October 9, 2026 · VETERANS AFFAIRS AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS · 17,648 words · 9 speakers · 84 segments
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I'm going to call this informational meeting to order. Sally, if you could call the roll. Representative Brown on these. Representative Gintz. Representative Webster on leave.
Chairman Gillen? Here.
Representative Banta on leave. Representative Bashlein on leave. Representative Cooper on leave. Representative Hamm on leave. Representative Kerwin on leave. Representative Krupa on leave. Representative Mako on leave. Representative Stare on leave. Representative Stender on leave. Representative Wacho on leave. Representative Williams on leave. Thank you, Sally. So my name is Jared Solomon. I'm the chair of Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness. We're going to make brief introductions. I'm going to kick it over to Representative Rigby. We're very grateful for you organizing this info session, and he's going to give some opening remarks about the importance of... We're going to then have each panelist...we'll save all questions till the end. Make sense? Okay, great. Chair Gillen.
Thank you very much. I just want to express my sincere gratitude toward those that are in the fire service, that are on the front line, that are doing the job every day. I live in a relative modest-sized municipality in the Reading area, 7,000 people. And in the last three years, we've had three fatal fires. We've had firefighters that had to be hospitalized during the course of rescuing individuals out of those home situations. And so we realized that every day when you go out, you don't know what the outcome is going to be. And thank you for risking your life. Thank you for being heroes. Thank you for serving. serving. My wife just texted me and she said, where are you at? I said, I'm not sure. I drove by a town whose name was Coupon. Connor said they have discount stores there. Gallats in, when you get off the interstate and you still got an hour to drive, you know you're in rural Pennsylvania, but the firefighting needs here are just the same as they are from where I come from, or from where the good chairman comes from, in Philadelphia.
So we here to hear to listen to learn Chairman Thank you Chair Gillen Representative Rigby Thank you Chairman both Gillen and Jared You know I asked to have this here. I've had meetings with members from up at the Academy here, Nick, Tony, Chief McCann from the city. You know, people don't understand the cost of training, you know, and, you know, when you're sitting on an $18,000 bill because trainings from previous years and it's costing $1,850 to put one person through. If we go back to 1976-77 when I joined the fire service, there were over 300,000 volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania. 6,000, we've got a problem. If you look at the numbers, average volunteer fire station, 89.7%. Mostly volunteer with some paid is 6.8%. Some volunteers 1.1% and all paid is only 2.4%. I don't think people understand that 96.5 of our fire companies are made up of volunteers or volunteers with some paid staff. And the rest, the paid full-time people with some volunteers only make up 3.5 of that. And when I hear that there's a firefighter that wanted to go through the academy but they didn't have the money to send him, I think we've got an awakening. There's a problem. And we need, as a body, to address that problem, whether we supply funding, we put it into perpetuity to make sure that those monies are available for anybody that wants to become a fireman, because God knows we need them, and we need them badly. This campus that we're on today services 10 counties and 80 fire companies. That up here that put their time in to keep these grounds up and keep it going, really, a little extra money would go a long way up here. So, you know, I think it's important we hear the testimonies and get a better understanding about what there's a lot of training that goes into it. And we should be able to make sure that they get the training they need so that they can protect our communities. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Representative Rigby. If our first two panelists, Matt and Randall, could please come up. Matt Barzak is Executive Director of Northern Cambria Community Development Corporation. He's the first assistant chief at the Hope Fire Department. Randall, RJ, come on up. RJ Wilson, PA certification coordinator, Cambria County. He's the former chief of the Reed Township Volunteer Fire Department. Matt, please kick us off.
Good morning, and thanks for everybody being here. I don't know if I need this thing or not. Okay, gotcha. Okay. Appreciate everybody's attention here and coming to look at this amazing facility and the people that have built it and maintained it and moving forward into the future. I'm the first assistant chief of Hope Fire Company to Northern Canberra. We have about 50 active members, 100% volunteer. We run five rigs and a county hazmat truck. We run into three county Northern Canberra borough, Susquehanna Township, but offer mutual weight for our business. on those borders. I'm a second-generation firefighter. My father's our fire chief. He's been in for 59 years. He'll be 60 next year. I remember our department as a junior, so I'm 45 years old. When I was 16 years old, if we hit 80 calls a year, it was a busy year Now we run last year we run 479 calls okay To start this off I just gonna kind of switch gears I gonna give you a little bit of background on what it costs to run a volunteer fire department and demands on these departments because I think it important that you know other than the training costs, what we have to endure. So we have to raise about $200,000 just to pay our bills to make budget. Municipalities are struggling in rural Pennsylvania. Tax bases are shrinking. The age of people are increasing. And as we all know, cost of inflation is astronomical. For instance, we were lucky to get an AFG grant a couple years ago for SCBAs, air packs. They were about $6,800 apiece. Our neighboring department got one this year. They're $10,000 apiece. So how are we supposed to maintain 25, 26 air packs at the current cost right now of $10,000 apiece? We got an apparatus. We got an engine tanker in 2020 at the cost of $750,000. That truck today is about $1.6 million, $1.7 million to duplicate that apparatus. us. The cost of running fire departments is absolutely crazy. And in our area, we have two VFWs. We have two leads raise funds, midget football, cheerleading, so on and so forth. Your pool of people is shrinking. Their cost of living is increasing. And we're limited on what we can do with fundraisers. So our fundraiser are basically saying we're trying to grow them, But your pool of people are shrinking and their money in their pocket willing to spend is shrinking just because it costs a living So our fundraisers aren't making as much money as what they were a few years ago And now you have to deal with the rising astronomical increases in Operating a fire department and training as part of that We travel we mutual aid with about 12 different departments. We were the only aerial within a They call it 40 mile stretch. So we're running our aerial, our tower, almost a thousand square miles if you go with the mutual aid that it is due. And when that truck wears out, you're talking $2 million to replace it. So how are these fire departments going to survive? Heard the stories. And when I got into the fire service in the mid-90s as a 16-year-old junior, we had all-use trucks. We had an FDNY truck that was refurbed. We had an aerial that was refurbed on a 1944 chassis. The boom was from the 40s. We had a tanker in the 60s. We had an engine from the 60s because you could not afford apparatus. AFG and the FEMA grants and the state grants have come along and gave us the opportunities to upgrade, you know, our apparatus and our fleet. but it has also drove the cost of this stuff through the roof because the demand has, you know, simple economics. Material prices have increased and the demand don't have increased. Go away, you're going to have a major crisis with these departments just closing. And I'm afraid that you're going to go back to the 1970s, 1980s when you're using gear that's 20, 30 years old, You're using apparatus that's 20 plus years old and you can't replace and you can't afford to repair any of the equipment that you have on your rigs. In my department, we've been successful in getting grant funding. Grants are amazing and they're absolutely 100% essential to the survival of fire departments. However, a lot of fire departments are alive and I hate to say it, but they shouldn't have been. They don't have the means or the finance or the vampire and rely on mutual wage to run a lot of their calls so now you these grant programs have stretched and instead of making an impact and really focusing on areas and strategically looking at all these funds everybody got a little piece of the pie and getting a little piece of the pie has caused these departments to spend money and increase costs and nobody getting ahead We're simply maintaining on the backside of it. It was huge in our department. Not only is training increasing costs. We went through a box. We would always get a package. We have, you know, 1,200 hours of training for a set cost amount of how many members we get. And in my department, we have juniors, and we have guys like my father, who is 75 years old, that are still active with the department. And everybody plays a role in the department. Whether you get on a rig, whether you fundraise, whether you have an administrative duty, there's an ask for every seat in the fire station. So how do you turn people away from training now because you've got to pay per head? It's not fair. So what we did is we would always get a bunch of packets, but now that has gone away. So how are we going to maintain our training? By the time you use diesel fuel, just real quick, we were fortunate enough to get state and federal funds to build a new fire station that we could not afford if it wasn't for the funds. We had a very well-known engineer, design architect build it three years ago at $200 a square foot. We opened up bids yesterday. It's $350 a square foot, and it keeps increasing daily. So the cost. So how are we going to afford training? Where are we going to go with training? Somebody has to help, and there has to be some sort of regulation, in my opinion, put on it, because the hours now are getting absolutely crazy. We live in a world where the firefighters are not firefighters. A very small portion of what we do is fight fire. We've got, you know, We're running QRS to help with the EMS and the ambulances that are struggling with manpower. So we've picked up those calls. We're going on trees down because municipalities don't have the manpower on their staff to maintain the roads, and neither does our state. So we're going on everything from hazmat to trees down to flooded houses to water issues. We've even gone and helped a disabled lady in a wheelchair remove her refrigerator because she needed to get through her house a little better and she was just learning how to operate on a wheelchair so the demand on the fire is just increasing costs are increasing funding is getting is shrinking so where do we go from here thank you RJ
