SAR: New federal laws impact search and rescue groups

Report from New Mexico; As a result of a congressional mandate, support of search and rescue volunteer groups must be approached differently in the future.

Lincoln County Manager Tom Stewart notified county commissioners last week that Congress passed a revision to a program called Title III, dealing with national forest "which appears to no longer permit equipment purchases or general support for search and rescue, but does fund actual operational costs of searches and rescues."

In the past, equipment and support requests from White Mountain Search and Rescue, the local rescue organization, were funded primarily and intermittently by a distribution from the federal government to the county through Title III, he said.

To keep envisioned support constant, he advised Sue Townsend with the rescue group that the 2008-2009 request from the county for $4,140 will come from the general fund instead of from Title III.
"What concerns me in the future is your organization's ability to document costs of actual searches and to submit them in some form for reimbursement by the county," he wrote Townsend.

"I envision an eventual change in our contract to capture this potential reimbursement and am interested in learning of how your organization would propose to capture such costs of actual searches."

More here….