City of Flint Denied Request for $7.9 Million SAFER Grant

The City of Flint received word today from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that its application for the Sustaining Adequate Fire Emergency Response (SAFER) grant has been denied. This most recent application was for $7.9 million and was intended to provide funding for 39 positions within the Flint Fire Department.

Emergency Manager Darnell Earley said that the news of not receiving SAFER was disappointing, but not wholly unexpected. The application was the third that Flint has made to FEMA for the SAFER grant; having previously been awarded twice. “We have known that addressing the funding issues in public safety were parallel to our overall budgetary planning,” said Earley, “now that those parallel paths have met, we will need to address fire funding in the overall context of the city’s budget, goals and objectives in order to find a sustainable mechanism for operation given this critical loss of revenue.”