chairman members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to speak today my name is RJ Wilson former fire chief of Reed volunteer fire company in the northern part of Cambria County I'm also the certification coordinator for the for the association here and that's through the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy I'm here to talk about something every rural for a firefighter in Pennsylvania understands all too well small financially strained volunteer fire departments are being asked to carry the weight of full-time emergency services without the funding staffing or training infrastructure required to do it safely here's the reality reality in rural Pennsylvania in many rural counties the fire department isn't just the first line of defense it's the only line of defense however these same communities are also economically depressed with shrinking tax bases aging populations and limited local revenue for example Reed Township which is 40 square miles only has 400 houses To put this in perspective, whenever I was fire chief of the Reed Volunteer Fire Company, it operated on a total annual budget of $35,000. $35,000 that's one-third of what you your annual salaries are with the third that $35,000 read must keep the lights on fuel its trucks maintain aging apparatuses and purchase gear and respond to every emergency in its jurisdiction there is no margin there is no cushion there is only survival the reality across the world Pennsylvania is that departments are operating with 25 to 40 year old apparatuses volunteers are paying out of the pocket for gear and training and it's very expensive stations are unable to meet NFPA standards simply because they cannot afford to response times are increasing because viewer fewer volunteers are able are available during daytime hours this isn't miss Mandel's raffles and bingo nights the training requirements placed on the volunteer firefighters have grown and rightly so yet the support system has not for example to become a certified firefighter one in Pennsylvania a volunteer must first certifies a support firefighter this has just been enacted on July 1st which cost bls level first aid and course in the CPR course which together cost upwards of another $100. Only then are they eligible to take the Firefighting One exam, which is the basic certification, which is another $230. And that does not include the cost of training itself, which can push the total investment to $1,000 or more per firefighter. For a rural department operating on a $35,000 a year budget, these costs are staggering. Other challenges include volunteers struggling with coursework and testing, which is not uncommon uncommon given the complexity and volume of material many must pay to retake classes and exams multiplying the financial burden on both the firefighter and the fire department itself that's the reality and how does our bush media have made substantial private donations to the fire school site those donations have been the only reason our fighter first have received any formal instruction for years Reed has no budget zero to train its people not less not limited but none at all every essentials class our firefighters have attended through the Association over the last three years was paid for entirely by those private donations to the fire school if those if those donations disappear tomorrow our training would stop instantly our firefighters would be left without the skills they need not because they're unwilling but because the money simply does not exist those days donations are supplemental their survival read reads relief association association brings in about six thousand dollars a year a figure that doesn't even register compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars plus relief payments many urban departments receive every penny of that six thousand dollars is immediately swallowed up by insurance premiums leaving zero for training equipment or recruitment meanwhile larger departments routinely deposit their relief payments into savings accounts sometimes without spending a single dollar because their operating budgets are already fully supported elsewhere this is not unique across world Pennsylvania access to accredited training sites is limited travel costs and time off work make certifications very departments struggle to meet even basic training benchmarks Volunteers often lack computers and high internet for online coursework Here in rural Pennsylvania, you might have slow DSL, and you can't take a course online even. We're asking people to complete their professional-level training while providing them none of their professional-level support. The consequences are that the rural department fails. The community loses more than a fire station. It loses fire suppression EMS first response rescue services public education community stability For example in Reed Township for an ambulance to get to Reed Township is going to take 45 minutes. They have no other EMS the fire department cannot Handle an EMS unit because we can't even handle a fire department Consequently, when departments collapse, neighboring departments already stretched thin must absorb the additional coverage area. This is how response times go from minutes to a half hour. This is how preventable tragedies actually happen. What rural departments need is, you know, we're not asking for luxuries. We're asking for minimum required to keep to Pennsylvania safe. Sustainable, predictable funding, not one-time grants. state-supported training access including satellite training sites in rural counties equipment replacement programs for aging apparatuses recruitment and retention incentives that actually work in low-income communities a statewide strategy that acknowledges that rural departments cannot survive on donations alone here's a simple truth volunteer fire departments remain a backbone and emergency services in pennsylvania however a backbone can only carry so much weight before the brakes. Rural communities deserve the same level of protection as urban ones. Geography should not determine survivability. In closing, I'm asking the committee to recognize that the rural departments are not failing. They're being failed. When stabilized, these departments strengthen training and ensure every Pennsylvania, no matter their zip code, receives the immersing response they deserve. Thank you for your time.
Thank you, RJ. We're going to have everyone back after all the panelists. So you guys could have a seat. And then Mark and Paul are next on tap here. We're also the State Fire Commissioner and the Fire Academy Administrator. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Mark. Mark Calderini, third vice president, Western PA Firemen's Association. and Paul Conrod, Treasurer, Cambria County Regional Firefighters Association and Fire Chief of Adams Township Fire Department. Let's go to Mark first.
Chair and members of the committee, my name is Mark Calderini. I've spent over 40 years of my life dedicated to providing firefighting and emergency medical services in Pennsylvania. I'm a retired career chief fire officer and currently a fire and emergency medical service instructor. I continue to serve as a volunteer firefighter for West Hills Regional Fire Department near Johnstown. I'm a vice president of the Western Pennsylvania Firemen's Association. I sit on both the training and law and legislative committees for the Central District Volunteer Firemen Association and Cambria County Regional Firefighters Association Additionally I am the co of the Law and legislative committee and the and the South Central District representative for the firefighters Association of the state of Pennsylvania thank you for the opportunity to address the cost of training the men and women who protect Pennsylvania communities through the volunteer fire service which according the US Fire Administration makes up 96.8% of all volunteers, of all firefighters in the Commonwealth. Today I would like to approach the subject of training costs and what the county and regional associations are attempting to do to address this critical issue. Firefighting training is not optional. It is the foundation of safe interior operations, effective rescue, hazardous material response incident command and the protection of the public yet too often the cost of becoming and remaining qualified falls on nonprofit volunteer departments with limited revenue and on volunteers who already donate their time the training burden is is larger than tuition fire training is divided into three levels fire ground support which is 48 hours firefighter one which is 88 hours and the firefighter 2 is 44 hours to be an interior structural firefighter completion of the fire ground support and firefighter 1 classes totaling 136 hours must be obtained students in these classes are taught by certified fire instructors using the Jones and Bartlett and curriculum at one of 67 educational training agencies or at the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy in Lewistown certification is voluntary in Pennsylvania there are over 67 certifications available but not necessarily required certification takes at least a day to complete at an additional cost to the student or fire department a course fee is only the first expense departments or volunteer firefighters may also pay for textbooks certification testing medical clearances travel fuel meals lodging instructor costs training consumables and the repair or replacement of protective equipment used during practical exercises when training is offered far from home firefighter before the class even begins rural companies face the added problem of finding enough students to keep a local class viable public course information warns that classes may be canceled when minimum enrollment is not met Pennsylvania cost examples put the burden in practical terms Berks County fire training listed its 2005 firefighter one certification skills test at $100 per candidate in Western Pennsylvania the Community College Allegheny County listed a 2026 emergency vehicle operator operations course at $60 per student a 10 member department for example would therefore face $600 before mileage meals equipment wear and lost volunteer time Butler County Community College recently increased their cost for 2027 to $1,450 for fire ground support and $3,500 for firefighter one training totaling $4,950 per student Bucks County Community College is charging $1,280 for fire ground support and 1000 firefighter one totaling $2,465 per student these published figures are examples rather than a statewide price schedule. Charges vary by provider course residency and any possible local subsidies For an individual volunteer the greatest cost may be unpaid time entry and advanced courses require evenings and weekends away from work and family a volunteer may lose wages or have to arrange childcare drive a personal vehicle and still report for emergency calls and fundraising events for the department every training dollar competes with apparatus payments insurance station utilities fuel hose breathing apparatus radios and turnout gear. Small fire departments cannot easily spread these costs across a large tax base. This creates a damaging cycle. High out-of-pocket costs discourage new recruits. Long travel and scheduling burdens cause current members to defer their advanced training. Departments with fewer trained members must ask more of the same small group, accelerating burnout and weakening daytime the result is not merely an organizational hardship it is a public safety risk and a growing inequality between communities that can subsidize training and those that cannot the question that should be asked is what are the qualifications