Julia Barron, Federal Emergency Management Agency grant project manager, answered questions from City Council members regarding the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant during a special meeting on Tuesday. Pictured are City Council members and a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Screenshot by Timothy Frudd

A meeting with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials may not result in much clarity as City Council members mull approval of a SAFER grant to hire additional firefighters.

Council members held a special meeting with a grant project manager representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Tuesday to finalize answers pertaining to the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant.

Julia Barron, FEMA grant project manager, told City Council members that in order to receive the $1.8 million in SAFER grant funding, the Jamestown Fire Department would have to add the eight full-time positions.

“When you accept a grant award, you’re accepting the terms and conditions of the award, including the information that’s in the Notice of Funding Opportunity Announcement,” she said. “On the last page of that Notice of Funding Opportunity Announcement, it indicates when you accept the award, you accept the requirements to maintain the number of full-time operational firefighter positions that you have on the date of grant award plus the additional positions that were awarded under the grant for a full number of operational full-time equivalent positions that would be maintained during the grant’s three-year period of performance, so yes, you do have to hire the eight.”

Asked about the city’s minimum required roster number of firefighters through the grant program, Barron said the minimum roster number would be established at 62, which would include 54 full-time firefighters that were listed on the operational roster at the date of the grant award, plus the eight firefighters that would be hired under the SAFER grant program. The grant “period of performance” would begin in August of this year and would run until August of 2026. During that time, the city would be required to maintain 62 total firefighters.

“A lot of grant recipients that I work with, they’re not able to hit that number consistently,” she said. “They’re taking steps. It’s sort of a fluctuating process, as I’m sure you know, you have a number of firefighters and then what happens is there’s resignations, there’s retirements, there’s that natural attrition that happens.”

Barron said that while the city would be required to maintain the 62 total firefighters, the grant program allows for the the “fluctuating process,” along as the city is taking “active and timely steps” to achieve that number. She added that the city would be required to provide periodic performance reports to show that steps are being taken to fill any open positions.

Addressing the goal of the SAFER grant, Barron said the point is to help city’s increase compliance by increasing the number of firefighters in the community in a timely manner.

“We want to increase to put those firefighters in a safer, better position in order to respond to those emergencies,” she said. “The grant is written to say, ‘We were at this level, and with the SAFER firefighters, we’re going to increase this level of compliance, we’re going to get so much more firefighters out there acting quickly, helping the public and responding safely with the correct number of people.'”

Asked whether the city would be eligible to apply for another SAFER grant after the three year program and what the likelihood of the city receiving another SAFER grant would be, Barron said the city would “certainly” be eligible to reapply for the grant.

“We have folks that apply each year,” she said. “That sort of depends on what the local support is for sustaining those positions. You’re writing the grant in order for it to be accepted, so you’re putting yourself into a position of potentially receiving that grant when you apply for it.”

However, while the city would be eligible to apply for another SAFER grant, Barron explained that every grant is separate, and a separate staffing level is included with each grant. As a result, Barron said the city would have to be aware of its current staffing level when it applies for another SAFER grant award. As an example, Barron said that if the city had 62 firefighters on the roster under the SAFER grant and applied again next year, requesting funding for an additional eight positions would result in a staffing level of 70 firefighters, instead of 62, if the previous firefighters had not yet left.

Regarding the City Council’s questions about applying for another grant in three years to retain the eight firefighters included in the SAFER grant, Barron said that “if the grant rules allow,” the city would be eligible to apply for a grant to retain the firefighters; however, she said there are a “lot of tricky rules” pertaining to the retention of positions.

“You have to issue them a layoff notice within a certain period of time, and you can’t lay off during the current grant,” she said. “It starts to get a little bit tricky in terms of retaining these exact same positions, versus hiring new and sort of allowing attrition to happen, and just adding on with new firefighters…It’s a little bit complicated to try and retain these exact same positions, especially like I’m not sure how you’re going to be able to sell that to the grant reviewers because it’s not an automatic thing.”

If the city wanted to reapply for another SAFER grant to retain the positions in three years, Barron said it would have to go through the full application process and “convince” the fire service reviewers that the city was facing economic hardships that would prevent it from maintaining the positions after the three-year grant period despite including a plan to sustain the positions after the conclusion of the grant program.

Asked by City Councilwoman Kim Ecklund, R-At Large, if it would be “safe to assume” that the city could not easily keep the eight firefighters under the SAFER grant program while reapplying for another SAFER grant, Barron said, “I think it’s safe to assume it would be not easy.”

Barron said that toward the end of the three-year grant period, she would potentially have better information regarding how the city could best position itself to reapply for the SAFER grant.

“If you’re successful one time, it definitely means that you have a competitive grant application, but then I’ve also had people apply every single year and not receive it or they receive it one year and are unable to get it ever again,” she said. “It’s just a very competitive grant program.”

With FEMA turning down “hundreds of applications,” Barron congratulated the city for being awarded the SAFER grant, explaining that it is a “big deal” to receive the grant, especially since the city was only offered the grant award due to extra applicants being approved with additional American Rescue Plan Act funding in FEMA’s grant program.

The City Council is expected to vote Monday on the resolution that would lift the hiring freeze and