Legislation providing tax credits to employers who both employ and allow volunteer firefighters or ambulance personnel to respond to emergencies during work hours passed the House unanimously on Tuesday.

According to Pennsylvania state Rep. Jerry Knowles, those volunteers would receive no loss in pay and wouldn’t be required to use vacation or sick time while serving their respective communities.

“We need to do everything in our power to be sure our volunteer firefighters and emergency medical services personnel are there when we need them,” said Knowles. “Statistics show that in 1976, we had about 300,000 volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania. Today we are down to about 37,000.”

The bill also affects other COVID-19 related state issues.

It extends benefits offered by the Heart and Lung Act for police and other first responders who require quarantine because of COVID-19 by providing up to 60 days of paid leave and not requiring use of sick leave or vacation time.

“Just as important, our police officers and first responders need to know that we are there for them,” Knowles added.

The bill also requires the Department of Health to make public COVID-19 cases with demographic information broken down into Pennsylvania ZIP codes.

Lastly, it extends the renewal deadlines for expired PennDOT documents.