in the training level for the firefighters that show up at your home when you call 9-1-1 existing programs help but they don't but they don't close the gap the Commonwealth already recognizes training as an essential public investment. The Pennsylvania State Fire Academy provides resident training and what's called Academy on the Road delivery, while the statewide local-level fire training program delivers more than 5,000 programs each year. The Office of the State Fire Commissioner's Fire Company and Emergency Medical Services Grant Program permits funding for training and certifications with fire company grants of up to $20,000. They also support training, equipment, and insurance. In 2025, the Auditor General reported that 2,507 municipalities received an average of $15,400 for distribution to relief associations. While training is an approved expense, other expenses such as equipment and supplies often take priority. These financial resources matter, but they must cover many competing needs and do not consistently reimburse the volunteers lost time, travel, childcare, or other readiness costs. Regional associations are working to reduce the burden. the Western Pennsylvania Fireman's Association or the WPFA encompasses 30 counties and uses regional coordination advocacy member resources and educational support to strengthen departments that cannot solve this problem alone the WPFA will provide an annual cap of five thousand dollars in 2027 in grants for training purposes that approach barrier while rewarding successful completion the Association also gives Western Pennsylvania fire service and a unified voice in funding recruitment retention and access to training the Central District Volunteer Firemen's Association performs a similarly important regional role across central Pennsylvania by providing a cap of three thousand dollars annually in grants for training this association spans 24 counties 162 member companies and two thousand nine hundred and seventy individual firefighters through its conventions committees committee work and communications among departments recognition programs and collective representation the association creates a practical forum for departments to identify training needs share opportunities connect students with resources and present a stronger regional case for state assistance The Firefighters Association of the State of Pennsylvania provides $7,000 annually toward training on an approved grant process. Region is trying to stretch scarce local dollars, bring departments together, and keep training within reach. But voluntary fundraising and association programs cannot substitute for stable statewide commitment. legislative action considerations I will refer to a upcoming hopefully a time to have a consensus on what the issues are to address these problems I've listed some in my written testimony I believe there's more than that and we need to review that at a later date so in conclusion every training volunteer represents a substantial public benefit communities receive emergency response from people who are willing to serve without a salary but willingness alone cannot purchase safe modern standards-based training when a qualified resident is ready to serve the price of the classroom the certification test or travel cost should not be the reason that person that person walks away I respectfully ask that the General Assembly to make volunteer firefighting training a predictable adequately funded public safety obligation to build on the work of the State Fire Academy local training centers relief associations and regional firefighter associations and to ensure that no department or volunteer is made to choose between financial security and consideration and for your support of the Pennsylvania
volunteer fire service. Thank you sir. We're also joined by the Cambria County Fire Commissioner. Thank you so much for being here. Next up, Paul, please provide
your testimony. Okay, good morning once again. Mr. Chairman, Representative Rigby, Representative Gillen, and your colleagues for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Cambria County Firefighters Regional Association about our training program and funding to assist with our training. Cambry County had its humble beginning in fire training back in 1954. Our first county fire school was held at the Evansburg Fairgrounds. We had 413 students receive certificates that year. Each fire department at that time was assessed a fee of $15 toward the program. The fire school continues to evolve into one of only a couple of fire schools in the state of Pennsylvania still doing a fire school weekend. Over the past several years, we are averaging between 500 to 800 students annually, taking part in classes from basic and beginning firefighting to advanced courses, which also includes technical rescue, officer courses, and classes leading to firefighter certification. Our current fire school attracts students from all over the state of Pennsylvania on our weekends, which occur here and coming up in April. In 1992, we moved into our facility here in Patton. In our beginning, we started with a burn building and the engine bay, which we are currently in. Having the facilities such as what we have here today in Patton lends to our training program as we have now many more props that we offer to provide realism to our training program. 72 years later now in our fire school training program, we are still going strong. Our school was initially partnered with Williamsport Community College and later we partnered with Bucks County Community College who we are still affiliated with We were also affiliated with the PA State Fire Academy and have done classes through their affiliation So along with fire training comes cost. In our early years with Bucks County Community College, we were billed a fee for the educational process, sometimes based upon the length of the classes attending. The students received certificates from Bucks County Community College and then Bucks also provided us the instructors for that training. For our county weekend programs, we would supply a list of classes, classes and instructors and they showed up here when we had our fire training weekends. We provided our facilities here. Bucks not only provided us a fee schedule with these classes, but also provided a larger instruction packet that we could purchase. Friends training package would offer us so many instructional hours, any testing that was involved, and the instructors. Instructional hours are based upon the class and will range anywhere from a three or four hour class, a six or eight hour class, and many times up to a 24 hour class. These packages would cover us from the beginners essential modules that we offer in January through our fire school weekends here held annually in April. These packages would cost us in total close to about $8,000 annually, and we would buy several of these bronze packages. Many local fire departments also buy these packages to supplement their training that they hold in-house. On our side of the training, the association provide meals for the participants during the fire school weekend. These simple meals consist of spaghetti and a salad or a sub or a hokey sandwich just as a quick meal. This helps the training day on as the site lunch goes quickly. The firefighters can network about their classes and form bonds among each other. This also prevents our fire site running to nearby towns of Patton, Crescent, Evansburg to purchase meals. And then obviously they don't return on time and disrupt the classes in the afternoon. wood, sheet supply, wood, fuel, oils, wrecked autos, hazardous material items, and all the other firefighting equipment that we need, we bear the cost for that. So several months ago, the Bucks County advised us they are eliminating all the training packages and have gone to a per-class fee per student. No matter what the class length of time is, it is based on a $30 per-class fee. Last year, we had paid over $33,000 to Bucks County for fire training, a far cry from that $8,000 bronze package that we had bought several years ago. So if we used the prior Bucks training package of $8,000, divided by an average 700 students annually, the cost was about $11 per student. At the latest bill, $33,000, divided by the same number of students, that cost per student jumped from $11 to $47, four times the initial cost of several years ago. And this is our new concern, the cost of fire training. And this is only their cost. We also try to calculate in the cost of meals that we use at the site, along with our equipment that we use here. Costs can be prohibitive to a smaller department and also a larger one. To send a large group from your department, say 10 or 12 members, can be quite expensive. Fire department budget dollars are tight, and how do they decide who can go to fire training and who can go Sadly everything trickles back down to the fire department and the individual firefighter to bear the cost of training So we not asking for a free handout or free money. We have undertaken many initiatives here with the county association to help lower those costs of fire training. We realize that we as the association need to be financially and fiscally responsible and work with our training entities to keep costs down while providing the best training possible. Some of these, and I call it expense-lowering initiatives, include, first off, we solicit sponsors for a fire school weekend. Many businesses throughout our county regions have supported us with mills, training events, and so forth, and we have them donate based upon a level, a fire chief level or a firefighter level, and that money goes toward offsetting the costs of the mills and equipment as well as training. We look for grant opportunities. We have landed grants for Manheuser-Busch that we year mark for our essentials program every year, and that's been a tremendous help to offset those costs for our young and new firefighters. We do a 50-50 drawing at our county meetings and at the fire school without money going back into our fire school fund. We appropriate a certain percentage of our annual company dues and memberships that go toward the fire school training program. We also bring in local experts in the field to provide training programs to our firefighters. So when we have our county fire training weekends, we will include such field experts such as the county coroners or grant writers, local utility companies, the Pennsylvania State Police. They will come in and provide education for us at no cost on those weekends to help keep our costs down. Our County Ladies Auxiliary also provides funding dollars that we put into our fire school program every year at our county convention, and they've been a tremendous source of support for our fire training program. So we are asking for your help in fire training funding to keep our programs viable, specific to our needs and training a firefighter in keeping the citizens of our state of Pennsylvania safe. Our most valuable asset in the fire station is our firefighter. So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you to speak today, and thank you for coming to our fire school site. We all had the 15-minute tour and seeing our facility here. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thank you, gentlemen. William, Jim, and Jim, if you want to come up. William Lehman is the training chairman of the Cambria County Regional Firefighters Association, and Jim McCann is the fire chief of Johnstown Fire Department. Will you take us off?
