The Hollister Fire Department failed to receive a federal grant to continue funding 12 firefighter positions, the city manager confirmed during Monday’s council meeting.
City Manager Bill Avera said council members will hold a special meeting Oct. 10 to discuss a plan.
The fire department might have to lay off 12 firefighters as a result of the grant’s failure to come through. The grant would have provided the department with $1,145,000 per year and extend a current funding stream paying for the dozen additional firefighters.
In 2014, the fire department received a SAFER grant of $2.2 million, which gave it the funding to staff 12 firefighters. Since then, call volume has gone up 20 percent and the population has grown, Fire Chief Martin Del Campo said in a phone call with the Free Lance on Friday. He was optimistic because the department received the grant last time with a lower call volume and population.
“I was hoping they would provide us the funding to retain these people and we could come up with a program to sustain them,” he said.
Last week, Martin Del Campo in a report to county supervisors addressed the possibility of not receiving funds. He said with the loss of 12 firefighters, the total number of operating firefighters will fluctuate between 23 and 27. At times, overtime will be mandatory in order to meet minimum staffing requirements, he said.
The 2016-17 general fund budget for the fire department is $6,834,406, with $4,499,467 of that allotted for personnel.
According to FEMA’s website, the SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) grant “was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations to help them increase or maintain the number of trained, ‘front line’ firefighters available in their communities.”
