Grant News

[sjfd426]

Hey Webteam, do you guys have any information about how the Peer Review process is going? Surely you have someone snooping around up there in Maryland. It's been a week now and we haven't heard anything. Any information such as, "Are they going to be done in the two weeks they had hoped or is it going to take three?", "How were the requests broken down in catagories and dollars?", "When do they expect the first award notices to go out?" and the big one "When will the Dear John letters go out? Any information would be helpfull. Thanks for all your hardwork.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Check the USFA web site, www.usfa.fema.gov.

They just posted the breakdown by department type, category, classification, etc. If you follow the link on the front page near the bottom, on the second page it will have another link to another page with more of a breakdown and a PowerPoint presentation that you can download.

One interesting fact I found: according to the rules, approximately 52% of the money has to go to fully paid/career departments. Which works out to about $370 million. The requests by those departments only totaled just shy of $278 million. So either all of those applications will get awarded by default, or more money will be floating in the combo/all vollie column. I think the extra bucks should come across the line, but being as it's a federal program, I don't know how that will play out.

They still expect peer review to be fully completed in 3 weeks. more power to them. Of course that tells me that they'll have all of the answers up front, but they're only going to make announcements twice a month so that we'll be strung out again.

Good luck all, and hang in there.

Brian

[dragonfyre]

This e-mail just came today from FEMA.

FEMA and the USFA Announce 2003 Assistance to Firefighters Grant Application Preliminary Data

WASHINGTON DC - The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the
United State Fire Administration (USFA) have received approximately 19,950 applications for the 2003 Assistance to Firefighters Grant program. The total request of all departments, including the non-federal share, is around $2.5 billion.

For the 2003 program, Congress appropriated, and President
Bush signed into law, $750 million in direct assistance in support of the nation's firefighters and the services they deliver.
"Through President Bush's leadership, there is twice as much money this year to help firefighters respond to all types of emergencies-from the common to the complex," said Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response. "Making sure firefighters have the proper equipment, resources, training and community support to safely respond to emergencies is critical to helping us meet our mission to
better secure the homeland."

The USFA Grants Program office staff has completed their early review of applications and the peer review panels began the week of April 21, 2003. The peer review panels are expected to take three weeks to complete the entire review of applications. DHS, FEMA and the USFA look forward to making the first award announcement in early June.
"Fire service personnel have once again come together to identify the
necessary equipment and resources they need to better serve their
communities," said R. David Paulison, USFA Administrator. "Although we had a one week delay at the beginning of the application process, it now appears we will be making our first announcements almost a month ahead of the 2002 program. This positive pace is due to the efforts of the Nation's firefighters."

A complete state-by-state listing of applications, financial information and known data from the fire service requests can be found at www.usfa.fema.gov/inside-usfa/03requests.cfm

For the most current information regarding the 2003 Assistance to
Firefighter Grant Program, visit www.usfa.fema.gov or enroll in the USFA email distribution list serve for the most current news releases from the USFA.

USFA is a part of FEMA. Both USFA and FEMA are a part of the Department of Homeland Security

[TriTownship600]

Originally posted by BC79er

One interesting fact I found: according to the rules, approximately 52% of the money has to go to fully paid/career departments. Which works out to about $370 million. The requests by those departments only totaled just shy of $278 million. So either all of those applications will get awarded by default, or more money will be floating in the combo/all vollie column. I think the extra bucks should come across the line, but being as it's a federal program, I don't know how that will play out.

Really?

52% of the money goes to 9% of the requests?

Where did you find this at Brian?

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

It was in the rules last year but its not this year. The rule on the split between paid/career has changed:

(4) We will ensure that fire departments with volunteer staff, or
staff comprised of a combination of career fire fighters and volunteers, receive a proportion of the total grant funding that is not less than the proportion of the United States population that those firefighting departments protect.

The minimum funding has shifted towards vollie/combo departments. In English, this rule states that no less than approximately 48% of the money must go to vollie/combo departments, because that is the percentage of the population protected by those types. ~52% of the population is protected by paid/career departments. The actual percentages are probably different, but they're close to those numbers going on last year's feedback.

