Welcome to IAAI’s February 2011 CFITrainer.Net Podcast. Today, we have an extremely important topic that affects all of the 32,000 fire departments in the United States. We’re going to get right to it.

With us today is Steve Austin, the Director of Government Relations for the International Association of Arson Investigators. He’s here to discuss the current status of the funding of the federal Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program. This federally-funded grant program is administered by the U.S. Fire Administration. Grants are given under three programs that are designed to assist local fire departments and other organizations to protect citizens and firefighters against the effects of fire. These three programs are the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG), Fire Prevention and Safety Grants, and the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grants. Here’s what you need to know about how President Obama’s proposed budget cuts and Congress’ potential alteration to those cuts may impact these important fire service grant programs. With me on the phone is Steve Austin.

Q: Steve, thanks for being with us.

STEVE AUSTIN: Hey Rod, it’s my pleasure.

Q: So, you’ve been working with the fire service and fire service grant business for a long time. What have these grant programs meant to the fire service?

STEVE AUSTIN: They’ve meant a lot Rod. Because of the support that they’ve provided to local fire departments and fire associations, non-profit associations, they’ve allowed the fire service to be better equipped, better trained, they have better staffing, and they’ve allowed associations such as the International Association of Arson Investigators to present programs that would not be available without the Fire Grant program. You know, the IAAI has been involved in the fire grant issue since day one - even before day one. We worked very hard with our fellow fire service groups to write the legislation to lobby for its passage - our leader there with us has been the Congressional Fire Services Institute who we work with very closely in helping to educate Congress.

Having said that, the other part, and just as important, is the SAFER grant program. That’s the piece of the equation that allows fire departments to get increased staffing, whether they be career departments and actually use the funds to hire new firefighters or for volunteer departments to get programs started that would recruit and retain firefighters.

Q: So, Steve, what’s the potential effect of having the funding cut or eliminated from the Fire Grants program?

STEVE AUSTIN: The public is greatly impacted here because as we all know, fire prevention activities and fire protection in general is an important element of livability in any community, and fire grants impact that. Some of these programs simply would not exist if there was not Fire Grant funding. It’s unfortunate, but in the economic environment that we live in, we count on that funding to help us do those things, not only to make sure that the fire department is properly equipped and trained, but also that there is a public education component out there, as well as the component that we talk about in CFITrainer, which is, of course, the education to lead to a more professional fire investigation.

Q: Well, you bring up CFITrainer, and I think for our audience that’s pretty important. What are some of the impacts or hard numbers behind CFITrainer’s success?

STEVE AUSTIN: CFITrainer is really on the cutting edge of delivery of educational services. Not everyone can sit down in a classroom with the instructors that we provide at CFITrainer. It’s just a physical impossibility that we can get everybody in the same room. You’re talking, Rod, about having 35,000 students that are individually registered at CFITrainer. How would you get 35,000 students in a room to learn about courtroom procedures or proper evidence collection or the myriad of other programs that CFITrainer has provided over the years. It’s just physically impossible. So it just can’t happen without a managed learning system like CFITrainer.

In the more practical sense, even though there is a great bang for the buck here - I mean, there’s over - the last time I checked there were over 400,000 hours of training provided to our students at no cost, and when we look at the production budget for this, that figures out to less than $10 per student hour, which would be just impossible to deliver a quality program such as CFITrainer to a student at that amount of dollars. So, not only are students getting this excellent training, but the government is getting a lot of value for the money they’re investing in CFITrainer.

Q: Steve, can you talk about who’s fighting for the money in Washington for the fire services?

STEVE AUSTIN: The IAAI is considered one of the major - seven major fire service groups in Washington. It has been for the last 30, 35 years, and along with our brother in the first service organizations, which include, but not limited to, the Firefighters Union, the IFF, the NFPA, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and others, we work very closely together to make sure that as the fire service we deliver a consistent and clear message to Congress about what our priorities are, and we focus that message through the Congressional Fire Services Institute, which its mission is to educate Congress. They’ve done a wonderful job at CFSI to help bring the groups together and make sure that we’re on the same page.

Q: I’m glad to hear that you’re out there fighting for it Steve. So what can members of the fire service do to express their opinions about the importance of the Fire Grant Programs?

STEVE AUSTIN: Well they all need to be contacting their United States Senators and their member of Congress. They don’t need to be experts on all the whys and the wherefores and the amounts of money and the budget process, all they need to do is to stop in and visit in the local, a member of Congress’ office or call on the telephone or call the Senator’s office, the local district offices and say we really would like to have our Senator, our Representative support the Fire Act and support SAFER. I will tell you that that is recorded - who you are, where you’ve called and why you’ve called and that member of Congress will see those numbers and know that there are people in his district or her district or that Senator in that state will know that there are people interested in preserving and strengthening fire and SAFER.

Thanks, Steve. As you’ve told us, it’s very important that the fire service and the people involved stay on top of this issue.

We close with some brief news from the IAAI Training Calendar. On March 15th in Dallas, Texas, "Ethical Investigation of Insurance Claims" will use video scenarios to present and discuss ethical issues that arise in the investigation of fire losses. On March 24th in San Diego, IAAI will hold its popular class, "Effective Investigation and Testimony." This class focuses on how to protect an investigation from legal challenges and effectively present methodology and evidence at trial. For more information on and registration for these courses, visit firearson.com.

That concludes this IAAI CFITrainer.Net podcast. Don’t forget to visit cfsi.org to follow what is happening with the Fire Grants program. We’ll see you again next month.