one else fits the requirements from teh FD/EMS side. Unless of course they let the municipality get and own the vehicle for its lifetime and just let the FD or EMS use it the whole time.

[ktb9780]

The fun thing about that program is that they are not deviating from the usual USDA eligibilities. It is service area not location, so make sure that they calculate the MHI for the entire service area and not just the city.

Of course the other part is that there aren't too many incorporated cities that control the fire department or EMS in the sense that they seem to mean. So might just be a situation where a lot of cop cars end up getting bought since no one else fits the requirements from teh FD/EMS side. Unless of course they let the municipality get and own the vehicle for its lifetime and just let the FD or EMS use it the whole time.

Valid point Brian but there are still a good deal of "municipally owned" FDs out there. My city where I worked is one of them. I would venture to say that up in the upper tier state on Canadien border there may be quite a few who might fall into this catagorey or for instance the UP of Michigan.

One other thing to keep in mind here is municipalities generally assume right now that they will have to fullfill fleet requirments for their PDs from within their budgets thereby often pushing FD purchases to the back burner in favor of the PD needs. This may allow a change in funding priorties to come into play especially considering that June 1 is FY change for many. I have been observing a few municiplaities using the "green" inititiatives to fund fuel efficientvehicles for meter readers, detective cars, process servers etc. in order to free up money for the gas guzzlers they have to have for the patrol and or FD vehicles. A similar scenario coudl also develop whereby gaining that new road maintenance vehicle, garbage truck, patrol car etc. could offer releif so that a new fire apparatus could be squeezed into the normal budget.

[Catch22]

It's a shame we're a district now, I'd really like to take advantage of this with us building a new station in the very near future.

[rands1]

Contacted my state UDSA and was told that our pop was just over 20,100, and our income stats would only give us low interest loan of 4.25 %. So we don't qualify either way. Hopefully some of you do. Good Luck!

[ktb9780]

It's a shame we're a district now, I'd really like to take advantage of this with us building a new station in the very near future.

Why is George Jones song ringing in my ears " I've had choices.... since the day that I was born".LOL!

[BC79er]

You can't use another federal grant to match an AFG award, it has to be local money only. And if a state grant was funded from federal money can't use that either as matching. You can use them for equipment and other stuff related, but the match itself it can't be.

Also once you press submit on an AFG app it's sent. You can pull it but won't be able to put anything else in it's place.

[jam24u]

When I saw that you responded on the thread after me, I knew I was sunk. That was why I visted the E one giveaway first before coming back to get the bad news.

oh well, I'll expect her call back in a little, confirming your posting.

Surprised she didn't know that.

[jam24u]

Contacted my state UDSA and was told that our pop was just over 20,100, and our income stats would only give us low interest loan of 4.25 %. So we don't qualify either way. Hopefully some of you do. Good Luck!

With the new census results coming out soon, you may well come in under the wire. Ask your banker where they have seen your population changes at. Is it increasing or decreasing. They will know.

[BC79er]

Jam, your post ended up above the others. Guess the gremlins are still loose... reference to a "scary" movie from the 80s for you youngin's out there...

[BC79er]

New census won't be out before this is done with so they still operate off of the 2000 data for most of the country. They won't deviate from it either, local counts or tax records are meaningless, they have to work off of the census by law so no loopholes to that process other than making sure they properly calculate the service area using GIS.

And Kurt has valid points, any new money tends to free up old money if the powers that be are forward-thinking. Something about IF being the operative word. If that can be accomplished and you're not eligible then might be time to create a future favor by getting some of that dough in and free up the budget money, and hopefully what's saved doesn't get used for current debt, although that's still not a bad thing to do to avoid loss of revenue to interest.

[ktb9780]

You can't use another federal grant to match an AFG award, it has to be local money only. And if a state grant was funded from federal money can't use that either as matching. You can use them for equipment and other stuff related, but the match itself it can't be.

Also once you press submit on an AFG app it's sent. You can pull it but won't be able to put anything else in it's place.

One correction there Brian, CDBG excess funds can be used for AFG match i fthe CDGB project is completed. Lost a big bet on that a couple of years ago and that answer was right out of AFGs mouth on that one.

[jam24u]

I just got off the phone with the head of this program for our state. She informs me that because of our median household income, we will only qualify for 15% of the total award.

I then asked her if I could use that to increase the size of our cash match. At first she said yes, but would have to check. I then said what if the funds were not needed until a year from now. She informed me that they could set it aside in an account. I said, so like an escrow account and she, "well something like that I guess".

I just forwarded our updated narrative (kurt) to her to get the paperwork started. Her concern was using one federal grant in support of another federal grant. If she tells me a little later on that I can't, then I'll ask what state grant is available.

Which brings me to another question. If I submit a vehicle application, can I later revoke that application and resubmit a different application, as long as I do so before the closing period?

I would kill to be able to come up with a 20+% cash match.

[BC79er]

You can't use another federal grant to match an AFG award, it has to be local money only. And if a state grant was funded from federal money can't use that either as matching. You can use them for equipment and other stuff related, but the match itself it can't be.

Also once you press submit on an AFG app it's sent. You can pull it but won't be able to put anything else in it's place.

[BC79er]

Jam, your post ended up above the others. Guess the gremlins are still loose... reference to a "scary" movie from the 80s for you youngin's out there...

[Pelican631]

So if I'm understanding all of this correctly a Fire District (unit of local government) which would normally be eligible for a Community Facilities Grant (based on language here: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rhs/cf/brief_cp_grant.htm ) would NOT be eligible for ARRA funding because of the specific language added to the ARRA?

Andy

[hinesfire]

My local RD Community Dev Prog Specilist just said she knows of no "new" ARRA moneys specific to first repsonders. Kurt can you post a link to the specific info?