Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program Frequently Asked Questions

SAFER Program applicants are not required to comply with the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to apply for federal assistance under the SAFER Program. However, any applicant who receives a FY 2021 SAFER Program award must achieve the level of NIMS compliance required by the Authority Having Jurisdiction over the applicant’s emergency service operations (e.g., a local government), prior to the end of the grant’s period of performance. Information about NIMS.

Grants awarded under the Hiring Activity enable all volunteer, combination, and career fire departments to restore staffing levels to attain a more effective level of response and a safer incident scene. FEMA awards Hiring Activity grants directly to volunteer, combination, and career fire departments to help fire departments increase their cadre of frontline firefighters by providing financial assistance in three categories:

• Rehire: Rehiring firefighters who were laid off within the two years prior to the start of the application period
• Retention: Retaining firefighters facing imminent layoff – within 120 days of the close of the application period
• New Hire: Hire new, additional firefighters

Eligible positions for funding under the Rehire category must have been laid off in the two years prior to the start of the application period on January 3, 2022. Copies of the official, signed, and issued layoff notices will be required at the time of application.

Firefighters who have been issued a formal layoff notice, which includes a specific date for the layoff action, prior to the start of the application period, and those who face imminent layoff – within 120 days of the close of the application period – are eligible for SAFER Program funding under the Retention category. As the application period closes on February 4, 2022, the layoffs must become effective on or before June 4, 2022. Copies of the official, signed, and issued layoff notices will be required at the time of application.

Eligible positions under the Retention category must be employees of the department at the time the application is submitted. Note: if a retention position becomes vacant after the application is submitted, departments must fill the vacancy with a new hire in order to maintain the operational staffing level.

A layoff notice that is not executed within the specified terms will be considered void unless an additional notice is provided within 14 days of the original action date will not qualify for funding in the Rehire or Retention categories. Applicants who do not meet these parameters must apply under the New Hire category.

Any layoff action not executed in accordance with the terms of the official layoff notice, or which does not meet the above requirements, will not qualify for funding in the Rehire or Retention categories. Applicants who do not meet these parameters must apply under the New Hire category.

The only eligible expenses are the salary and associated benefits (actual payroll expenses) for the positions funded under the SAFER Program grant. Costs are reimbursable if they are included as part of the standard package, available to all operational firefighter positions, contractually obligated, and reimbursed via payroll. Compensation for a firefighter’s normal, contracted work schedule is reimbursable, but overtime costs are not eligible for reimbursement by the SAFER Program grant award (including overtime for holdovers, extra shifts, to attend training, etc.). Only costs for overtime that the fire department routinely pays as a part of the base salary or a firefighter’s regularly scheduled and contracted shift hours, in order to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act, are eligible.

Applicants must correlate the activities for which funding is being requested with the identified recruitment and/or retention problems/issues being addressed. SAFER Program grant funds may only be used for volunteer firefighters who are involved with, or trained in, the operations of firefighting and emergency response. FEMA will not provide funding for a budgeted line item if an applicant does not provide enough information detailing how the item and/or activity will enhance the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. Allowable costs may be limited to reasonable amounts, as determined by FEMA.

All grant-related purchases and activities must be incurred, received, and completed within the period of performance. Additionally, all funded activities under the R&R Activity must be governed by formally adopted Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Minimally, these SOPs should specify who qualifies for each of the incentives, specific requirements for earning the incentives, and the disposition of the awarded incentives if an individual fails to fulfill the stipulations. FEMA may ask for copies of SOPs prior to, or after a grant is awarded.

Examples of eligible expenses include but are not limited to the following:

• Marketing Program (e.g., media and print advertising) to recruit new volunteer firefighters
• New recruit basic training
• Leadership/career development training
• Personal Protective Equipment for new recruits

For the full list of eligible and ineligible costs, please refer to Appendix B – Programmatic Information and Priorities, in the FY 2021 SAFER Program NOFO.

The Narrative Statements of the application must provide unique and specific details about the activity for which applicants seek funding, including budget details. Peer Review Panelists will evaluate and score each activity based

on the narrative elements within each activity. The weighted evaluation criteria used by the peer reviewers in determining the grant award, as described in the NOFO, make up the elements of the Narrative Statements’ score.

Under the Hiring Activity, the peer review panel score is 50% of the total application score. Under the R&R Activity applications, the peer review panel score is 70% of the total application score.

Note: FEMA conducts reviews of a random sampling of applications to compare them for duplication including the narrative statements and statistical data. Therefore, all elements of the narrative statements must be specific and unique to the applying entity, and all statistical data must be accurate.

Applications with narrative statements that have substantial duplication of statements, sentences, or paragraphs to other submitted applications, and/or inaccurate data that may mislead reviewers may be disqualified. Discovery of falsification, fabrication, or plagiarism of other grant proposals will disqualify the application(s).