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The City Council voted this week to move forward with a NJ Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response [SAFER] grant application that could bring two new firefighters to the Asbury Park Fire Department’s squad at no cost to the municipality for the first two years of a three-year agreement.

Chief Kevin Keddy said the grant will foot the bill for the two additional firefighters but cannot be used to replace the expected two retiring squad members. Currently, there are 48 members of the paid fire and emergency services squad. If awarded and accepted the grant will grow the squad to a 50-member crew, meaning the fire department will look to hire four new members.

Mayor John Moor raised concerns that although the grant would foot the bill for the first two years, the municipality takes on the budgetary ownest in year three.

“We are not in a position where we can afford more men,” Moor said. “Hopefully two years down the road when we are off transitional aid we can do this [but] if we had 48 last year and we didn’t spend a ton of overtime – which we didn’t – we did not exceed the budgeted amount, so why would we add two more to make it 50. It’s fiscally irresponsible to be adding people when we are raising taxes.”

The proposed 2016 budget raises the annual municipal taxes for the average assessed home by an estimated $152.

Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn referenced this past summer’s record breaking number of visitors saying, “We are asking the fire department to respond to an ever increasing, growing population in the summer. Providing them two more firefighters with grants that we don’t have to pay a nickel for the first two years, and then their salaries start at [approximately] $30,000 a year after that, I don’t think is a hard ask.”

Moor countered by saying the fire department came in under budget despite the increased 350,000 visitors this past summer.

Keddy explained that the currently the department staffs nine firefighters per shift, three short of the recommended standards. Hiring the new firefighters would raise the shift total to 11 per shift and allow for a rotation of vacation time.

Keddy said if the grant is awarded, the governing body would still have the authority to deny the funding without penalty as long as a reason for denial is given.

The final vote to move forward with the application was 3-2, with Moor and Councilman Jesse Kendle dissenting.

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