Honorable members of the legislature, I'd like to talk about the Canterbury County Regional Firefighters Association and our efforts to provide training throughout the West Central Region of the Commonwealth. I'll talk about three main subjects, our organization, the demand and need for comprehensive training, and what the Cambria County Regional Firefighters Association has been able to provide for training and the hurdles we face in our mission, education through training saves lives. Before I do, I want to introduce myself. My name is William Lehman and I the secretary of the Cambria County Regional Firefighters Association and the current training committee chair I a Pennsylvania State Fire Academy credentialed local level suppression instructor and I'm one of the few instructors in the area that actually runs one of the basic firefighter training programs that we conduct about five or six each winter starting right after the new year. I joined the fire service in 1977 in the Baltimore, Maryland area as a volunteer. And that was right about the time that the first national standards were coming out, governing firefighter training. In my area, just about the time I joined, a 16-year-old volunteer firefighter was killed in the line of duty in a basement fire. and he had about one month of service and no credentialed training on record. In 1982, I became a career firefighter in the city of Baltimore and I spent about nine and a half years there. I got promoted a couple of times and I left in charge. I was a lieutenant in charge of a very busy West Baltimore engine company. I left the career service, but I retained being a volunteer. I spent a bunch of time outside of D.C. in Prince George's County, and then I spent some time over in eastern Pennsylvania. Now I'm the member of the Richland Township Volunteer Fire Department in Cambria County. The Richland Township Fire Department is the busiest fire department in about a 40 or 50 mile radius, with the exception of my friends here in Johnstown and the City Career Service in Altoona. We provide manpower and rapid intervention service throughout a wide region of northern Somerset County and southern Cambria County. We go from Jerome and Boswell to Wimber to the city of Johnstown, most of the West Hills of the Johnstown area and up into Adams Township and beyond. I hold numerous credentials as a fire service officer and instructor, and I have a bunch of rescue and other subject certifications as well. About the association and training, I put at each spot a handout with PowerPoint slides, and I'm going to refer to those slides if you can take a look at them while we go through. So I'll go back to our motto of education through training saves lives. That's been the motto of the association long before I was a member. The Canterbury County Regional Firefighters Association currently has 84 member departments in 10 counties. Slides 2 and 3 kind of have a map of where we go. So the departments that join our association join mostly for training, both entry-level training and for more advanced training. One of our most important offerings that you've heard about before is our spring fire schools here. It's the largest such series in the Commonwealth
and attracts firefighters from all over the state. We bring in the best instructors available, largely due to our strong working relationship with Bucks County Community College, which is one of the biggest ETAs in the state. And then that partnership, along with our partnership with the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy, has taught us to offer a diverse array of training to meet our members' needs. So what's the demand for training? In 2025, Pennsylvania, led the nation in civilian fire deaths. Unfortunately, I don't have a PowerPoint slide. I'd play you the little news clip, but in 2025, slide four, been in civilian fire deaths. Looking back over the past several years, we've also led the nation in firefighter line of duty deaths. Since 2023, Pennsylvania has had 20 firefighters die in the line of duty. New York and Texas are the only other states at base. Look at the per population served. Our line of duty deaths in Pennsylvania far outrank both those states. We die at about 1.5 times the rate for New York's population. And then for Texas, we're 2.2 times the rate of population. That's slide 5. So training is more critical than ever. Just our basic course, you've heard before, is 136 hours of training. But that doesn't include such basic skills as first aid and CPR, the OSHA-required hazmat training, along with other co-requisites. Those are on slides 5 and 6 if you get through them. and then you can see in the numbers on the illustration on slide 8 for the numbers of students that we've trained in our association just over the past couple of years and I think Leanna's put another brochure on your set of papers on your desk that show that as well so I'd ask you to refer to that just a basic house fire if I have a drawing from the NFPA, a basic house fire on slide 9 requires more staffing than most single departments have, including my own department. So the problem isn't just a single fire department problem. The problem is a shared problem. In the past year, or in years past, the association was able to secure grant funding and work with our ETA partner to cover the cost of our basic training. You've heard a little bit of that over the last several speakers. We can still secure the same grant funding. The ETA, that's Bucks County Community College, has changed their cost structure, their pricing structure, and eliminated the packages that allowed our organization to offer basic training at significant savings, zero cost, essentially, for much of the training. All of the other training offered by the ETA has gone up significantly in cost as well. and that's on slides 10 and 11 in that handout, in that packet. We're concerned that our primary ETA must have had funding somewhere in the past that was tied to public safety training and or workforce development that helped to defray some of those costs to provide the public safety training offered by the Cambria County Regional Firefighters Association. We're wondering what happened and what can be done to get those costs back in line. It's not simply a matter of seeking other sources such as other ETAs. They're equally as expensive or even more so. Plus, many of our own personnel who are credentialed instructors are not instructors with those agencies. And simply offering PSFA training is not the solution even though our membership includes many PSFA credentialed instructors like myself and Chief McCann There are significant issues of liability protection, accident protection, procedures and coverages for students, and the handling of HR issues, and I had one of them in a class I was teaching several years ago. one last example slide 12 shows a new textbook this year the text is chosen by the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy for the curriculum so we're kind of bound to use that it's a good reason for choosing the newest textbook I support that the standards under which firefighters have trained change and evolve over time so that's a good thing those standards have changed nationally but it's still an $80 expenditure for each student. In the past, that textbook from a different publisher had a relatively unlimited sign-in and use of their learning management system. Unfortunately, the new publisher, as far as I understand it now, is a one-and-done. So a student has one opportunity, one department that purchases a book has one opportunity to use that learning management system. I love the learning management system because it's a great way to engage many of our younger learners in the process. But departments in the past that could buy, say, five or six books and then issue them each year as they sent members through the training and then reuse the sign-in code from year to year to year to year now apparently have kind of a one and done. $80 doesn't sound like a big deal, but if I got to spend $80 over the course of five or six years for five or six students, that money starts to add up. Thanks for listening, and I will be glad to take any questions that you have. Thank you.
Is he still?
There he is, the guy in the suit.
Cambria County Commissioner Tom Chernisky. It's good to have you here. Thank you for being here, sir.
Do you want to say something, Rep Rigby? Tom is a big supporter of the fire service and the academy up here. He spends a lot of time up here during the trainings, during the instructionals. I know he's provided meals. He's done numerous fundraisers through his 5Ks. Tom, how much money have you raised for this school?
I don't know. I don't know. I probably have that, but last year we raised about $13,000 in July for 5K,
These are his races. This is what he's doing. Thank you, Tom. Thank you so much.
Jim.
Well, good morning, and thank you for being here today, the chair, committee members, Mr. Rigby. So the colleagues that came before me, I think, did a very good job of expressing the need and the cost of training throughout the region and our facility here in Cambria County. I'm going to speak to you today on behalf of the City of Johnstown Fire Department, third-class city located here in Cambria County. and my comments were related strictly to the city of Johnstown and do not, I'm not representing any other third-class city here as well so it's important that you know that So the city of Johnstown is the only career department within Camry County We currently have 28 full five part staff We rely heavily on the volunteer fire services, our recruitment, and where we draw our firefighters from. And that's pretty much standard across the Commonwealth in the country as far as where we're pulling our firefighters from. We're unique in the city of Johnstown the fact that we require a certain level of training to apply for a position within the city of Johnstown. That being firefighter one, firefighter two, EMT or paramedic hazardous material operations, to even apply for a position here. So when we see the decline in training and the training dollars, it can affect our recruitment as well. into the career fire service. And what happens is we're drawing the attention of the young into the volunteer fire service. That trickle down to the career fire service. Just like an EMT or paramedic is a starter to get individuals in to introduce them to careers in this occupation. We have a lot of EMT and paramedics that come through that program that go on to become nurses and so on and so forth. So when we look at the training to put people on the street, it's what it's doing as far as introducing people into this line of work. What happens is when the training dollars diminish and we're not getting people testing to the Firefighter 1, Firefighter 2 level, then that, once again, that takes away from my pool of people that can make this a career. We do that in the city of Johnstown because as a small municipality, a small city, we're very tight and very strict on our budget. You know, we're struggling like anybody else as far as keeping a career department afloat in the city. We're extremely busy. As of the end of September, we've run close to 1,800 calls for service. We provide not only suppression and rescue, technical rescue, water rescue, hazardous material response. So we talk about, and it's important to understand when we talk about the fire service is just not putting out fires. And we alluded to that, and I'm on the volunteer side as far as the fundraising and things of that nature. And that is true. We don't have that issue in the city, but, you know, as we're providing this service outside, and we provide this service outside the city proper. So we not only provide the technical rescue for inside the city, but we provide that on a county basis, a regional basis, a state basis. Working with our colleagues at Pima, we actually have a Pima rescue truck that sits in the city as part of the Region 13 strike team of the city of Pittsburgh. So we're very proud of what we've done and we continue to do this. And now we're trying to find unique ways in order to do that training and certification because what's happened in the past in the avenues we went to get that no longer are really feasible. And to give you an example, we're extremely big on certification. And certification is something that is looked at when you giving your state grants And it going to become a benchmark I believe even further going going forward uh to find out who is actually out there doing this training street um we have in the city of johnstown um 500 close to 600 certifications throughout the department so these are members that have gone out and got this certification it's important because in order to run these teams You can't just do it with in-house training. You must have the certification and the paperwork to justify and to validate the fact that you know this material. We talk about certification. It's not only a written test, but it's a practical application of the skills in order to pass to achieve this. So as we're providing the service, we need to get that training and that certification to validate the team. We also provide EMS. So on the QRS side, and Assistant Chief Barzak spoke about that earlier, we find ourselves running a lot of EM additional financing to do that. Last year, in a preview, I worked very strongly with Bucks County Community College. And I'm extremely fortunate as a career chief to have ten of my firefighters that are state certified instructors. So a lot of the training I can do in-house that can't be done in the load of volunteer. But I still need to meet JPRs. I still need to have, at times, the paperwork to justify in order to move to certifications, if that makes sense. Just saying, yeah, we did it, doesn't whoosh. So we have to have the paperwork to validate it. So we're able to do a lot of that training, and we're really this year with the state working very highly with the state is we can provide those trainings in-house. Previously, we've bought, and Paul Kunrod alluded to the fact of the training packages, and we have purchased those for years through Bucks County Community College. It would cost us $1,200 for a brawn package, which would give us 200 hours of training. The horse is in if I can't provide them to all four platoons, now I'm into paying overtime and things of that nature, which adds to the budget and strains that budget. So we were able to get that through that bronze package. We upgraded to what we call a silver package, which gave them certification. So that was at $4,000, I think it started. It went to $5,000, I believe, for that package. so just to give you an example this year when I looked at doing a driver operator pumper certification to get that ProBoard certification the price I got was $12,000 to run that program was a bid from Bucks County Community College to run that program at $12,000 when my entire budget in previous years was $5,000 that would cover my training for the entire year so you know I was fortunate that the city recognized that and up my budget but I'm you know now I'm doing unique things and and trying to send one and two people out to places throughout the Commonwealth other departments that are offering levels of certification. Does that become difficult? Yeah because we need to train and be a cohesive team but if I can't train together as a group then am I really building that that team working aspect. So the training, and if the money is there in the Veterans Committee, Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, That money is still going to these ETAs. Where is it going? Why is it now that we're paying this amount of money? So I think those are questions that need to be asked and answered. Is the money still being appropriated? If so, why have things changed in this arena? To now cost too much? that I can't afford to send my people out to get this training and certification. Thereby, I don't want to lose that level of certification to deliver the product that we need to deliver. So I am fortunate, though, to have the support from my firefighters. They do an amazing job training hard. We've logged 700, and the last thing I have, 732 training classes that we've done throughout the Fort Platoon system from January to today. We're doing a lot of in-house training, but we're not able to bring that certification in is where the price tag is really starting to hurt us. Thank you.
