For Pennsylvania firefighters and first responders, student debt forgiveness not a priority
(The Center Square) – A Pennsylvania Democrat is floating the idea of offering student loan forgiveness for first responders, but it’s not clear that student loan debt deters people from joining a fire company or EMS outfit.
House Bill 2725, sponsored by Rep. Chris Sainato, D-New Castle, would forgive $16,000 of student loans after four years of service for first responders who work for an emergency medical services agency, volunteer fire company, or volunteer rescue company.
“Fire and EMS agencies throughout the Commonwealth are struggling to recruit young members, so the fire and EMS staffing crisis will only worsen in the coming years,” Sainato wrote in a legislative memo. “We must act to encourage young people to serve in our public safety sector. I believe that offering student loan forgiveness to first responders is an innovative and effective recruitment and retention tool.”
Staffing issues have been a long-running problem in Pennsylvania, as The Center Square has previously reported. Sainato pointed to a 2018 report from the Legislative Fire and EMS Caucus that noted the number of firefighters in the state has dropped from 300,000 in the 1970s to 30,000 before the pandemic.
The decline of volunteerism across the state to staff emergency medical services and fire companies alike was a major concern of the report, as well as funding problems.
“From the volunteer perspective, the increased needs of the family and other societal factors have resulted in decreased free time or interest to volunteer in emergency services,” the report noted. “The decreasing number of volunteers, along with the PA Act 37 requirement for EMS agencies to be available and in-service around-the-clock is another reason that many agencies were forced to replace non-existent volunteers with career staff.”
Student loan forgiveness as a way to resolve those issues, however, isn’t a major emphasis for the commonwealth’s firefighters. Firefighters already qualify for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, as it stands.
“I would have to say, at least from my perspective, we would have higher priorities than this bill,” said Jim Carstater, chairman of the law and legislative committee for the Firefighters’ Association of Pennsylvania.
The association has not taken an official position on the bill.
“There’s been all kinds of proposals to basically forgive all student debt, and I really can’t see us supporting spending that kind of money when we have so many other public safety crisis situations where that money could be much better utilized,” Carstater said. “And I’m not at all sure of what impact it would have on fire service when you look at the demographics of the membership and how many of them are actually coming into the fire service to begin with.”
Instead, Carstater pointed to higher-priority issues for the association like the consolidation of some public safety services, especially for EMS, reinstating full-time equivalent reimbursements to community colleges for public safety training programs, and increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates to make emergency medical services more financially sustainable.
“It isn’t a question of whether or not we’ve got the money, it’s a question of whether or not public safety’s a priority. And clearly it’s not,” Carstater said. “Public safety’s just not a public priority anymore until they have a fire and nobody comes or they have a heart attack and there’s no ambulance.”
The diversity of Pennsylvania makes a one-size-fits-all approach for first responder needs difficult. Problems facing large cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh differ from rural areas like Potter and Elk Counties.
“We’ve been basically readdressing these same issues for 50 years and have refused to really delve into what needs to be done to actually solve these issues,” Carstater said.
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