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Matt Wallis

Skagit County receives thousands of dollars in grant money every year from the federal government to support local emergency personnel, but funding for 2009 doesn’t look as plentiful.

Local emergency agencies voiced their concerns with the cuts to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who held a forum on the subject Wednesday in Mount Vernon.

Most people expect EMTs or firefighters to show up when they dial 911 in a quandary, but having enough personnel to respond to the scene is getting difficult.

That’s because many of Skagit County’s firefighters are volunteers, collecting only $5 for each time they go out to a call.

“It’s getting very difficult to recruit and retain volunteers,” La Conner Fire Chief Dan Taylor told Murray, who visited Skagit County on Wednesday to ask emergency personnel about how federal funding affects their jobs. The proposed fiscal year 2009 federal budget includes cuts to many emergency grants used by first responders, including a $100 million decrease from last year’s $300 million in Emergency Management Performance Grants nationwide.

“There are no shortage of issues here,” Murray told Skagit County first responders, but said she would fight to keep residents safe, by restoring their funding for emergencies.

Murray told Skagit County’s first responders that the U.S. Senate is in the process of writing appropriations bills, and she would take the information gathered Wednesday back to Washington, D.C., with her to fight the cuts.

“We’re here to really voice our opposition to the cuts,” Mount Vernon Fire Chief Roy Hari said. “It’s kind of a dismal future if we don’t have the federal government giving us grants.”

Much of that grant money is used to buy safety equipment for the firefighters, Hari said.

Fire chiefs attending the forum told Murray that they need more incentives for volunteers, who not only are called out to fires or car accidents at all hours of the day, but also give up much of their free time for training, which is increasingly more demanding.

Dan Cain, Department of Emergency Management interim director, told Murray that volunteers need more than “community pride” and a sense of “it’s the right thing to do” to continue volunteering.

Skagit County Public Health Director Peter Browning also said the proposed federal budget would impact his department, eliminating funding to programs such as obesity prevention and HIV prevention programs.

Browning said programs such as the Medical Response Corps, a group of local medical professionals organized to respond to large emergencies instead of FEMA, would also see funding cuts.

Skagit County 911 Director Dave Cooper said Skagit County needs communication devices that are compatible with those in surrounding counties. He’s waiting for federal funding to complete the project within the next few years.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, first emergency responders saw a surge in federal funding, but in recent years that funding has been cut back, Murray said.

Hari said funding cuts would not necessarily mean that services would be less responsive, but increased local taxes may be needed to compensate.

Murray said after the meeting that she took two major suggestions from Skagit County’s first responders at the Wednesday forum: Volunteer firefighters need more incentives to join and stay with their community departments, and emergency personnel need long-term steady funding.