Legislative breakfast
I hope that everyone had a safe and Merry Christmas and New Year holidays. The last year has flown by and a new year is upon us. It is the time of year that we have legislative actives going on once again. The Legislative and Elected Officials breakfast is on the 16th of January. The legislative stance meeting will be by zoom this year on Jan. 27. This is a busy time for our Lobbyist, Legal Advisor, and Legislative Committee.Thanks to all of you for all that you do for all of us.
We met in Grand Island the first Saturday of December and had some great meetings for Fire School and E Board. Once again, this year there is going to be great selections of classes offered at Fire School. There is a class to fit every person on your department, whether they are new member or veteran member. A little later on this year, your department will get the booklet, with all of the information for Fire School.
We did have a guest come to the E Board meeting, Tallgrass. Tallgrass is a company that has some pipelines in Nebraska and they are going to be doing some training with first responders in the state. They also have some grant opportunities that fire departments can take advantage of. You may see some constant contact information coming out in the future.
In 2023, there were a lot of great discussions that happened with fire and EMS in Nebraska. Nebraska Public Media did some great media about Volunteer fire and EMS, as well as the first Governor’s Volunteer First Responders Summit. There were many things that were discussed and we have continued that positive momentum on issues that we are experiencing. Coming into this year with the legislature I hope that positive momentum continues and some issues can continue to be addressed.
On the Wildland fire side of things that focus is on WIRAT. WIRAT does a great job and they are a great team, to have a dedicated person to manage the team would help them out.
On the EMS side of things there is a wider array of things to be looked at. LR203 to propose an interim study to review how the State of Nebraska can ensure it has effective emergency medical services in rural communities, happened a few months ago. It was resolved to conduct an interim study and report back with findings and recommendations. My hope is that there is continued good discussion to help resolve EMS issues.
It is exciting to see these issues get some attention, many of the issues are not new, but, it seems to me that the awareness has improved greatly the last year. I think that the idea of a Nebraska EMS Taskforce is a great start to improve EMS in Nebraska.
Stay Safe.
Shad Bryner,
NSVFA President