James Heap: OFCA Past President’s Report

Greetings Oklahoma Fire Service!

I hope everyone has had a good summer with family and friends.

Hopefully each of you has had an opportunity to take a vacation and had a chance to relax a little bit.

The rains have been a blessing and hopefully the drought has been broken.

Work on the fire chief standard that I have mentioned before has begun and we are progressing quite well.

For those who don’t know, a group of fire service stakeholders are working to establish a minimum standard and new chief training requirements for all fire chiefs in Oklahoma.

I know that most people don’t like change, but we feel this change is needed to help prevent deaths and injuries of firefighters and civilians.

I realize this may not be popular with everyone and I understand your concerns. But if we can prevent just one death, it will be worth the effort.

Every citizen deserves and expects to have a competent and efficient response to their calls for help.

We believe that this begins with an adequately trained fire chief. They could then lead by example and expect their firefighters to also meet a standard to provide that service to their citizens.

I hope that each of you will accept the fact that we need to accomplish this endeavor. It is what’s best for the Oklaho ma fire service and, more importantly, the people we serve, the citizens of Oklaho ma. Please stay safe!

The Oklahoma Fire Chiefs Association is excited to launch our new digital membership portal for 2023-2024 memberships. This system will be beneficial to members and will help staff be more efficient in getting memberships updated and processed with correct information. It will require patience on our part as well as yours as we maneuver through the changes together but recognize that as we all become comfortable with this system that we will all find that it will save time.

The OFCA will no longer be printing membership cards for members. Members will access their cards through their member profile, which only becomes active after your OFCA membership summary is completed and paid for. The member will login to their individual member profile the same as they do to access their cards for the OSFA, and they will then be able to access their membership card for print or screenshot. Our office will continue to mail window decals for each NEW (First Time Free) member on the summary. Additional decals may be purchased, and are $3 per decal.

Per Constitutional Resolution 2023-03, which was voted on, and passed on April 14, 2023 at the 101st Annual OFCA Conference. The membership dues increase will be as follows:

ARTICLE 6 - MEMBERSHIP DUES

Section 1. Active Members. Active Member, as defined in Article 4, Section 2, dues shall be $55.00 per year. – $5.00 of said dues shall be dedicated to the Keith Bryan Memorial Scholarship Fund and said dedicated dues shall be placed in a 501c3 account as provided by the Internal Revenue Code.

Section 2. Retired Active Members. Retired Active Members, as defined in Article 4, Section 3, dues shall be $40.00 per year.

Section 3. Sustaining Members. Sustaining members, as defined in Article 4, Section 4, dues shall be $30.00 per year.- $5.00 of said dues shall be dedicated to the Keith Bryan Memorial Scholarship Fund and said dedicated dues shall be placed in a 501c3 account as provided by the Internal Revenue Code.

Because every year there is confusion, we wanted to clarify a few common misconceptions regarding the OFCA Membership. This membership is not intended to be for your whole department. While any member of your department can join, it is more common for only your chief/assistant chief/ chief officers to be paid members, as they are the only ones who get voting rights. Anyone on your department that serves as a chief officer or shift commander must be paid for as an active member. Anyone on your department that does not serve in those positions that would like to be a member of the OFCA must be paid for as a sustaining member. The system will require you to provide us with the rank/ title of each person you have on your summary before you will be able to submit it. Please note once you have submitted your membership, an invoice will be created and emailed to you based on what you submit. These invoices are manually made, so dependent on time, date, etc. of submission; it is likely the invoice will not be received immediately. Please be patient.

On our website, https://osfa.info/ofca/join , you will find a picture step-by-step tutorial with instructions on how to access the new portal for membership. Please follow the instructions accordingly. If you have trouble, please call our office and speak with Raegan Layne at 405-424-1452.

Thank you for your commitment to the OFCA!