A Hudson Valley city will receive more than $2 million to hire firefighters.
The $2.4 million dollar investment will enable the City of Newburgh fire department to hire 15 firefighters. Newburgh’s fire chief says this will allow the department to return to daily staffing levels last seen in the 1970s and early 1980s. U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, all Democrats say the funding for the city fire department is through the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program- Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER grant, through the Department of Homeland Security. The SAFER grant program aims to award grants directly to fire departments to help increase the number of frontline firefighters, and to rehire firefighters who were laid off because of the tanking economy.