Thank you both. Last up we have Bob Heffelfinger, Chair of Richland Township Board of Supervisors, Township Fire Department. Please provide your testimony.
Thank you.
Mike, please.
All right, there we go. Typically, I don't need a mic, as you folks can probably tell. Thank you for coming to western Pennsylvania. I certainly can appreciate the comments with regards to the rural area. I grew up in central Pennsylvania. I'm from the Harrisburg metro area originally, and I've watched that area go in the Dillsburg Mechanicsburg from what was considered very rural in the 70s and 80s too not so rural now. I've been in Johnstown, Pennsylvania since 1988, college transplant, and ran out of gas, as my father would say. And I have served Richland Township Fire Department for the volunteer in central Pennsylvania. Township supervisor in Richland Township for 21 years. I also have the fortunate ability to serve in an organization that represents townships throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So as I come here today and we talk about funding streams, I certainly respect that you folks don't have an unlimited bucket to pull from either. What I'd really like to express, and this may not be received very well from some of my very own brethren, some responsibility in regards to funding and how those funding streams are distributed, brief testimony spoke to that. And Richland Township Fire Department, where I'm from and where I serve as a fire chief, deputy fire chief, is devout in its focus on training, has been both from an in-house perspective but also at a state and higher levels in many cases. Much like Chief McCann I think we have at least a half dozen young men that are currently state certified trainers And they also are concerned with the funding streams that have been retracted or the price thereof increased through Bucks County. And I think that's really why we're here today, right? But the same perspective as a municipal government leader, we understand both from commonwealth law, but also from the intrinsic necessity of serving our local communities, the importance of fire department funding. I believe that the Commonwealth, local government, and the fire service really has to get together and understand, and gosh, as much as I hate to use this overused cliche, wants versus needs. And as I said in my testimony, it should be a very quick line item number two. right? We've got to keep the lights on, we've got to keep the heat on in the firehouse, in some cases fuel costs, etc. I fund my fire department very well and we're very fortunate to be able to do that. I realize that that is not always the case throughout the Commonwealth when you have municipalities that may in fact only have 500 residents, for instance. But in the same token, those fire departments have to have a responsibility to properly represent their communities and with their asks at a municipal level. While I cannot speak for all townships throughout the Commonwealth, or for that matter, other government entities, I will tell you we'd be much more inclined to talk about spending money on training than we would another hearse tool to complement the already dozen hearse tools that are around within a two-mile radius for a region that may only see one entrapment call every 90 days. That kind of hurts. Sorry, Jim. I told the guys I'd probably say some of these things. And so that is where there has to be a synergy and a conversion. What funding is available? For us to sit here today, certainly me understanding funding streams, and say, hey, guys, come up with some new money. I bet you'd like to. And we're not the only ones making that same ask, right? So while I think a focus and funding and how can we work with our community colleges and our other resources that are providing the ETAs, local level training can't be beat. By far one of the best in the Commonwealth, and I have experiences throughout, is sitting right here in our backyard, and I'm very proud of that. So how can we make that flourish? How can we look at what we have now and work within those means and how can you help us through the ETAs in whatever influence you have, whether it's financially or otherwise? So I'll conclude with I believe that more so today than ever before in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, if not throughout the United States, where volunteerism is still dependent on very highly for public service. I think the open line of communication and a realistic approach to what communities need to provide the highest level of service is a necessity. And I believe that you folks can help bring that message down through municipal government on to those folks that are providing those services once again thank you very much and it about
the briefest you'll ever get me thank you so much Bob if every if Bob you could stay and then everyone could bring their seats whoever testified bring your seat up and we'll just sort of ping-pong around with questions and answers I want to start, Bob, with your testimony because I want to underline, Rigby brought us here for a reason, which is to try and find dollars to support Cambria County. And then there are, of course, the more global issues we can discuss about cost of training and volunteers. But I want to just make sure that we all walk away and we are supportive as a committee for what you all are doing here. So can you just, what does Bucks County do with this bronze and silver and whatever else?
What do they do that you all don't do here? I might be the worst guy to answer that question, sir. Some of these gentlemen are very active in that pursuit. All right, so when we talk about the bronze packages, and they've since gone away. So the bronze, silver, gold no longer exist through the community college. So what they do is they provide, depending on level, X amount of training hours a year. So what that does is, let's just say hypothetically, a vehicle rescue class is 40 hours. So that will come off of that 200 hours. it will pay for that instructor to come in to do that program along with whatever assistant instructors are needed. So imagine I now pay $1,200, $1,500 for a bronze package. 40 hours is coming off of that 200. So I run a vehicle rescue class. I'm still sitting at 1,600 hours or 160 hours of training. All right? And that 20 hours, just that 40-hour package that come out of that covered not only the instructor but the assistant instructors, that individual's mileage, lodging if need be, to come in and present that program. Handouts. And you can't do that training certification here. We cannot. We can do. So here's how this would work now. All right. So with the bronze package being eliminated or the training packages as a whole being eliminated. So we used to purchase here as a facility. We'd buy a bronze package. You'd run the 200 hours out. If we needed more, we'd buy another bronze package, right? So now, doing the math, we want to run that vehicle rescue program right now. So what would have been, say, $1,500 for 200 hours of training, 40 coming off for vehicle rescue, still leaves me 160 hours of training. I can put 30 students in that class. So I got 30 students. Now, without the bronze package, it's cost me $30 per student. So somebody do that math.
And you can't do that here?
We could do that But it not cost efficient to do it here right well first you well you still now you need to bring a structure so what if what i getting in what you asking is
so take bucks out of the equation can we do that program here all right you could you could bring
an instructor in you could pay an instructor all right but where is the validation coming from are Are they meeting the current JPRs? So yeah, I could tomorrow say, all right, Connor, what do you think? You wanna come teach a vehicle rescue class? He'd be a great choice. I mean, but honestly, I mean, call him as a lawyer, he could do it. He'd come and teach that. So we bring him in. So does he want financially compensated for his time? Right? Am I bringing this gentleman in from away? who's gonna pay his lodging who's gonna pay his mileage all right now let's talk about liability all right so now he gets hurt who's covering him so I mean the class gets hurt who's covering them it's more cost-effective efficient for send your folks to box okay because there's a standard that's that's what we're getting from instructors coming in from whether it's a box or validated to the We're getting a standard.
Please.
Yeah, I think you're confusing that they don't send students to Bucks Community College. Bucks was the certification, the name on the certificate that it was completed at this facility. And when you would buy from Bucks, like with my department, we would buy the prospectors, you get 200 hours and it would cost you $1,200. We've got 200 hours of instructors that come teach us in-house those classes and our certificate of completion or certification have their name on it.
Does that make sense?
Yes.
So for today, what are you missing?
What's the delta?
What's the nut that you're trying to fill to make this work per year?
I think the big question is in the past, our ETAs provided this training.
what's happened no but what's the number the number we need to provide this
training per year annually at this facility money-wise yes
last year's plus is $34,000 so it's $34,000 a year yes is that is that well
that was our essential modules in the spring weekend I was gonna say that the
The monies that were shared with me when we met was between $18,000 and $20,000 that was just owed this year already.
The hopes was to be able to secure $30,000 to make sure they had those monies and that we could train anybody that needed to or wanted to come through training. So what Paul was saying, to answer your question, to cover the essentials program, and Mark spoke about the essentials program and the hours involved in that, that $34,000 just covered that. So it covered the training to get a person off the street up to an interior firefighter. And our weekends is what it covered. Now, we do get some reimbursement for classes and stuff like that. But that $34,000 just put people, new firefighters on the street. Not existing firefighters, not certification. There's not enhancing that training. basic.
Just to go back, and then I'm going to, I have a bunch of other questions, but I'll go to Rep Rigby and then Chair Gil So, Bob, you had mentioned that there are other volunteer fire departments who sort of are always pursuing the new shiny thing.
How is that?
