(Radio Iowa) A bill under consideration in the Iowa Senate calls for a 10-fold increase in the state income tax credit for volunteer firefighters, E-M-Ts and reserve law enforcement. Cyndi Peterson is a lobbyist for the Iowa Firefighters Association, which represents volunteer firefighters. “While people may think this is a huge jump in one year, I think we’re catching up,” Peterson says.

The tax credit for volunteers who serve as firefighters, emergency medical personnel or reserve police officers was increased from 50 to 100 dollars in 2014. The bill would increase it to a thousand dollars. Peterson says there’s little — if any — type of reimbursement for the volunteers who respond to fires and medical emergencies in their communities, particularly in rural areas.

“There are some volunteer firefighters that get, like, $1 per call or they get some very minute amount of money,” she says. Senator Adrian Dickey of Packwood, who is a volunteer firefighter, is the bill’s sponsor. “It gives the fire chief or the supervisor a tool to try and incentivize their members or their volunteers to attend their training sessions,” dickey says, “to train on some of the things they need to do, that they’re required to do.”

The bill won approval in a Senate subcommittee Thursday. By one estimate, up to 20-thousand Iowans are currently serving as volunteer firefighters. The one-hundred-dollar per year state tax credit for volunteer E-M-Ts and firefighters was expanded in 2014 to include reserve officers who work as volunteers in Iowa police and sheriff’s departments.