Volunteer firefighters OK’d for ECC tuition aid

Erie County volunteer firefighters will be eligible for tuition reimbursement for any two-year associate degree programs offered by Erie Community College.

The benefit, designed to help offset declines in the number of people who serve as volunteers, would apply to any volunteer firefighters who either are taking their first college courses or have earned fewer than 80 college credits toward any degree program, said Daniel J. Neaverth Jr., county commissioner of emergency services and chief of the Orchard Park Fire District.

“I can tell you there will be grandfathers and grandmothers cutting and pasting and sending this to junior saying, ‘Hey, now you’re a volunteer firefighter. There’s no excuse,’?” Neaverth said.

Until now, Erie County was one of only a handful of counties – including Chautauqua, Suffolk and Nassau, and the boroughs of New York City – ineligible for the free tuition benefit. Most other counties, including Niagara, began participating in the program last fall. But the factors that previously made Erie County ineligible have now been resolved.

David Jacobowitz, president of Firemen’s Association of the State of New York, said he hopes the statewide tuition reimbursement program draws 15,000 new firefighters to its depleted ranks.

“This is the first time anything like this statewide has been offered,” he said.

The tuition reimbursement benefit goes into effect this fall and will remain in place for the next two years, thanks to a $4.2 million federal grant awarded to the Firemen’s Association by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But it’s not exactly free money. To receive 100 percent tuition reimbursement, a volunteer firefighter would need to maintain an “A” grade (a 4.0 grade-point average). Those earning a “C” or better would be eligible for 75 percent or 85 percent reimbursement, and those who receive less than a “C” average (2.0 GPA) would receive no reimbursement.

Depending on the number of credits that are reimbursed, a firefighter would also need to commit to between one and four years of firefighter service. A firefighter hoping to get full tuition reimbursement for an associate’s degree would need to maintain

the highest grades and commit to four years of fire fighting service, said Rick Washousky, ECC’s executive vice president for academic affairs.

“All you have to do is do well in your grades and continue to service the community,” he said, “which is what we all should be doing, anyway.”

Neaverth said this performance-based approach to tuition reimbursement promotes student accountability. The last time a tuition benefit was offered to Erie County firefighters, tuition costs were paid upfront and there was no GPA requirement.

“There was no accountability,” he said. “There was roughly a 60 percent failure rate on that.”

Anyone who has signed up for ECC courses would have until October to apply for tuition reimbursement. Reimbursement would be made after a course is completed and the student can submit a transcript proving that he or she met minimum grade requirements, Washousky said.

Neaverth said it’s common for many people to sign up for volunteer firefighting service just after high school, but retention is problem as these young people go off to college or begin taking jobs to pay for their education.

“Obviously, we want them to focus on their studies as well as the fire service,” he said. “This will go a long way for retention.”

The Firemen’s Association of the State of New York last year unveiled the tuition program for volunteer firefighters after obtaining the $4.2 million recruitment and retention grant through FEMA, under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

But fire companies staffed by volunteers in Erie County were cut out of the tuition benefit because the county was already using money from the same federal grant program to pay for basic firefighter training, which all firefighters must take before they can enter a burning building.

Federal grant administrators ultimately wanted additional assurance that volunteer firefighters in Erie County would not be “double dipping” and using the grant money to pay for courses they had already taken. That assurance was given, and Erie County became eligible for the statewide program.

The official announcement of the new Erie County program will be made this morning at the Erie County Emergency Training and Operation Center.