A suburban fire chief says a state plan to make firefighting training mandatory could hurt small communities. Sergeant Bluff fire chief Bob Bartling says while the guidelines won’t have any effect on his department, other volunteer stations could feel it. Bartling calls it an unfunded mandate.Bartling says if the plan’s adopted, the big loser would be the taxpayers, because it will have to be enforced and take people to gather information on training.Bartling says if the state wants to come forward to fund training, that would be fine.
