Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program (AFGP)

Grant Process is Competitive

The AFG program is a competitive grant process open to all applicants who meet USFA ’s
definition of an eligible paid,volunteer,or combination fire department. The grants are
awarded to applicants who best address program priorities, demonstrate financial need,
and maximize the benefits to be derived from the grant funds.

Each year,applicants may apply for funding even if they received previous AFG program
awards. USFA officials said the rationale for allowing applicants to apply each year is
that needs may not have been addressed adequately with previous funding. For example,
in previous year, an applicant may have applied for a grant, in the Operations and safety Program area to include the activity of Personal Protective Equipment category to purchase “turnout gear ” and another in the Training program category to learn basic firefighting techniques.

USFA will consider new requests by previous grant recipients and will take into account performance on prior grant awards when making final funding decisions on current applications.

Throughout the panelist evaluation process, career applicants compete against other
career applicants, and volunteer and combination applicants compete among each other
for the available funding. Even though there are three different types of applicants, there
are two applicant categories:(1)career; and (2) volunteer and combination.

Program legislation mandates a minimum funding level for combination/volunteer departments. Although the Act does not mandate minimum funding of career departments, USFA has developed procedures to ensure that either all volunteer and combined firefighting personnel or career firefighting personnel receive a portion of the total grant funding available that is not less than the proportion of the United States population they protect and serve.

These proportions are derived each year from most recent survey data conducted by the National Fire Protection Association in each year, the proportion is around up to 45 percent for career applicants and at least 55 percent for volunteer and combination applicants. In FY 2003, it is up to 46 percent for career applicants and at least 54 percent for volunteer and combination applicants.

The primary basis for award decisions is competitive using rank order.  USFA might
deviate from rank order, however, to ensure adequate distribution of awards among the
three types of applicants and communities with different characteristics (urban,suburban,
or rural), as well as an equitable geographic distribution. 

In addition, USFA may not award grants for vehicles in excess of 25 percent of available funding. Once this limit is reached, USFA must deviate from rank order with respect to the remaining requests to fund vehicles.

The program has been analyzed and information on all grant applications and awards to determine the amount of funding requested, funding awarded, type of applicant, type of program,  and the geographic distribution of funds awarded and grant recipients. The analysis shows that there was a balanced distribution of funding to volunteer and combination applicants or career applicants. The demographic distribution of funding did not appear to favor any state or type of applicant.

Two Levels of Application Evaluation

In selecting applications for award, each application is evaluated for eligibility based
on the program priorities. During this first level of review, applications are evaluated
electronically based upon responses to activity-specific questions and assigned a numeric score. Applications that address program priorities and are deemed in the competitive range advance to a second level of review. Applications that are not deemed in the competitive range do not advance.

The second level of review is conducted using technical evaluation panels (TEPs),
comprised of members from the fire service and representatives of fire service
organizations, who manually assess and evaluate the merits of each application.

1. •Int. Assn of Fire Chiefs (IAFC)
2. •Int. Assn of Firefighters (IAFF)
3. •National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC)
4. •National Fire Protection Assn (NFPA)
5. •National Assn of State Fire Marshals (NASFM)
6. •National Assn of Arson Investigators (NAFI)
7. •Int. Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI)
8. •North American Fire Training Directors (NAFTD)
9. •Congressional Fire Service Institute (CFSI)

The involvement of these organizations during this level of review as well as during the
development, evaluation, and modification of the AFG program eligibility criteria
and program priorities is an inherent strength of the program. The knowledge of the
members of these fire service organizations not only benefits USFA in the effective and
efficient administration of the program, but also affords applicants an impartial review
of the merits of their applications by the collective experiences of peers in assessing and
addressing their needs and capabilities.

By the end of April each year, USFA convenes TEPs to review applications that are
deemed to be competitive. Each member of the TEPs must complete an online examination, sign and affirm a conflict of interest statement and agree to withdraw from the evaluation of an applicant with which the member might have affiliation. TEPs review the entire application, with particular attention to the narrative section, to determine whether the application demonstrates effectiveness in achieving the protection of the health and safety of the public and firefighting personnel against fire and fire related hazards.

TEPS are provided guidelines to use when evaluating the following four elements of
each application narrative: clarity of the proposed project, including budget detail; financial need; the cost benefits; and the specific out comes that would result if the grant were awarded. The TEPs consider all expenses budgeted, including administrative and/or indirect, as part of their cost benefit review.

Each application is reviewed in its entirety and compared against established evaluation criteria, not against other applications. At least three members of the TEPs independently score the three elements of each narrative, consider answers to the general and activity-specific application questions,and discuss the merits/shortcomings of the application in order to reconcile any major discrepancies; however, a consensus on the score is not required. The scores of the TEPs are added together, then divided by the number of members evaluating the application to arrive at the final score from 0 - 100 points.

Applications are ranked,starting with the highest numeric score (100). The highest scoring
applications are then reviewed by USFA to resolve any questions or outstanding issues
the TEPs might have raised. After reviewing the applications, USFA takes into account
the Act ’s legislative requirements,funding for specific program categories,and the
geographic distribution of funds. This process is traditionally completed by early June each year.

