Thread: Texas plans to cut budget of agency battling fires

Texans, how are those wildfires working out for you? Your state legislature thinks you need less firefighters. Good luck.

Texas plans to cut budget of agency battling fires | Reuters

(Reuters) - Texas lawmakers are set to slash funding for the agency responsible for fighting wildfires in the midst of a historic wildfire season in which some 2.5 million acres have burned.

The Texas Forest Service faces almost $34 million in budget cuts over the next two years, roughly a third of the agency's total budget. The cuts are in both the House and Senate versions of the proposed state budget.

The Forest Service has about 200 firefighters and offers assistance grants to volunteer fire departments. Assistance grants are likely to take the biggest hit.

Volunteers -- two of whom were killed in fighting this year's fires -- make up nearly 80 percent of the state's fire-fighting force and are first responders to roughly 90 percent of wildfires in Texas.

"Volunteer programs are our No. 1 defense," Forest Service Director Tom Boggus told Reuters.

Originally Posted by Gypsy

Isn't this the same state bitching that Obama wasn't doing more to help with the wildfires?

You were expecting consistency from Republicans? They're also the same state that keeps talking about how they should secede because the don't need the fed gov't. Any moment now they'll be beating on the fed's door asking for more money. Texas being independent and all.

Originally Posted by Sgt Meowenstein

Texans, how are those wildfires working out for you? Your state legislature thinks you need less firefighters. Good luck.

any details on what, specifically, is being cut?

Originally Posted by Sgt Meowenstein

Texans, how are those wildfires working out for you? Your state legislature thinks you need less firefighters. Good luck.

The budget doesn't pay for firefighters, it pays for the gear associated with fighting fires. The man power comes from volunteers who will fight fires with a bucket, if they have to.

Still though, this isn't a good thing for Texas but I doubt it will effect this particular fire.

Originally Posted by sparsely

any details on what, specifically, is being cut?

From the article.

A state commission that reviewed the Forest Service this year noted the grants were not distributed to the counties most at risk for wildfires. Boggus said that is because the service only recently conducted a study to determine which counties are the most at-risk, and that the agency now plans to distribute grants based on that information.

But Texas, which has a two-year budget cycle, has a shortfall of up to $27 billion for 2012-2013. Talmadge Heflin, director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said everybody should share in the cuts.

Originally Posted by johnflesh

From the article.

that doesn't answer my question.
What, exactly, is being cut?

The grants are being cut.

TFS gets state money and hands them out as grants.
TFS is getting their money cut, along with many many other programs not mentioned in the article, due to a $27 billion dollar shortfall.
TFS will have less money to grant.

Originally Posted by johnflesh

The grants are being cut.

TFS gets state money and hands them out as grants.
TFS is getting their money cut, along with many many other programs not mentioned in the article, due to a $27 billion dollar shortfall.
TFS will have less money to grant.

Yes, but how does that break down in the overall budget? If administrators, excess, fraud, and bureaucracy is being cut, that's great.
The articles and arguments presented thus far spare these details

Originally Posted by johnflesh

The grants are being cut.

TFS gets state money and hands them out as grants.
TFS is getting their money cut, along with many many other programs not mentioned in the article, due to a $27 billion dollar shortfall.
TFS will have less money to grant.

Yes, but how does that break down in the overall budget? If administrators, excess, fraud, and bureaucracy is being cut, that's great.
The articles and arguments presented thus far spare these details