STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — Stevens Point’s Fire Department was given authorization to apply for a large equipment grant. The Finance Committee and then the city council approved going forward with an application for a grant from the Assistance to Firefighters Grants program, which is through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Mayor Mike Wiza says a grant of that size would be welcomed, and would help retire a vehicle that is expensive to maintain. “It’s a 90-10 grant for a new fire truck. Those things run over $600,000 dollars. If we can get some of our tax money that’s already gone on to the state and the federal government, and bring that back to Stevens Point, and we get 90% and we’ve got to pay 10%.”
If the grant is awarded, the grant dollars would pay for most of a $600,000 fire engine and most of a $375,000 dollar fire simulation training trailer. Winning the grant would put Stevens Point taxpayers on the hook for $97,500 dollars. Wiza says that won’t be a problem, since they’ve been budgeting to replace the old fire truck already. “We have more than that down in our capital improvements budget for the next couple of years, I think it’s 2017, maybe 2018. We’ve got about $350,000 dollars budgeted for a new fire truck, so we’d actually free up some more money if we’re able to get that 90% grant.”
Should the city get the grant, it will allow them to reassign about $252,000 dollars set aside for a fire truck to other city priorities.
