Posted: | January 8, 2019 03:04 PM |
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From: | Senator Michele Brooks |
To: | All Senate members |
Subject: | Community College/PASSHE Schools Secondary Education Fire Training Pilot Program |
In the near future, I plan on reintroducing a piece of legislation very similar to Senate Bill 955 from last session, previously introduced by Senator Vulakovich, which creates three grants for community colleges to create pilot programs for interested students in high school to begin their fire training before they graduate. However, I will be including PASSHE schools in the schools eligible to receive the grant money detailed in the legislation. As mentioned in the SR 6 final report, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is facing a severe shortage in volunteer firefighters, with the current number of volunteers down to less than 15% of the number of volunteers in the 1970s. Recruiting and retention are major concerns, and this legislation is one way to address these concerns. This legislation would create three grants of $150,000 which would be distributed to three community colleges or PASSHE schools in the Commonwealth, one in the eastern, central, and western parts of the state, and then used to establish fire training programs for students in high school during the school year. The original legislation was previously cosponsored by Senators Argall, Aument, Baker, Brewster, Costa, Dinniman, Fontana, Gordner, Hughes, Hutchinson, Killion, Leach, Rafferty, Regan, Reschenthaler, Sabatina, Scavello, Schwank, Stefano, Tomlinson, Ward, White, and Yudichak. Please join me in cosponsoring this legislation, for we need to take every step possible to support our volunteer firefighter community. Please do not hesitate to contact my office with any questions. |
Introduced as SB331