There will be a work-session on Monday at 5:30 in the 2nd floor conference room about the “SAFER” grant.  The City Fire & Rescue department applied for this grant about a year ago and it will provide funding for 12 fire fighters/medics for 2 years.  If the City accepts the grant, we are obligated to continue the employement of those folks for a further year.

The basis of the application (as I understand it) is that in our area most of the Fire companies are trying to move to 4 staff on each unit.  The thought is that, on a real working fire, it is much safer to attack the fire and perform search and rescue with 4 guys instead of 3.  I’m  not an expert but I’d generally agree with that: more is better but there is also some practical limit. 

I can probably get there from here but the staff is going to have to do some legwork on financial planning.  That’ll cost about $800k in the third year and we really don’t know what our obligations are going to be in terms of new fire trucks, etc.

The FY2012 budget was passed last night on second reading.  The only substantial change (actually made on Monday) was the BPOL increases were eliminated and, in fact, the exemption level was tripled.  So, if your small business grosses less than $150,000 you will pay no BPOL tax.  Both the Chamber of Commerce and our Delegate Jackson Miller pushed hard for that change (the chamber sent out a blast email which I recieved as my firm is a member but nobody bothered to call me directly which I find mystifying if their agenda was limited to the BPOL change).  Also vastly reduced were commercial real estate tax bills – down over $500 on average.  The Council did a lot to keep Manassas business-friendly but our job is still to balance interests and we need to stay mindful of the burden our residents bear.

Importantly, we managed to keep the 4 additional police officers in the budget.  That gets us back to the staff level of about 4 years ago.  No, the chief didn’t ask for them but our crime level hasn’t gone down.  I’m not waiting for more terrible crimes before asking the Council to act.  Sometimes leadership takes decisions that were unlooked-for.

The officers will be ready for duty late next spring when we’re ready to start expanding our foot patrols.