The program evaluators observed the TEP review process for the FY 2003 grant applications and believe reasonable efforts are made to conduct the evaluation of applications without bias or favoritism and that the process appears fair, consistent, and, most importantly, responsive to the particular needs of the applicant in relation to program priorities. The approach applied to develop and implement the AFG program offers the potential to enhance the program ’s overall effectiveness because members of the firefighting community conduct the application evaluation.

Greater Detail is Required to Demonstrate Financial Need

According to the program guidance, the narrative of the application should not only
provide the details of activities that an applicant proposes and the benefits that will be
realized from the expenditure of grant funds, but should also describe financial need.

The  AFG program guidance and applications instruct applicants that the program narrative must demonstrate their financial need for assistance and explain why the proposed project cannot be funded solely through local funding or their own resources. No further instructions, details,or examples are provided in the program guidance and applications. As a result, applicants present a varying level of detail when attempting to demonstrate adequately their financial need. In the narrative statements of the  applications, some applicants demonstrated financial need by discussing components of their annual operating budgets.

For example, one applicant wrote,“The budget for our fire department is $2.7 million, of which 93 percent is for personnel services. The remaining 7 percent ($189,000) is used for all other operating expenses, including vehicle repair and repairs and maintenance of two fire stations, utilities, and fire equipment. The town is also very reluctant to fund any items not specifically required by law.” Many other applicants, however, provided limited financial information, if any at all, when demonstrating financial need. For example, one applicant wrote,“State and local funds are few and far between.”

Currently, TEPs assess an applicant ’s financial need based on a comparison of
responses to specific application questions pertaining to the applicant ’s budget against
demonstration of financial need provided in the narrative. In both the FY 2002 and
FY 2003 AFG program applications, there are two required questions that address an
applicant ’s operating budget: “What is the percentage of your annual operating budget
that is dedicated to personnel costs?” and “ What percentage of your annual operating
budget is derived from: Taxes? Grants? Donations? Fund Drives?” An additional
question was added to the FY 2003 program application: “What was your department ’s
estimated average operating budget over the last three years?” While the answers
to these three questions might give some indication of an applicant ’s financial need,
additional budget information is required to enable the TEPs to conduct a more complete
analysis of financial need.

For example, by answering these three questions, an applicant might report that its
average operating budget from a combination of taxes and donations is $400,000
and 75 percent ($300,000) is dedicated to personnel costs. To score the application
equitably, however, TEPs need an understanding as to the use of the remaining 25 percent ($100,000). The lack of specific details about an applicant ’s budget invites interpretive speculation and can result in inequities in scoring. As an illustration, while two separate TEPs may both agree that an applicant ’s narrative statement like,“Our fire department can’t afford this piece of equipment ,” does not adequately demonstrate financial need,one TEP group might give the application a score of “0” for demonstration of financial need, while another TEP group might give a score of “60.” Both TEPs score the application at a level they believe reflects the applicant’s inability to demonstrate financial need adequately; however, the differences in scoring causes the overall scores to differ significantly.

USFA officials stated that when developing the AFG program they debated what
information applicants should be required to supply to demonstrate financial need.
Although they considered collecting the past two budgets of applicants, USFA and FEMA
grants management officials rejected the idea because they wanted to keep the application process as simple as possible.

Currently, however, unless applicants give specific details about their operating budgets in the application narrative, it is difficult for TEPs to obtain a true sense of an applicant ’s financial need.If future applicants are required to submit details about the components of their operating budgets from the past two years, a better demonstration of financial need will be presented and the TEPs could complete a more detailed analysis resulting in less subjectivity during the scoring process.

In addition to a better demonstration of financial need, collecting detailed information
on operating budgets will provide USFA and FEMA grants management officials with
the necessary information to ensure that grant recipients are complying with the Act ’s
“maintenance of operating expenditures ” requirement upon receiving a grant.

Under this requirement, applicants must agree to maintain operating expenditures for the one-year grant period in the areas funded at a level equal to or greater than the average of
their operating expenditures in the two fiscal years preceding the year in which the
assistance is received.

Because applicants are not required to provide their past two-year budgets, USFA is unable to determine whether grant recipients are maintaining operating expenditures and complying with the statute. USFA and FEMA grants management officials recognize that this is a deficient area and, as a result, have drafted a statement of work for the purpose of accomplishing the following tasks through an independent contractor:

• A clarification description will be developed to define the meaning of “maintenance of operating expenditures” and how to apply it to meet Congressional intent;
• USFA and FEMA grants management officials will assess a statistically representative sample of grant recipients in order to ascertain and document grant recipient abilities to adhere to the maintenance of operating expenditures requirement;
• Using the results of the audit, USFA and FEMA grants management officials will
  develop monitoring questions and/or a questionnaire to provide the necessary
  monitoring tools for future desk reviews and site visits specifically to address the
  maintenance of operating expenditures requirement.

• 
  Suggestions
  
  AFG program applicants should provide detailed information on their operating
  budgets from the previous two years. This would allow TEPs to conduct a more
  complete analysis of financial need and would provide the means to validate grant
  recipients’ compliance with the Act ’s “maintenance of operating expenditures ”
  requirement.