The city of Jamestown has successfully recruited five of the eight firefighters whose salaries and benefits ultimately will be covered by a grant received last year.

Four of those new hires — Joshua Ellman, Garrett Fransen, Clarke Wiltsie and John Russo — are now set to attend the state’s fire academy in Montour Falls.

Matt Coon, deputy chief of the Jamestown Fire Department, confirmed Monday during a City Council work session that the academy-bound recruits are the result of the $1.8 million Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant that was approved last spring. The much-debated grant, awarded to the city in February 2023, is from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We’re going to continue to recruit,” Coon said this week of the three remaining positions to be hired under the SAFER grant. “Civil Service did offer a new firefighters exam a week and a half ago, and we’re hopeful that we’ll have a new crop of candidates as we move forward.”

A FEMA grant project manager told City Council members last spring 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.

Asked about the city’s minimum required roster number of firefighters through the grant program, the project manager 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.

With its approval last year, the grant “period of performance” began in August 2023 and will run until August 2026. During this time, the city will be required to maintain 62 total firefighters.

Though the city has hired five new firefighters under the grant, the state fire academy only has room for four of them in its upcoming class to run from Feb. 12 to May 23. A resolution authorizing Ellman, Fransen, Wiltsie and Russo to attend the academy was approved by the council’s Finance and Public Safety committees. The resolution will be taken up by the full council at its next meeting.

In other fire department news, the Finance and Public Safety committees approved a resolution for $231,000 in work to the floor at Station 5 on Fairmount Avenue. The funds will come from the city’s allocation of the American Rescue Plant Act.

Coon said the city received three bids in total for the Station 5 project.

“There was a bid that was lower,” Coon said. “However, we were not familiar with that bidder and we were not able to confirm any past municipal projects that they had done, especially a project of this type.”

Coon said E.E. Austin and Son out of Erie, Pa., has previously done work for the city. The resolution will now be taken up by the full City Council.