Zebrowski, Carlucci, and Fire Officials Announce Enactment of Fire Safety Reform Legislation

The recently signed law enhances the decades old process of fire inspection regulations in schools, ensuring the safety of school buildings and students

Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski was joined by the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York (FASNY), local fire officials, and Senator David Carlucci to announce the enactment of historic reforms to the fire inspection process for NYS schools (A1906A/S4663B). The legislation modernizes the process of conducting annual fire inspections in public and private schools to improve safety in school buildings.

These reforms include removing the ability of unqualified individuals from performing inspections, eliminating the hold harmless provision for inspectors and empowering the State Education Department to order inspections when schools don’t comply. This overhaul of the outdated school inspection law was critically necessary to ensure that these inspections are conducted by qualified persons and school buildings are as safe as possible.

For years, Assemblyman Zebrowski has worked with local and state fire officials toward efforts that protect the public and the entirely volunteer fire service in the County.

“Every parent shouldn’t have to worry that the schools they send their children to learn in are unsafe. The school fire safety inspection process is meant to provide a level of oversight on the safety of school buildings, ensuring that they are up to code. After years of working with state and local fire officials, we have finally updated the arcane regulations that were in place. These critical reforms completely overhaul the process; providing accountability and enforcement. The law ensures that every inspection of a school building is conducted by a qualified person; removing a dangerous loophole,” said Assemblyman Zebrowski.

"School fire inspections keep our children safe and protect our first responders. Our new law will strengthen inspections by ensuring they are done in a timely manner by qualified individuals who are held liable when problems are not corrected. This is about preventing tragedies. Thank you to everyone who worked on and supported this bill," said Senator Carlucci.

“The key to this new law is to ensure that our school children, teachers and administrative staff are in a safe environment. The volunteer fire service has been pushing this legislation for several years. The process for a bill to become law, regardless if it's a "common sense" law, takes a while and our Assemblyman and Senator prevailed and the Governor did the right thing in signing their bill,” said Jim Hartwick, Legislative Chairman for the Rockland County Volunteer Firefighters Association (RCVFA) and Director and Legislative Chairman of the 16 county Hudson Valley Firefighter Association (HVVFA).

The Governor signed the legislation earlier this week and it goes into effect in February 2020.