Staff recommends accepting the grant on behalf of the six (6) Montana State Regional HazMat Teams and granting the Billings Fire Department the authority to accept the funds and make the distributions of actual costs of tuition, lodging, mileage, per diem reimbursements to the other teams.

The Billings Regional HazMat Team applied for training funds under the Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grant.  State Department of Emergency Services (DES) administers these federal funds and has issued a letter that our application has been approved in the amount of $51,280.  As a condition of this award, Billings City Fire Department is required to contribute a cost match in the amount of not less than $12,820 of non-Federal funds, or 20 percent of the total approved project cost of $64,100.

City Council may approve or not approve accepting the grant funds.

This opportunity presents a very low financial exposure to the City and allows the delivery of state-of-the-art training to the Montana Regional HazMat Teams in the form of a three (3) day training in Missoula consisting of a threat identification class and the hazmat safety officer class.  The Montana Regional Teams are sharing the 20% match of the total project cost requirement.  Each of the six (6) Regional Teams will be using personnel costs of those attending the training to meet the soft match requirement.