By Melissa Mixon
The Austin American-Statesman
LEANDER, Texas — Leander fire officials recently got a boost when their department was awarded an almost $1 million federal grant to hire more firefighters.
The Fire Department has only 20 paid firefighters and 45 volunteers; the grant will allow it to hire nine more firefighters.
“For a growing city, this is a very, very helpful thing because we have to staff up as our growth continues, and this gives us the money to do that,” Leander City Manager Biff Johnson said of the grant.
The grant is awarded by the Department of Homeland Security to fire departments across the country. Its purpose is to help departments increase the number of firefighters and recruit volunteer firefighters.
So far this year, the Leander fire department is the only one to receive the grant in Williamson County. No fire departments in Travis County have received it this year, though the program recently awarded the Buda Volunteer Fire Department in Hays County a little more than $604,000, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Fire officials in Leander say the grant comes at a good time. The city’s population has almost quadrupled in the past eight years, according to the U.S. census, and the city’s boundaries have grown.
With 28,000 people living in the city, the Fire Department gets an average of 10.2 calls each day; the number goes up at an annual rate of 22 percent to 23 percent, Deputy Fire Chief Bill Gardner said.
That has caused the Fire Department to stretch its manpower and sometimes have to rely on other fire agencies to help manage fire calls or big fires in the city, Gardner said.
The department, which has a budget of $1.5 million, has added eight paid firefighting positions in the past two years, Gardner said.
In 2006, voters approved $9.9 million in bonds for construction of a fire administration and training facility.
Gardner said the department has not had trouble recruiting or retaining firefighters, even though its salaries are among the lowest in the county.
Entry-level firefighters are paid $35,447 a year.
Gardner said his department applied for the $948,825 grant several months ago, and the department found out in late April that it had been awarded the money.
He said there’s not yet a timeline of when the firefighters will be hired.
Now, City Council members will need to approve the terms of the grant and decide whether they will keep the nine firefighters after the grant money runs out in five years.
Johnson said the council probably will approve continued funding, though he didn’t know how much it would cost the city.
The council will discuss the issue during its May 15 meeting, he said.
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