So there are dollars out there. They're floating out there in certain other municipalities. Obviously, probably different tax base. How are they doing it? Are they drawing more on state money than folks here? What's the approach that they take? And what were you trying to say in that comment? Sure. You know, to kind of speak to what Jim was talking about, and when we talk about this facility and the resources that they provide, and then Matt says, my fire department spent, we'd be in the same boat. So what you're hearing today specific to this square footage, Jim, we're also talking about umpteen fire departments throughout your district. all of your districts hypothetically that were spending these types of funds now that's changed okay so it's not just about this facility correct gentleman it is about the spend net spend that now is being impacted throughout the fire departments that are served by this but also for instance he did his own package We did our own package. Now we're also looking at that. Maybe you didn't even know that, but now we're looking at that. Now back to your municipal-based question. Yes, look, I have a real problem with it. I'm called throughout the Commonwealth to speak to fire departments and municipal government together, and I usually get things thrown at me. That's a little bit of an embellishment, but I am the guy that says you don't need a ladder truck, and you don't need a ladder truck and you don't need a ladder truck because you're three miles apart. Okay? And so my point to you, again, as I so nauseating the Commonwealth, that is funding, you know, when we talk about mandates, you know where we stand with that, of course. But do I believe that municipal government that is, by law, required to provide funding, albeit $1 or $1 million, to their local servicing organizations. My point to my testimony is, as there appears to be a struggle with regards to training costs,
which I believe should be number two on the budget, right? I believe that, again, funding may be available at the local level, taxation, et cetera, that right now is just being simply, hey, we need a new hearse tool. People die every day in vehicle accidents with entrapments. Well, the problem is, buddy, you get one a year, and your neighbor has one. And that neighbor, and that, you see what I mean? Now, come to your municipal government and say, Supervisor Smith, our guys are struggling to get the training that they need, and it's going to cost us $2,000 a year to provide that training to our firefighters. I can tell you what, that supervisor's going to be a hell of a lot quicker to write a check for $2,000 than they are for $30,000 for another piece of rescue equipment when they know six other fire departments have them around them. That's kind of my point. That doesn't always sit very well with the fire service, right? Shiny thing. You nailed it. You know it. You been around long enough so you understand that No disrespect by the way to my fellow but you guys get it too And we got a very veteran group of individuals here that may not necessarily represent entirely the demo throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania But again, I believe there has to be a responsibility with regards to fund requests at the fire level to the municipal level on up to the Commonwealth and arguably at the federal. I think Matt put it quite well. In many cases, folks, grants have perpetuated some situations that probably should have gone away a long time ago. Okay? And so, again, balancing that. I think the focus here, knowing the dilemmas that I'm having with my own fire department and the discussions are specific to funding, training, how are we going to get that training? and so what Chief McCann is suggesting is we still have to have a basis or a foundation by by which we're certifying we can't just I and these guys know how to state instruct these guys can wake up tomorrow morning and say we're gonna do a Cambria County firefighter Association training certificate I don't think it carries a lot of water right so the question is how can we still get that recognized certified quality training in a way that is affordable because whatever has happened at the bucks level i grew up in the hack world right and so that transition went to bucks i don't know in this area 20 25 years ago something like that i don't know what happened and i think that's really what we're asking and and i don't expect you folks to have the answer to that did something happen overall at the community college level specific two bucks all of a sudden made this no longer attractive to them and i don't know if you folks would have any influence with that Thank you.
Rip. Rickby. Yeah, and we've talked about this before, Bob. You're absolutely right. Duplication of services is terrible. I mean, when I was active, we had a fire station there less than two miles apart from Riverside to Ferndale, Upper Yoder to Southmont. You go on up to Westwood, Westmont, Lower Yoder. I mean, it's all there. And we're all carrying the same stuff when we go unseen. You know, the problem we run into today now, we can't even get anybody out the door. We're seeing, and it's happening, I think Richland started it on your hill, up on our hill, we now have it with West Hills. We're seeing more regionalization. And again, we were spoiled, quite honestly. A small community like mine in Ferndale, they have three trucks and a rescue and an ambulance all sitting there. And we had a crew, which is crazy because we can't do that today. So consolidation is a good thing as we regionalize, reduce the duplication of services and utilize our manpower to its fullest extent. I think Richland too as a volunteer was one of the first to go with a paid employee. And again that's another burden on the departments that we're not talking about. We're talking about equipment, we're talking about trainings and we've got so many, a percentage of our fire departments volunteer with paid staff so we can get that rig out the door. A lot of these things need to be addressed. Chairman when they issue these grants we were guilty We had the chrome wheels on all of our trucks They looked great in parades It really didn help put a fire out but they looked good That the sort of thing we really need to start looking at when we are funding and we're putting those monies out there is need and the necessity and probably look, what does our neighbor have? Knock down the duplication of services and I think we'll provide a better service because quite honestly, with the shortage of manpower, when that rig rolls out of this station, this station's rolling too, and maybe this third station is rolling. So it would be a good thing. We all don't have to have the same thing, and you're right, and I think those monies would be better spent that way. I have a few questions, if I can. For RJ, and if you'd explain, just so folks here understand, when you said about the NFPA standards, I'm not sure everybody knows what that is and what that means. And if you could just explain that so they have a better understanding. NFPA standards, that's a national standards across the board,
that handles everything from safety to requirements and certification requirements. It governs even how old your tires can be on your apparatus. Or you have to have your ladders inspected every single year. everything has to be inspected in a certain amount of time for my department you know I mean I'm listening to the problems that these guys are having and I only wish I had those problems okay I can't even afford to get our ladders inspected every year I can't afford to get our tires I can the last state grant well not the last one but about four years ago I had to replace a 25 year old engine and a 30 year old engines tires and they were way out of NMPA standards okay that was my grant from the state okay right there it eats it up yet we had to get get creative I'm hearing about the tools the hearst tools okay mine are over 30 years old okay so whenever they're putting in for these things but these are all NFPA standards if you went to my department right now Commissioner cook keep your you know close your ears here for a second if you went to my department okay you'd have to knock the rust off of everything and we do not qualify okay the training is not there the equipment is out of date by NFPA standards okay this is what governs everything if somebody lost their life in retouching okay we're done you know I mean we're going to be sued out to yin yang we're going to shut down we're going to be an embarrassment okay so you it cost a lot and whenever I say about our budget keep in mind that a person that makes 15 an hour okay is our budget that we're trying to run a fire department okay with two engines um the chrome wheels have rust on them you know we can't go to a parade you know i mean it's an embarrassment um but it's the reality of re-township it is an an economically depressed area with 400 residents and 40 square miles but we have to do everything from we have to you know PA heart is wonderful for us so hopefully that stays down in Johnstown because we have to do the mountain rescue we have to do wildland fires we have house fires just like everybody else we have accidents our accident rate is up there because we are a very rural area and it the gateway to the Prince Glutzen State Park you know so all those mountains that you see whenever you're coming over we have to protect that and there's a lot of hunters a lot you know and we you know whenever we get that call to go out there to rescue a hunter at midnight I immediately put PA hard on standby because it's going to take me 45 minutes to get there you know so keep that in mind but back to you know represent and would be I'm sorry I got off onto a tangent there but yeah your NFPA standards is just about everything in the fire service that you have to meet these specific standards from inspections to safety to equipment It's, you know, for small departments, it's actually scary, you know, because we have to have our hose tested or pump tested. And, you know, and I rely on Chief McCann on a lot of this stuff. You know, I call him up and say, hey, what about this? And he'll tell me. And, you know, and there's different times that, you know, because we don't have a hazmat. You know, we don't have very much. but Chief McKinney has even helped out on hazmat calls for us. I mean, I've been on the phone with him on different incidents, and we're an hour apart. You know, so, but sorry. Thank you.
Mr. Lehman, on the, we're talking about the line of death, the line of duty deaths, and you referenced both Texas and New York. Do we know what their percentages are of volunteer versus paid? I mean, does the line of duty death seem to lean because it's volunteer, or are they in the same situations we are here in Pennsylvania where 96% of their fire companies are volunteer? Unfortunately, I don't have the granularity of that data, so I don't know.
New York is full of volunteer firefighters, and so is a lot of Texas. I know that for a fact. But I don't know the granularity of that data, sorry.
And Chief McKenna, we were talking before this a few weeks back when we were talking about bringing and having a hearing here and funds. And in your case, as a line officer, there's trainings that you could attend that are upwards of $3,000 plus, correct? So again, we're talking just the basics, But anybody that wants to go above that and beyond those, those costs also rise, correct?
Correct. And you've got to, you know, I'm in a position now with the funding and the additional cost of training. And the BASI training is now taking that pool of money away from the advanced trainings for my people, the officer trainings, maybe going to a conference. there's one being it was just held in in Harrisburg couldn't go to that because I had to take that money to you know to pay for evoc you know so you're really you just get the basics and to keep your people up to where they need to be because a couple things that and when we go into training there are two standards and Harvey correct me if I'm wrong so we currently have two standards that require yearly recertification. One is hazardous materials. So you need to recertify or refresh at the highest level that you're at. And the other one would be confined space. So as a technical rescue team, every year I have to make sure my individuals, my firefighters, are refreshed to the standard, the NFP standard. So just those two classes right there are pulling from that budget. And at four platoons, 28 people bring that training in. That takes a big percentage just to keep those refreshers up. And those are the only two currently, correct? The HAZMAT, the Confines, yeah, the Federal. So, yeah, I mean, that leaves no money for advancing and moving forward.
