As you are well aware the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s U.S. Fire Administration, as part of its Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program, will appropriate an estimated $750 million this year to be used by successful fire department applicants for things like fire prevention, fire fighting equipment, personal protective equipment, firefighting vehicles, fire operations and fire fighter safety. In 2001, 1855 fire departments received $91.9 million and in 2002, 5315 fire departments received $334.5 million. These grants are expected to continue with the growing emphasis on Homeland Security. This project is to determine on behalf of our client if a web site dedicated to providing fire departments with real time product cost information for fire department budgeting purposes (to assist with grant applications or simply for internal budgeting purposes) would be of value. The site could also contain useful information to help your fire department receive government funding and give you the ability to set up, on line, your own fire department web site to assist you in retaining budgeting and other useful information.
	To ensure that the web site is useful to the fire departments we need help in determining how budgeting and purchasing is actually performed within your fire department, and where you would typically obtain product pricing information. We would like to know for example what information you need to help you put together your budget and how you decide what to actually purchase. Who actually does the purchasing, do they purchase everything or does each purchasing agent buy a specific group of products, if so how would they like to see those products organized on the web site for easy access. To assist us with this project we need to be able to contact the personnel in your fire department who are responsible for budgeting and/or purchasing. The questions we need to ask can be answered in five minutes over the telephone, or we can fax or email a short questionnaire to the individuals concerned. Please direct this briefing, and the questionnaire to the appropriate personnel.
	Click here to fill out the questionnaire online
	To view and print a PDF version of the Questionnaire, click here
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