Presentation for Ocala - Marion County, FL Home Day

April 19, 2006

Good afternoon, 

My name is Bob Kreps.  I am a resident of Marion County and President of the Fire and Rescue business for IDEX Corporation. 

Our headquarters is in Ocala co-located at one of our largest business units… Class 1 on 27th Avenue where we manufacture pumps, electronics and miscellaneous components for the fire industry.  After IDEX acquired Class 1 in 2001 from Ron Ewers, they decided to move our headquarters to Marion County because of the large Fire and Rescue manufacturing community that was already established here.  Ocala, Marion County and the State of Florida are very important to our company.

Tim Dean did a great job of illustrating the importance of the Fire Industry to Marion County and to the State of Florida.  More important is the mission of the first responders that serve our communities and are faithfully served by all of the businesses represented here today. 

All of us appreciate their dedication to public service and passion to protect and serve our community by providing security and rapid response to events that threaten our lives and our property.  We must not overlook the fact that these duties are executed in spite of the personal risks that are involved. 

Many of you may take this service for granted… part of their job so to speak. 

Be the call a car accident, a house fire, a brush fire, a chemical spill, a natural disaster / hurricane or a manmade disaster at the hands of terrorists… we take for granted that our first responders will answer the call and get the job done. 

Notwithstanding the increasing need for preparedness to handle “all types of hazards”, the population is aging and there will be even more calls for assistance as the large population of baby boomers age and become more at risk for vehicle accidents, house fires and medical emergencies.

Among other factors, the ability to respond assumes that our first responders are adequately staffed and equipped with the very best equipment and training available to get the job done.  None of us would like to be on the receiving end of a late response caused by undermanned, ill-equipped or under-trained responders.  Such a situation endangers the lives of all of us as well as our first responders themselves.

This gets us to one of the main points of this gathering beyond the opportunity to celebrate the impact of our industry on Marion County. 

President Bush has recently announced his proposed budget for FY 2007.   Included in this proposed budget are significant reductions in funding for equipment, services, staff and training of our nation’s fire fighters and police.

Fire Act

One such funding source is The Fire Act, which was originally authorized by Congress post 9/11 at nearly $1 BN per year to address the unmet needs of nation’s fire departments for equipment, services and training. These funds are used to purchase equipment and training to prepare our firefighters and emergency services personnel for the full range of emergencies to which they respond… This includes everything from fire and medical emergencies to hazardous material spills to natural disasters and acts of terrorism. 

The downward trend in approved funding for this program in recent years has raised serious concerns within the fire service about the future of this critical support program. 

Funding peaked in 2003 and 2004 when Congress approved $750 M.  In FY 2005, this was reduced to $650 M followed by a reduction to $550 M for the current FY 2006.  The budget proposed by President Bush for FY 2007 will reduce this funding by a further 47% to $290 M. 

To put the impact of this reduction into perspective, the Fire Act continues to receive applications from fire departments around the country totaling an average of $2.5 billion annually to ensure an adequate state of preparedness and safety for our Fire Fighters.  All of this is in an environment of rising operating costs.

If the budget is approved at the proposed level, the ability of our nation’s fire fighters to respond to all hazards will be compromised. 

Today, over 50% of the fire trucks in service are older than 15 years.  This represents 40,000 apparatus of which…

10,000 --- older than 30 yrs,

17,000 --- 20 to 30 years and

13,000 --- 15 to 20 years old.

Not only do these vehicles lack the latest firefighting technology, these vehicles lack critical safety features that we take for granted in our personal vehicles.  These deficiencies include open cabs, lack of seat belts, and lack of antilock brakes and roll over protection. 

Most communities do not permit their children to ride in school buses over 15 years old, why do we allow more that half of our firefighters to ride in vehicles over 15 years old.

At the grass roots level the companies represented here along with the various fire service organizations, urge congress to adopt full funding of the Fire Act program to the originally authorized level of $1 BN to provide the means to maintain and improve the level of preparedness.

SAFER Program

The next area of concern is the SAFER program (Support for Staffing for Adequate Emergency Response).  This program was introduced in 2003 to improve preparedness of our first responders by hiring new firefighters and to better facilitate recruitment and retention of our volunteer firefighters. 

This program was funded in 2006 at $110 M which represents barely 10% of the original authorized level.  This program has been virtually eliminated from the President’s budget proposal. 

Shortage of personnel is a contributing factor to increased response times.  Beyond the life saving impact, property loss due to fires which stands at $12 BN annually will increase.

At the grass roots level, we urge Congress to support full funding of SAFER program in addition to the Fire Act, both of which we believe are essential to ensuring our state of readiness and response capabilities.

USFA Support

Finally, we applaud our legislators for making the US Fire Administration (USFA) funding a line item on the Department of Homeland Security Budget.  We urge congress to support full funding of the USFA to ensure that their critical role to the Fire Service as mandated by Congress is not compromised.

Related material is included in hand out including a letter to Congress jointly signed by:

• Congressional Fire Services Institute
• International Association of Fire Chiefs
• International Association of Fire Fighters
• National Volunteer Fire Council
• National Fire Protection Agency
• International Association of Arson Investigators
• And various fire service training organizations

Before our hosts arrange a tour of the E-ONE facility… Marc, Tim and I will do our best to answer questions that you may have and we would also welcome any general comments regarding our concerns.

We believe the issues at hand are critical to all of us and request support of our elected officials to ensure that the state of readiness of our first responders is not compromised.

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