WWDDVS EMS Commission

EMS Commission Meeting Minutes Meeting Date: November 14, 2024 The Meeting was Called to order by Chair Dean Grosskopf at 7:00 pm. Commission Members Present at the meeting: Village of Waunakee: Robert McPherson Town of Westport: Dean Grosskopf Town of Dane: Rich Haag Town of Springfield: Art Meinholz Town of Vienna: Dakota Cable Village of Dane: Roger Schmidt Others present at the meeting: WAEMS Chief Scott Russell Absent Confirmation of Open Meeting Compliance  Public posting, official notices, and online availability were confirmed by Chief Russell for open meeting compliance. Public / Membership Appearances  None Review / Approve Minutes  The minutes of the regular October 2024 EMS Commission Meeting were reviewed. A motion to approve the October 2024 EMS Commission Meeting Minutes was made by McPherson, second by Meinholz. Motion carried 6/0. Review / Approve Expenditure Statements  The expenditure statement for October 2024 was reviewed. A motion to approve the October 2024 Expenditures as presented was made by Schmidt, second by Haag. Motion carried 6/0. Chief’s Report We have one volunteer coming in for an interview this week and one part-time employee formally resign. We are getting decent a decent response to the open position posting. The employee interviews will be held December 4th and the Chief’s interviews will be held December 17th. M24 will be going down to Foster Coach November 25th for the insurance work to get done. We do not currently know how long it will be down there, but are hoping we can go pick it up shortly after the holiday. M26 had the sirens go bad and get replaced. The vehicles are otherwise operating well. I attended a conference put on by our “new” billing company in which they said they are getting less confident in this program coming to fruition any time soon. Where this is being stalled is the federal government asked the current participating states to report actual average cost per trip numbers and found that there is a stark difference between combination Fire/EMS departments “costs” and EMS Only “costs”. The reported costs are $2680.77 and $1,026.32 respectively. With this disparity, the feds are conducting another analysis to see why fire-based systems are costing so much for the same service and it sounds like they are finding a lot of liberties being taken in cost reporting. Long story short, they are going to fix the language in the program before approving new applicants, such as Wisconsin. I’ll continue to report on this as it moves along. The Act 102 application has been submitted. Again, this year is a little different in that there was a $23M increase in the allocation for this program. Rough numbers look like we could see as much as a 3-5x increase in funds received. The Study with Middleton is continuing to move along. I haven’t heard much for updates but have been assured that everything is still on track for a December finish. Our new parent billing company held their annual conference in Madison this year. There was a lot of great information during the seminars themselves, but more so with the one-on-one conversations. I was able to learn a lot regarding different ways to maximize and speed up our revenues. I have set up a series of meetings with our rep over the next few months to start diving into this a lot deeper and look at how we can improve not only revenues, but also patient care while still maintaining the same revenue levels. Old Business  Short discussion was had regarding the Town of Springfield EMS Borders and where response times may be able to be improved. No action was taken. New Business   A motion to move into closed session pursuant to Wis. Stat. sec. 19.85(1)(c) to consider employment, promotion, compensation, or other performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility, regarding chief’s annual performance review was made by Meinholz, second by Haag. Motion carried 6/0 via roll call vote: McPherson-Aye, Grosskopf-Aye, Haag-Aye, Meinholz-Aye, Cable-Aye, Schmidt-Aye. Meeting convened into closed session at 7:30pm.  A motion to reconvene in open session was made by Meinholz, second by Grosskopf. Motion carried 6/0. Meeting reconvened in open session at 8:06pm.  A motion to approve what was discussed in closed session was made by Meinholz, second by Grosskopf, motion carried 5/1. Miscellaneous Business / Forthcoming Events  None Next EMS Commission Meeting is scheduled for December 12, 2024 at 7:00 pm at the EMS Station. A motion to adjourn was made by Schmidt, second by McPherson. Motion carried 6/0 at 8:09 pm. Respectively Submitted by: Scott Russell Waunakee Area EMS Chief