The program is included in Title XVII Assistance to Firefighters, and funded though the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001. The program will be administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and funds would flow directly from FEMA to the grant recipients. Under the matching requirement, applicants serving jurisdictions of 50,000 or fewer residents would provide 10 percent of the match in non-federal funds. Applicants that serve all larger jurisdictions would provide a 30 percent match.
Applicants can apply for two separate grants in any of the aforementioned categories.
Applicants receiving the funds must agree to maintain in the fiscal year for which the assistance will be received aggregate expenditures for the received, or above the average level of such expenditures in the two previous fiscal years. As part of the application process, applicants must submit financial information to demonstrate a need for the grant and agree to submit National Fire Incident Reporting data during the year in which the grant was applied. To ensure that volunteer, combination and career departments receive an equitable proportion of the funds, the law requires FEMA to allocate the funds based on the proportion of the U.S. population served by these departments. Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form.