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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 2, 2016 03:36 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Will Tallman |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Fire Police Act Rewrite Updated |
| After speaking to a few fire police professionals, we decided to make a few small changes to the legislation that was introduced on May 23, 2016. This entails reintroducing the legislation. This is legislation that will rewrite and amend Title 35 relating to Fire Police to provide for the appointment, powers and control of fire police officers and to further define their powers and duties. Fire police officers are defined as members of a volunteer fire company nominated by members of the fire company and confirmed by the chief elected executive officer of a municipality to perform traffic and crowd control duties at incident sites or local events. Though fire police officers are volunteer firefighters who work under the fire chief, they also take on law enforcement duties and powers. Fire police officers can often be stuck in limbo between different organizations and individuals when performing duties. My proposal provides for these duties and command to be in line with the National Incident Management System when it comes to incident command and control. Furthermore, fire police are often the first to be called, yet the last to be funded and no one organization takes responsibility for their operation. This results in insufficient funds being appropriated to fire police, which places a financial burden on these organizations and individuals. Fire police officers serve an important role in our communities and it is vital that they are receiving adequate support and funding. Please consider cosponsoring this legislation. |
Introduced as HB2154