Grant to help pay for new fire truck
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STEUBENVILLE -- After three years of trying, Steubenville Fire Department's application for a grant for a new fire truck was successful.
Fire Chief Carlo Capaldi was notified Friday the department will receive a $761,000 FEMA Assistance to Firefighters grant toward the purchase of a new truck. The local match will be about $39,000 -- funds Capaldi said he has available because of the voter-approved 0.7 percent and 0.3 percent income tax levies which provide funding for a variety of needs, including capital projects.
"That $39,000, that's how we use our income tax money, to make those matches so we can leverage our income tax money," Capaldi said. "We leverage it to get grants for more money, to take it as far as we can."
Capaldi said the truck they're replacing is a 1996 model, what they call a "telesquirt" -- an engine with a 55-foot ladder on top -- that runs out of the headquarters downtown.
"It's 25 years old, but it's our most-used vehicle," he said. "For the last five year's it's been costing us $10,000 to $15,000 a year to keep it on the road, so this will also help us on maintenance costs."
He said the money they save on maintenance can be used "for other things that will help our department."
"We run our new vehicles for 20 to 25 years, so we get our use out of them," Capaldi said. "An $800,000 truck, we know we've got to get maximum use out of them."
Now that they have the grant, he said they'll have to decide exactly what kind of truck they want to get and price it out.
"All we did (so far) was get the award," he said, noting they haven't decided if they want another telesquirt, or quint, or if they'd rather purchase a fire engine with a ladder on top that functions as either ladder or engine.
Whatever they decide, "It usually takes eight to 10 months to get one built, so even though we got the grant now, we probably won't see it until this time next year," he added. "We'll keep (the old one) on the road until then, we'll continue to maintain that vehicle -- it just gets harder and harder every year. But if we have to wait six to 10 months for the new one, it will be worth it."
Capaldi said he's not sure they could have done it without the grant, pointing out they'd been passed over for several years though that wasn't entirely unexpected given the amount they were asking for.
"Larger grants, sometimes it takes a while," he said. "But every year our application scored better, but we had a lot of help -- Mike Taylor, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters, Mark Sanders, International Association of Firefighters 8th District vice president, City Manager Jim Mavromatis and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles ... all of those people have been doing everything they can to show their support for our grants. I can't say that's why we got the grant, but I believe it helped. And the IAFF actually has a grant department that reviews grants and provides assistance, so we had a lot of help."
And he said the city is fortunate to have revenue from the 0.7 percent and 0.3 percent income taxes to augment its budget.
"This is an example of us using that (income tax) money to multiply that money," he said. "We've (leveraged that) $39,000 into $800,000 (grant), and we're happy about it. It will benefit the city budget, it will benefit our budget, and it gives the guys a new, modern truck with up-to-date safety features and mechanical features that are up-to-date that will service the citizens better than the old one did."