FASNY, The Firemen's Association of the State of New York is contacting you as an interested party in Volunteer Firefighter training in order to make you aware of a potential shortfall of training funds and training hours generally made available through the Department of State's Office of Fire Prevention and Control.

The attached resolution reflects the fact that the normal allocation of approximately 1.2 million dollars has not been increased which translates to a severe curtailment of the 77,000 hours of available training from all delivery methods. This hourly allotment is about half of what is necessary to deliver adequate training for this year.

While the training reports to the Governor and the legislature have highlighted this shortfall it is happening in the middle of a state budget crisis which has required across the board budget cuts. FASNY is sensitive to this but finds it necessary to bring this curtailment to light because of the safety ramifications of inadequately trained firefighters on the local level.

Failure to properly matriculate new recruits and advance firefighters in all training continuums has insidious results and the public's safety is at stake.  FASNY's resolution is being sent to County Legislatures as well as State elected officials. We ask your help in bring this resolution as a sample to your fire department. Please substitute your fire department for FASNY and communicate with the elected officials indicated in the resolution.

In order to rectify this shortfall FASNY is urging the Governor and State Legislative leaders to review this situation and transfer or appropriate $800,000 which will address this problem both this budget cycle and next.