More than twenty new bills directly or indirectly related to the Fire Service were proposed this past week and are now being tracked in our House Bill Status Report. For those who are following weekly, this week’s new related bills begin with H.B. 6516 from the House and with S.B. 699 from the Senate. There continue to be new bills introduced on a wide variety of issues and I encourage everyone to take some time to review the entire list of related proposed bills that now number about 100.

We are pleased to continue to see proposals related to our top priorities: funding for the construction and operation of our Regional Fire Schools, funding for our cancer legislation, and legislation related to Post Traumatic Stress for first responders.

One public hearing on a Fire Service related bill is scheduled in front of the Joint Committee on Public Health for next week.

We still do not have a meeting date for our next Fire/EMS Caucus, however, the caucus co-chairs report that they are attempting to schedule the next meeting so that representatives from the Department of Administrative Services, the Office of Policy Management and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection can attend and discuss issues related to our Regional Fire Schools.

While we await the announcement of the Fire/EMS Caucus meeting, I continue to urge our membership to invite their respective legislators to join the caucus. If your representative or senator has attended caucus meetings in the past, please thank them and let them know we need their continued support. If your legislator is newly elected, please let him or her know that best way to help the Fire Service is to join the caucus.

The complete Legislative Update and the CSFA House Bill Status Report are attached below.