State funding continues to drop for much needed training for emergency responders, a Carbon County official reported.

On Thursday, Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein spoke about the action the county took to approve the 2015-2016 Hazardous Materials Response Fund Grant agreement, which gives the county $2,208 towards paying for necessary trainings as well as equipment to fight fuel fires, hazardous material emergencies and oil spills.Nothstein said that the county received $6,626 last year through the state and $7,023 in 2014."This is the fund that the county Local Emergency Planning Committee uses to train emergency response personnel, incident command systems, foam firefighting and hazardous materials response trainings that are required by the federal government for all responders," he said, noting that two weeks ago, the county approved a $1,000 agreement with Bucks County Community College to provide 200 hours of training for responders."This leaves us with $1,208 for equipment purchases," Nothstein said, noting that for just the foam to fight fires that require this product, it costs $75-$80 for a 5-gallon bucket. "This makes it very difficult to put on a program when the state keeps cutting our funding. It just shows you how the state keeps cutting programs for volunteers, police and EMS and expect the county to pick up the slack."Nothstein said that the county may have to make tough choices in the future if funding keeps dropping, including either cutting the number of trainings offered, paying for it out of the general fund or charging municipalities or volunteers for the trainings.