Define award programs

Award programs provide incentives for people to volunteer in the fire and EMS service, in career and volunteer departments. Award programs track participation in incident response, training, and activities, and provide credit for becoming an officer or other special dispensations. Every state and, in most cases, every locality, has their own set of rules for what qualifies as participation to receive benefits from award programs.

You can create the award programs your agency or department offers to its personnel. The nature of these awards can vary as needed, from traditional LOSAP to unique state- or agency-specific awards.

Example: In Connecticut, if you participate the requisite amount of time in a specific award program, you can earn a $1000 abatement off your tax bill that year. In another department, for every incident that you go to, you get $1 credited towards a gas card, calculated on a quarterly basis.

LOSAP is a program used by many volunteer agencies to determine retirement or pension benefits.

Signed into law in 1998, LOSAP is “a system established to provide tax-deferred income benefits to active volunteer members of an emergency service organization.” An emergency service organization generally includes all forms of volunteer fire and first aid organizations. The tax-deferred income benefits come from contributions made solely by the governing body of the municipality or fire district, on behalf of those volunteers who meet the criteria of a plan created by that governing body. LOSAP rules differ from state to state. LOSAP is similar to a pension program, but is intended to assist emergency service organizations in retaining and rewarding volunteers.

Once you create the award program, you can add details such comments, attachments, and links, specify the criteria participants must meet to earn the award, and enroll participants in the program. If there are changes in the requirements of an award program, you can start a new version of an existing award program, and start using the new version with the new requirements. The PM module preserves the history of the programs as they evolve over time.

Note: 

  • The award programs feature appears only if a PM administrator enables this add-on feature in the Settings pages.

    Information on enabling this feature is available in Enable add-on features.

  • Award program functionality is available in both the full version of PM and PM Basic, but has reduced functionality in PM Basic because you must have the full version of PM to enter class credits, rank, and title information.

    For information on upgrading to the full version of PM, go to https://www.eso.com/pm-demo/ and fill out the fields to request a demonstration and speak with a sales representative.

  • Your PM module administrator must add the View Award Programs or Edit Award Programs security permission to one of your user roles for the Award Program tab to appear for viewing in personnel records. You must have the Edit Award Programs security permission added to make changes to award programs.

    Information on user accounts, roles, and permissions is available in Manage a user account.

 

Add, copy, edit, or delete an award program

Specify award program details

Add, edit, or delete award program criteria

Add, view history for, print a report for, or delete award program participants

Archive or reactivate (un-archive) an award program