Thank you. And I just, I wanted to just add that so that people understand. And really my goal today was to make sure we can secure the funds to make sure those that want to enter into the fire service has the monies available. And we notice on the fire trucks, different levels of certifications, correct? There's a silver, gold or whatever it is. So the higher the departments that are certified, do they receive more funding annually? I mean, is there any difference of the guys that have the top as opposed to, I mean, I've seen them on the trucks and that came after me. I'm not sure exactly what they represented or if it represented a different level of funding.
Yeah, that's that you'll see for the firefighter one and that's through the Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner's Office, correct? That set that standard. So if X amount of your individuals or, you know, your firefighters or firefighter one, you'll be at this level. As you increase the numbers, then you increase that level. And it's more, I mean, it's a voluntary standard. I mean we don't have to be firefighter ones, but it's you know, you got to understand something else, I think it's important that we touch upon this is the pride within the fire service, be it a volunteer fire service or a career fire service. It's very difficult as a career chief when it's difficult and unfortunate, you know I'm extremely fortunate that I have that want to be aggressive they're aggressive firefighters they want to move forward they want to learn they want to be able to provide the best level of service and we do but they want to go to this training they want to get this next level they want to keep growing it within the fire service and as a chief it's difficult to say I can't do that because the price of training is is my budget to do this and we're finding that in the city of Johnstown we're being tasked with now supporting so much more than just the city proper because of the decline in the volunteer fire service you know we're supporting and if you look at the city you know right now with our first do or automatic aid to 13 different municipalities aboard of the city I don't know where we're gonna go with this you know this is difficult it's taken you know the funding stream I I can't continue to provide this level of service outside because of what it's doing. And it trickles back to training. We can't put people on the street through the basic training. You know, then you're gonna see the demise of the fire service. Now, we're already there. You know we truly are already there So when you see we preach we go we do these studies the SR6 and things like that And I read all the studies and I agree with a large portion of it But there also parts of it that I think that we not truly addressing the core problems
within the service well, I think in SR6 was in 2018 I before I left the committee we were discussing There was a lot of that needed to go back and be reviewed again and looked at because what was relevant in 2018 isn't necessarily relevant in 2026. And so I have a list of all the different bills that came out of SR6. There was a lot of good that came out of it, but there was a lot of antiquated stuff left behind that we really need to go back and revisit and add technology to newer stuff that we're now dealing with. Chairman, I want to thank you for just allowing me the time to ask the questions. Yes, Mr. Lehman. Sorry, and I was able to get some data thanks to Mark over here. So New York is 90, almost 91% volunteer. Texas is a little bit less, about 80-some percent volunteer, 82% versus us. But to me, it's not really a volunteer pay issue whether, you know, because both are dying in the line of duty. And a recent one over in eastern, you know, central Pennsylvania was a couple of volunteers, but one of those individuals was actually a career firefighter somewhere else, and he was off-duty responding as a volunteer, and the other person was an instructor at a community college. So again, I don't see that the paycheck makes a heck of a lot of the difference. Thank you. I appreciate that. And again, Chairman, both Solomon and Gillian, I appreciate you guys making the trip here today. I mean, it wasn't a short drive. And for these guys and the first responders that are here, also here to watch, I just want to thank you all. Thank you for your service and for what you do. And thank you for allowing me some time to ask these questions. Chairman, thank you.
Thank you, Representative. I think, Matt, you had something.
Yeah, I got a question here. And it's just been a process. So this is going to be off base for you guys. So in the fire service, we bought a BUCS package. BUCS provided the direct pay to instructors for the use of a facility here. And the instructors that got paid, one of them sitting at this table, Jim, he would be an instructor for BUCS that would come into our department and use these resources. So why do we have BUCS? Did they get state funding to help offset those costs? so if they got state funding so why is there a middleman here and why are we going through a community college that none of us have ever stepped foot on or to a community college that don't have this training facility why don't the state funds go directly to this facility and allow them to be their own governing body or their own certification place why am I going through Harrisburg Community College to get a certificate when the instructors and the resources being used are right here at this facility. Why isn't this facility getting direct state funding? We buy a package from Canberra County Firefighters Association. I mean, look at the resources around here. Why are we going through a third party to get the same people in the same place that are sitting right here? Why aren't they getting it and we're going directly to this facility? You have all the training facility and you have all the instructors within this region, within this association. It just seems like a process that has always been the process which you know somebody I guess must have to justify a job but guaranteed somebody getting administrative funds somebody getting a payroll check on the first side so they always been involved Now, if Buck steps away, and we got to go to Buck's at $30 a head, instead of $1,200 for $200 of free training, let's just do it here.
Gentlemen, do you know the answer to that?
I don't know the answer to the question. I don't know if anybody does.
You can come up on a mic. Sorry to put you on the spot, but I just don't know the answer to the question.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah, he started it.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you, sir. First of all. Harvey Boyer, I'm one of the two deputy state fire commissioners and act as the administrator at the state fire academy in Lewistown. That question did come up recently. And years gone by, there was funds through a reimbursement system that was distributed out through, from what I understand, the Department of Public Ed, correct? And the system was flawed. so many years ago that system was disbanded taken out of the system of funding streams due to the fact it didn't fund all of the training entities like this county association or or this type of association not just the community colleges so that funding stream from what we understand dried up from the public ed side so today that that funding doesn't exist you don't see that coming through from what we understand that would be a public ed question at that point and is there an equivalent like is it regional or all go through box in
regards to the ETA system and I think maybe that's one thing that the committee
here would take from the State Fire Academy has 21 ETAs across the state. Bucks being one of those. We did have 24 up until recently, three have rescinded. And some of those are community colleges who said, you know what? We're not making any money within this training. We're looking at credit courses, not non-credit. And they decided to step away from public safety. My comment to my employees is very simple. We at 2 a.m. we need to make sure that that fire is trained at the front door of that structure. That's our goal as a state fire academy. Our ETAs have that same mantra. Unfortunately, with this tightening of budgets, community colleges especially are seeing that their budgets are getting strained. And they're questioning a lot of this type of training that they can't even break even. And these folks are bearing that. A lot of those community colleges would, in fact, take losses in those trainings, but they would continue. Today, there's a lot more questions going on at those community colleges. Out of our 21 ETAs, half of them are community colleges. The other half are state agencies, organizations, county facilities that are providing their role as an ETA. I know we've been in conversation with others now that have interest in becoming ETAs, and we are working with those partners across the Commonwealth. Cambria County, we've had conversations as well. To the chief from Hope, his thought of why can't we do it here, that can be done. It is something we have to work through But when we sit down with those entities and talk about the simple part of hr payroll and hiring of instructors it is not just bringing in firefighters and printing off a certificate there is an entire business practice to the side of it as well and many of those folks who have interest in eta status then second guess or second question do we
really want to get into this thank you that's really helpful i appreciate that thank you yeah if i may is that is that a is that a lack of funding for the eta's on the state side is that part of why we're here i can't answer okay from yeah yeah i don't know that answer
Chair Gillen. Just from a nuts and bolts perspective, given the state budget, we put $277 million into community colleges, the 15 community colleges. So let me just umbrella and get us where I think we need to go. $56 million also went to brick and mortar capital improvements at community colleges. So if you add those numbers up, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the taxpayers are putting a whole lot of money into community colleges. And I'm not saying this should be a carrot and a stick, but clearly, and they asked for $294 million in the last state budget. They were flat funded at $277 million. It seems to me we're at the point in this discussion that maybe we ought to be making suggestions about how this thing should be done. And I would like to see, and I think the chairman and I are going to have a discussion about this, putting dedicated funding into the community college that would take care of the training regimen that we're all talking about here. Because they have open enrollment, individual skill sets and training that they're dispensing out. but we're talking about they're not making money, really. We're talking about lives. We're talking about fire training. We're talking about what every rural, suburban, every county in Pennsylvania needs. And the community colleges, since we have 15 of them, whether we do the training here at the community college, we're not arguing that, but right now the community colleges have a pivotal role. And given the fact that we're discussing at one level or another dollars and cents, it seems to me if we put dedicated money into the community colleges to do the training, it's not an option now. It's not a matter of whether you make money on this or not. This is about an essential service that every community in Pennsylvania needs. and so I'll entertain any comment that you have about this and certainly the chairman and I will have a larger discussion about it so I'm not moderating this but if anybody like to comment Matt so would and your comments
hit the nail on the head why we're all sitting here today the only thing I would recommend is if you could also have those discussions just not through community colleges entities like this I think and anything like this it has a lot of business minded people that are involved with us no retired banker you know I have an MBA he owns a business you know career firefighter we could figure out a lot of stuff to try to make that work at this level to where you're getting a better bang for your dollar here it's already just my two cents thank you I would like to also mention
To that point, it's not just community colleges that provide. Half of it is done at other entities in the state. And over the past five, six years, through Commissioner Cook's guidance, we have now gathered what I would feel is strong data that I can say from 2025 that in the ETA training system, including Buckham, 117,000 responders across the Commonwealth in one year, equaling 1.2 to 1.5 million hours of training hours. We at the Fire Academy did a very quick synopsis of, if you come to us and say, what's it going to cost the state to train and just train the responders out of the academy, not have the ETA system, you're talking over $140 million a year. If we equate that to what we would need to accomplish that mission. And that was a very quick, wild guess. but with some factual data.
