January 31, 2000
Federal surplus shopping club may go statewide
By Erik Burriss
Staff Writer
Seneca County Commissioner Janet Dell and the county's fire chiefs are to discuss Tuesday the possibility of getting surplus federal equipment for local fire/EMS departments.
Now, 33 counties in an arc from Columbiana in the east to Adams in the south -- designated the Forest Fire Protection Area by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Division of Forestry -- can receive equipment under the Federal Excess Personal Property program. The Ohio Rural Fire Council advocates expanding the program statewide. Dell serves on the council's board of directors.
Nathan Kirk, the fire/law coordinator for the Forestry Division, said the program allows local fire departments to give equipment requests to Rick Maier, director of the Forest Fire Protection Area program for the Forestry Division. Maier then sees if he can match that request with what is available from the federal government.
The program has been around since the mid-1950s, Kirk said, but Ohio has only had a full time administrator for the last three years.
"I bring in approximately $1 million yearly" for those 33 counties said Maier, the sole person working on the program at the state level. "If we could go statewide and have three people, we should be able (to bring in equipment worth) $3 million to $5 million a year."
Maier said expanding the program to cover all of Ohio would require about $375,000 for the program's first year, an amount which would decline to about $200,000 by the program's third year. According to Kirk, the state now pays about $72,000 a year.
Equipment acquired through the program must be used directly in firefighting or be modifiable to be used for firefighting, Kirk said.
"We have picked up three of four full-fledged fire trucks," Kirk said. Departments also have been able to get equipment such as ropes, hoses, nozzles and protective clothing, he said.
Usually, Kirk said, the fire department has to do some kind of modification to take a normal vehicle "and turn it into something they can use to respond to emergencies."
Water tanks can be installed on a pickup chassis and make it a vehicle to fight grass fires, for example, or equipment to deal with hazardous materials can be installed in a van, he said.
"The same vehicle can be converted into different things," Kirk said, "depending on the needs of the fire department."
The modifications are paid for by the fire department, Kirk said, but since the base equipment is free, the program can save local departments tens of thousands of dollars.
"Technically, it's on loan, but it's theirs as far as we're concerned. There are departments that have had equipment for 20 years," Kirk said.
"This program provides critical equipment for rural volunteer departments who ordinarily could not buy these items because of their limited budgets," Dell said.
The General Assembly will make the decision to expand the program, Kirk said, and it has two ways it could do so. An individual legislator could introduce a funding bill appropriating the extra money or the director of the Department of Natural Resources could include the expansion in the department's next budget proposal.
Kirk said that if the General Assembly would approve the expansion it would take effect in July 2001 at the earliest.