Fire School coming up
It is hard to believe that it is already March, this year is flying by. At the time of writing, the legislature is half way through their session for this year. This year is a short 60-day session. Unfortunately, due to Mother Nature, we had to cancel the Legislative and Elected Officials Breakfast. We looked at different options to hopefully reschedule, but, it did not work out for this year. We did have our Legislative stance meeting the end of February. It has been busy with the legislature this year and a big thanks to our Lobbyist-Mr. Stilmock, Legal Advisor-Mr. McIntosh, the legislative committee, and everyone who has testified, written letters, made calls.
As you all know, property taxes are a focus of the session this year. We are supporting LB1216 to remove public safety services from budget limitations. There are also many other bills this year dealing with fire and EMS, some of those pertain to WIRAT, cancer benefit funding, 3 radio bills, $1 for life, schools mapping, and more. Again, this year is a short session, so if some of these bills do not become priority bills the chances of them going through the process this year is decreased.
Before we know it Fire School will be here. By the time that you are reading this you should have this year’s Fire School book at your station, or it will be there very soon. As always, this year has another great line of classes for you to attend. There are classes that fit every person on a department, new to veteran, fire and EMS. Take a look at the classes and read the class descriptions. Some do require different levels of PPE for you to take with you. Also, if your class requires you to bring a SCBA make sure that hydro test is up to date, or you will not be able to have your bottle filled on site. Some of these classes fill up very fast so take a look and register early.
The Nebraska Fire Chefs Leadership Symposium is March 16th. This is a great one-day class and is geared to all 1st responders. This is not a class just for Chiefs and Officers. This year it is being held in Norfolk.
Stay Safe Everyone.
Shad Bryner,
NSVFA President