Facilities Planning

PROCEDURE FOR FILING FIRE SAFETY REPORTS

Every building owned, leased or operated by a school district or BOCES must be inspected annually by a certified code enforcement official or building safety inspector (previously known as a code enforcement technician) using the NYSED Public School Building Fire Safety Report.  Annual fire safety inspections may not commence earlier than 45 days prior to the school’s annual due date.  NYSED will email a reminder to superintendents of schools that their annual inspection is due.  The complete schedule is available below.

The results of the annual fire safety inspection must be reported to the New York State Education Department (NYSED) via the secure NYSED Application Business Portal – Fire Safety application. The updated process includes an annual requirement that all school districts and BOCES verify the ownership and use for all buildings that are on the NYSED Fire Safety System. This process must take place prior to entering any Fire Safety Report data into the Portal. After all buildings have been verified, the annual inspection data can be entered.  Once the annual fire safety inspection has been successfully entered into the Portal, and the superintendent has certified the accuracy of the inspection data in the Portal, a certificate of occupancy will be automatically generated and will be available for printing by the school district or BOCES.  

The Office of Facilities Planning is no longer mailing labels or Certificates of Occupancy to public schools.

Fire inspection regions (previously known as zones) have been reconfigured to be consistent with previously identified zones in the SEDREF system.  The city school districts in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers have been integrated into the Fire Inspection Regions where these school districts are geographically located.

The annual fire safety inspection includes an entire existing building, exclusive of any addition which is under construction.  Once an addition has been completed, the designing architect or engineer must execute a Certification of Substantial Completion (FP-CSC) for the portion of the new building or addition proposed to be occupied.  Additionally, the entire building including the new space to be occupied must then be inspected by a certified code enforcement official or building safety inspector; after which the school district or BOCES must obtain a new certificate of occupancy for the entire building using the same process noted above.

Questions related to the Fire Safety Report or Certificates of Occupancy may be directed to the Office of Facilities Planning at 518-474-3906.

 

Last Updated: May 13, 2015