I thought that the funding minimums for each were set, meaning that 52% had to go to paid depts. If that were the case, then since only $278mil was applied for out of the $370mil (~52%), leaving $92mil unaccounted for in that section, then there theoretically would have been money that "couldn't" have been moved over to vollie/combo. That's not the case since the rule changed from 2002, so ignore the previous post. So all of the career/paid applications are NOT going to be awarded as previously speculated. My apologies for the confusion. Technically, if they didn't write them well enough, no paid dept awards could be given, but I doubt that will happen.

Again, sorry for the confusion.

Brian

[waterboy1]

The 2003 Program guidence says that 46% will go to Career Depts and 54% will go to Vollie/Combo Depts. I hope this is true.

[farmun751]

Has anyone verified the stats given on the number of applications received? I ran the numbers, and I don't think I used the same formula as FEMA did.

They reported that 53% of the 19,948 applications were for Ops and Safety. My numbers show 68.9% (13759/19948 = 0.6897)

They reported that 1% of the 19,948 applications were for Fire Prevention. My numbers show 2% (422/19948 = 0.0212)

They reported that 45% of the 19,948 applications were for FF Vehicles. My numbers show 27.8% (5554/19948 = 0.2784)

Our numbers jived on the EMS category.

What's up with this? Makes me wonder how they calculate other information, like stuff that really matters.

[Adze39]

Thanks for keeping us updated ttjjss1 (as long as you are not sitting in a dark room somewhere in the middle of the wilderness just having a good laugh at those who believe you)

If 6500 didn't make it past the computer grading, how much $$$ does that represent?

[wrfd9113]

There were approximately 6500 grant apps that didnt make it through the first computer grading. that leaves about 13500 left for us .


You stated "the first computer grading" does this mean that they will run the apps. again with more stringent paramenters than the first run, to eliminate more departments. Thanks for the info, and keep the updates coming.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

The computer grading is the one that checks how many people you serve, how many members, how many vehicles of the type you're applying for etc, etc. Basically a statistical analysis of the applications. The peer review looks at that stuff again, but mostly the peer review is dealing with the narrative.

It is going fairly fast this week, it has amazed me how bad many of the grant apps are, Come on guys , read the instructions!!!!! Simple instructions are not being followed and it is hurting many departments chances. DETAILS DETAILS.......

I think a lot of us that were successful last year were trying to help by pointing this out after last year's awards. Any app that did not follow instructions usually gets tossed out in the computer scoring. 6500 it looks like this year. It was about the same last year by an estimate that I saw.

I was wondering about the money split myself, 277,000,000 applied for by Carreer depts with 45 percent available, 337,500,000, that leaves a big spread. I will ask about that tomorrow.

45% is the maximum amount of money that can go towards career. Reading the offical rule passed into law (03-grant-fr.pdf), which is where I copied and pasted that text from in the previous post of mine, 55% HAS to go to vollie/combo depts, but more CAN if there isn't enough demand from career depts, which is the current situation. I'm not surprised to see it going by last year's breakdown. There weren't too many more $$ asked for in career than were available, because last year specified exact %'s for each type, no more, no less.


Anywho, keep the fingers crossed.

[ncvfc17]

Nice to have somebody on the "inside". Makes all of us think something is really going on!

Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated.

[mcunning]

Tyler,
Thanks for your input on this process. Will preface my questions by saying please don't violate any confidential agreements.
1 - What was the process for getting picked to be a peer reviewer?
2 - What can you tell us as far as the general reasons for folks failing the process. What were some general reasons that departments did not make the first computer cut and then the peer review cut.
3 - What were your peers on the peer review panel? Volunteers? Paid? Combo? Officers? FireFighters? etc.
I look forward to your further insights.

[640SATFD]

Tyler,

Thanks for all the great info. Glad you could attend this review. It made a big difference for me to hear words or wisdom from a firefighter.

My question is did anyone ask when the Dear Johns would go out. Does any one really know yet or do they need to tally the overall scored list?

Thanks

[rt56fr]

ttjjss1
Thanks for taking the time to keep us posted. As you must have a busy schedule while you are there, you cared enough to keep us " hungry for information brothers and sisters " informed.It truely means alot.

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

Tyler - Thanks for the info. It should definitely help a lot of people. I know the biggest problem many had with this process is that there was no feedback about how everything worked, how the scoring was done, etc. I understand and most should that there's a certain amount that can't be made public but your comments about what you saw will definitely help many for next year.