Right, and I have advocated for reoccurring revenue in the state budget, and I specifically mentioned on the floor of the House some dedicated funding sources that I think would work, because we're all talking about dollars and cents here. And if I could just close with a brief question, I know around our way it's all volunteer, and so we have our refrigerator stuffed with hoagies, donuts, flowers, and everything else. I know the social quarters pick up costs depending upon where you live, and there's fundraising that goes on in the sidebar. And I don't want to politicize the discussion here, but let's just keep it very narrow. I got a letter the other day from a firefighter in our area who's involved in fundraising, and he mentioned the skills games. Does that play out here, and how substantive is that since we have not gotten to a finish line?
concluding what has machines so I've had the unique opportunity again as my role serving the Association throughout the Commonwealth I've been attending many of the township supervisors conventions that take place in the fall most recently Blair Huntington and again it it's a big issue you know my fire department certainly is sourcing funds specifically from the skills games will be plastic wrapping those machines on Sunday I think yes and removing and removing them from the premises so you know and and I think in and we're a suburban fire department so I can only imagine what it must be like in some of the more rural areas where those clubs, and by the way, my club has become a community. It's become there. It's not the barroom drunk type of place, right, with all due respect. But yeah, I think, and obviously that issue for volunteer fire departments are important, but you guys know Jim and I have been texting quite a bit about it, and he finally said, Hef, get off my back. No, actually, he didn't say that. I offered to get off his back, But I realize, I certainly realize what you guys are going through down in Harrisburg with regards to this. God bless you. Matt. Yeah, I think it's a double-edged sword. I think there's a lot of departments that have them. They're relying on those sorts of funds. But there's other departments that don't have them that is taking potential fundraising dollars out of people's pockets. So instead of coming to that Ralph or buying that you know that ticket they spending it on the skills machines and that are these organizations aren getting any benefit from that They actually losing potential fundraising dollars because they're going into that. I think if there was regulation on that and some type of, you know, a tax or something and earmarked for emergency services or, you know, that could be beneficial or limit who can have them through like a small games of chance license or similar to that I think would be better regulation just not some some guy renting a space in there to line his own pockets to buy his wife a new car taking money out of essential needs like fire departments thank you and thank you dad for his 59 years of service as well and to dovetail off of what Matt just said keep in mind Reed Township has 400 households okay skills machines would not ever help us and like he said it's taken away from our gun raffles we hold two gun raffles that we make eight thousand dollars off each time skills machines we couldn't do it and and the
people are in there using the skills machine or going up around Glendale you see him up there by Pirates Cove somebody's making money and we don't get of dime from it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chair Gillen. So I want to close by saying that, and I think I speak for Chair Gillen, we are committed to working with Representative Rigby to making sure you get the we meet your immediate needs of training dollars in the door. There's a kind of global zooming out conversation that Chair Gillen and I are going to have about dedicated funding, but we want to make sure that this hearing wasn't just folks blowing hot air, but that we can actually get resources to this community. So that's a pledge that I want to make. And before we close, I want to give everyone the opportunity. You all brought up a number of issues, resources for training, issues getting volunteers, getting bodies in the door, and a whole host of others hinted at, you hinted at the need for regionalization, being better stewards of dollars that departments are getting. If there's one thing that you all believe that we in Harrisburg could be doing to support all of you, what would that one thing be? If you have an answer, great. If you'd like to pass, okay too. But I want to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity.
One of the things for the state grant is you get extra money depending on how many certified firefighters you have. I believe, and you might be able to answer this question, I believe that if you have 20 firefighters, you get the maximum grant. That are certified as firefighter ones. I don't even have 20 firefighters. I can't get the maximum grant. It is hurting the rural departments. The other thing is the relief monies. I get $6,000 in relief where somebody, and I'm not going to name their department, they get over and they don't spend a dime on it. We bill the insurance companies. That's one of the sources of revenue. They're not required to pay us. We had a very large structure fire. I had four ladder trucks there, departments from all over, and whenever I submitted the bill to the insurance company for the homeowners insurance, it was They sent us a check for 50 cents because they not required to pay us we need the insurance companies and you know we need to make sure that they pay the fire departments that is essential to us okay if they were required I did the figure three years ago if they were required to pay us that would have been eighty thousand dollars in that one year for their car accidents and fires. Thank you.
Thank you. I think you got to it, and I think that was the point. You know, if we really focus on the training, I think you guys cracked it. So working with organizations like this, working with your community colleges, the state fire commissioner, nothing's easy. that happens in Harrisburg, and I completely understand that. But I think today you guys are walking away getting it. And I don't expect anything to happen overnight, but I certainly appreciate your time, and you peeled the onion back, and I think you get it. I just want to thank you for your time, for taking the drive up here, taking the interest of what we're doing, looking over our facility. I think we hit on the key points that need to be discussed here today and give you something to take back. So I just appreciate you coming up.
Yeah, I echo the same things today that these gentlemen said. Thank you very much for taking your time. Thank you very much for your concerns and your passion towards emergency services and your constituents back on by even attending this meeting. I do have two quick things. Mr. Hefferfinger hit the nail on the head. their needs looking ahead there's a lot of money being spent on departments that I don't think we're going to be able to be staffed within the next decade I think the better utilization of resources and strategic spending of funds and grant funds is a big thing in my opinion the other thing is my department was fortunate enough to be in three FEMA grants to recruitment retention grants and only one of them allowed, you know, if you were, if you made so many calls, you got a $500 gift card as part of the FEMA spending. And those guys, you know, our membership took that as like, you know, Christmas morning. I got 500 bucks. It's $500 that I earned doing what I love. It's a very, very small thing for a large thing that the membership does. I think any type of incentive, whether it be some sort of tax relief something just to say thank you and get those guys to these calls is a big thing thank you thank you mr. chairman and over the years and I've always said it seems like the state has kicked the can down the road to the county to local municipalities to the local school I am fortunate our our local municipality in Adams Township they provide a volunteer incentive at the end of the year. Certain percentage based off of property tax and earned income tax, and guys would get a $100 check or $140 check back. But it just seems like that can's been kicked down the road. And I've often wondered through the years, boy, what if the state of PA would give each volunteer firefighter that free license plate on their car, $50 for each fire? Like it was always just pushed down the road and the state never really championed any cause for volunteer firefighters or firefighters in general So that was one comment another comment talking about money and none of us talked about this earlier today is our relief monies foreign fire that's coming out this month in the month of October and the state fire commissioners grant for the fire departments so to the the fire commissioners grant 15,000 every year you We put in the certified firefighters, and we're thankful for that grant. One of the purposes of that grant I've done for the last 15 years has been debt reduction. We take that money to pay off debt on one of the pumpers that we have, and we actually have two pumpers, both used units that are financed right now. So I've been using their money religiously for debt reduction. So out of that money, I haven't been able to take any of that money to put toward fire training. So there goes that reduction. Under the relief realm, Adams Township is about $30,000. And I look at, I'm a numbers guy, I look at that every year. Adams is probably in the top four or five municipalities in Canberra County with relief funding. So we have two departments. We share it, 15 and 15. And out of that relief money, boom, there's quick. We may have a vehicle financed there. We put money toward insurance. the bottom line is there's not a lot of money left over for fire training out of the Relief Association. So our department, aggressive in fundraisers, we do a labor. We just hosted the Canberra County Firemen's Convention this past summer. We do Lenten fish fries. We do cash bonanzas to supplement our funding. So there are so many departments out there that are doing both ends of the realm, fundraising, firefighting, training. This week, fire prevention. We've been out every day doing a fire prevention tour with our volunteers. Cost-wise, it takes a truck to run there. It's $6.50 for diesel fuel. My son filled up the truck the other night. He said, Dad, it was $300-some dollars, you know, a 50-gallon tank. Oh, I know. So we're beating the bushes from all angles. as far as fundraising, as far as training, as far as answering the town siren call. We all have groups and groups of dedicated firefighters in our staff. We're proud to say that we're firefighters. We're proud to say that we're in Canberra County. We're proud to say that we're Pennsylvanians. But whatever help that you can pass on to us is definitely appreciated. Thank you for your time. Now, I mostly want to echo what has been said before, but I think you hit the nail on the head with looking at the ETAs and making sure that they are directly funded. We did actually look about forming our own ETA, but that comes with its own infrastructure, that we have to pay scads of people we have to have insurance excuse me we have to do a bunch of things that's going to end up putting infrastructure in place that that kind of already exists within the current eta system so i think that's really in my opinion the kind of the best place to look direct funding to us is great and and and i appreciate that but um i think we'd end up kind of duplicating that service as well so that was my own Final thought. Thank you.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for the time. It's been very instructive and informative. We will get to work, and if there's no other business, this informational meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. Chairman. There are...
Important announcement. Rep Rigby. There are sandwiches. Mary just brought up for us in the training rooms for all the testifiers and for our panel up here and and for your camera crew in the back if you want to walk down and help yourself and grab it thank you