By the way, sorry about the 4 page narrative. I couldn't cut much out without losing the major points. That's why I had several teachers read it for me, including a history teacher that spends most of his time grading essays. I've been writing computer code for too long, because after he got done with the first draft I was wondering how I ever passed English in high school. The infamous red marker returned.

Good luck y'all, and hang in there. Sounds like we've only got a couple more weeks to go until the money ball starts rolling.

Brian

[TriTownship600]

Tyler,

Can you answer any of these questions.

After all the applications have been graded, do they award those with 300 points first and work down until the money is gone?

Did it help any at all to have our application in early?

What decides which applications are awarded in the first round?

Thanks

[TriTownship600]

Thanks Tyler!

Your info is helpful. My application was in the 3XX range.

Good Luck, Stay Safe

[ttjjss1]

Hello again guys
I have deleted all of my replys on this thread.
It seems that I may not have been clear in some of my comments and some people may misunderstand my meaning. I never meant for people to assume anything when I posted the comments. I want to appologize to the Fire Act Grant folks if anything I may have posted could possibly be detremental to the program. My intent was to try and help as many departments out as I possibly could by letting them know that this is not a "Big brother" program and that firefighters and others like you and I ARE this program.
I strongly recommend everyone try to go and be an evaluator, It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Everyone just needs to stay patient and take the news as it comes. The team that is processing this is small but they are getting more and more efficient and experienced as each day goes by. They are doing the work of thousands with just a few excellent people. Keep up the great work up there guys!
This is a great program and we all need to get more departments involved so we can keep our numbers up and not chance having OUR program cut.
Again, I offer my appology if anything I have posted offended anyone or made people assume things that arent fact.
Tyler

[FF1118]

More departments? Theres not enough money as it is, why would you want to involve departments that don't want to be involved. The departments that are located in cities and towns that are in debt can get whatever they want, thats BS...that a small department that is located in a place where the people in charge know how to spend their money can't get a grant for anything...

[BC79er_OLDDELETE]

I think what Tyler means is that if you don't apply, it means you don't need the money. That's the message I get from someone that complains that they're not going to win so why bother. You don't know unless you try. And how much effort did it actually take to put in an application? 4 hours? 6? 10? This really isn't a tough or time consuming process, you just have to follow the rules. That's why it's a GRANT program, not WELFARE. Yes you have to demonstrate need, and you may well have it, but let's face it, most of the departments that need the money are in areas that don't have fires. Even when I ran up north, one of mutual aid departments answered 13 calls in 10 months. When you line that up against someone that needs the same thing as you, I think the department that runs 100 calls a month needs it more. As I said in an earlier post when someone bitched about people winning quints, that aerial will probably save more lives in one month than some departments will in 5 years. So who really needed the money more? This is about helping departments to save lives, as many as possible. So that's why departments that protect more people have a better chance of winning: because they have a better chance of having a major incident and major life loss!

Besides, look at it another way: if you couldn't figure out how to fill out a simple application and follow the rules, how can you expect the reviewers to think that you're really asking for what you need? Obviously 6500 applications couldn't even make it to peer review because they were asking for the wrong thing, from the wrong people, or just plain filled out wrong. What kind of message does that send about someone's ability to follow simple rules, or if their request is really what's needed?

If the program goes away, then there's going to be no help for anyone, and those of you that are hurting are going to still be hurting, and have no hope of ever changing your situation. The longer the program goes on, the more people will be helped. And back to the response thing, some departments will see more fire than some will see in the next two years. Does that mean I will agree with every award? No, I didn't agree with Houston getting $750K for exercise equipment, but one of the rules is the split in monies between vollie, combo/vollie & career, so rural departments needing gear weren't competing against them anyway. I think one of Tyler's other points was you can't really judge a system or it's rules until you've been on the other side. Which is actually one of those rules we all should have learned in Kindergarten: "never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes." And unless you've been on the side of the table that he has, I think you can keep your comments about how unfair the system is, and what a crock the awards are, to yourself. I haven't been there either, but any program is better than no program. That you can't argue with.

But I agree, if you have no genuine need, don't make one up just to get 90% off. And if you get something new, donate down the line, don't sell it. Let the generousity trickle down.

Stay safe, and keep the faith.

Brian