S.A.F.E.R. Board of Directors

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors & Fire Commission Joint Meeting Tuesday, August 10, 2021 @ 18:00 A. Call to Order The meeting of the South Area Fire & Emergency Response District Board of Directors was called to order at 18:00 by SAFER Chairman Al Opall. The meeting of the South Area Fire & Emergency Response District Fire Commission was called to order at 18:00 by SAFER Fire Commission President Harlan Hebbe. Members Present Board of Directors – Langenhahn, Maloney, Opall, Schaefer and White were all present. Fire Commission – Hebbe, Jackan, Phelps and Tatro were all present, Campbell was absent and excused. Also present: Town of Rib Mountain – Administrator Rhoden; Village of Weston – Director of Finance Trautman; SAFER – Deputy Fire Chief Finke, EMS Division Chief Bechel, Battalion Chief Lang, Battalion Chief Lohman, Lieutenant Zellner and Administrative Assistant Latimer, Fire Chief Savage was absent and excused due to illness. B. Correspondence/Comments from the public on issues related to the SAFER District None C. Consent Items Board of Directors approval of prior meeting minutes from July 13, 2021. Motioned by White to approve prior meeting minutes from July 13, 2021. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. Board of Directors approval of expenditures and receipts from July 2021. Motioned by Maloney to approve expenditures and receipts from July 2021. Second by Schaefer. Motion carried 5:0. Fire Commission approval of prior meeting minutes from July 21, 2021. Motioned by Jackan to approve prior meeting minutes from July 21, 2021. Second by Tatro. Motion carried 4:0. D. Business Items Discussion on 2020 Audit. - Deputy Chief Finke said the Audit is within your Packets and I don’t know if anyone has any specific questions? - Schaefer said, before we get to the numbers, Trautman was there anything in the Audit that you found in the findings themselves opposed to the numbers that you found troubling? - Trautman said I didn’t find anything unusual. - Maloney said you and Dunbar talked and both didn’t find anything unusual? - Trautman said yes. - Deputy Chief Finke said from a number’s standpoint for revenue under Public Charges for Services, Ambulance we were just about $47,000.00 over budget and we had a little bit of Fire revenue that came in and our Training fees for CPR classes. We were $61,645.00 over budget, more than anticipated in revenue. Under Miscellaneous, Sale of Assets we did sell a couple of trucks and miscellaneous items. Then a breakdown of our expenditures we came in $153,282.00 under budget. - Schaefer said, let’s talk about the general fund balance where we ended up last year with a negative $748,000.00 balance and we brought that down to $224,000.00 with $524,000.00 applied to the general fund balance. Which leaves us with a negative $224,000.00 general fund balance at this point according to the Auditors. Part of that is the loans we are paying off, and I don’t know how many more years of that we have left. - Trautman said the Village will be done hopefully this year, other than that this is the second year of a five- year payback. - Schaefer said there’s a combination here of they came in under budget on expenses, they had more revenue than anticipated and both Weston and Rib Mountain are paying in to supplement that. I assume that’s where the $500,000.00 to the positive came from. - Trautman said correct. - Schaefer said so this year we will probably wipe out that negative fund balance and have a positive fund balance. Discussion and possible action on 2022 Budget. - Deputy Chief Finke said there’s an increase in expenditures of $141,534.00 and an increase in revenue of $66,908.72. I talked to Dunbar and Trautman earlier this week and I have not redone the percentages for this year. - Maloney asked how did it go with the two in house accounting this year? - Deputy Chief Finke said I think overall it’s been fine; they certainly work a lot more with Latimer, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s been fine. - Maloney asked when did they (Dunbar and Trautman) receive the budget? - Deputy Chief Finke said probably the same time the Board and Commission did. - Schaefer said you should probably have a standing meeting. - Deputy Chief Finke said yes, again that is something that we need to work on. - Maloney said on the Village side it is absolutely critical that we have Trautman and Trittin involved through the entire process and I would imagine on the Town side Dunbar would be the same thing. I don’t know when the budget got done, but it would be good to use them more, talk to them more, include them more and be more transparent because they are nothing but a help. How do you feel the first year went Trautman? - Trautman said, I think we’re still working on working together. I will let you know that Latimer surely knows what’s going on and that’s the extent of our communication. - Maloney said I will tell you communication is key. - Schaefer said do you think there should be a monthly standing meeting with Chief Savage, Latimer, Deputy Chief Finke, Dunbar and Trautman just to go over everything and you can talk about the budget, go over expenses or maybe improvements to how their doing things and where they’re keeping money for this or that? - Trautman said I think that would help. - Schaefer said we don’t have to go through it all, I get the revenue side and I appreciate you being conservative on the EMS revenue, because you won’t know what a day or month will bring. The expenses with Salary Regular, what percentage is that? - Deputy Chief Finke said we always do 2.5%, that’s across the board because we have some people that get 3%, we have some people that will get 1.5%, but the majority of the people fall into the range of 2 – 2.5%. Hourly Regular is an increase of $93,500.00 for merit increases and our Engineer/Paramedics we’re bumping up their wage $3,000.00 a year for our four full-time Engineer/Paramedics, and that’s just an effort to get them closer to what surrounding departments are making so we can keep those people. We did just lose one actually and their last day was on Sunday and went to Marshfield Fire and it was a $16,000.00 a year pay increase doing the same job. We obviously can’t increase pay that much, so we’re trying to bump that up to make that a little bit more competitive with surrounding departments. We moved those two people from part-time to full-time last year, so right now we are taking some of the money out of the Part-Time wages and moving it to the Hourly Regular wages because of their classification. Hourly Overtime we’re not spending a ton of money so, we’re decreasing that slightly. Part-Time Regular wages we’re decreasing $53,621.00 because we’re moving those two people that I just mentioned a minute ago. The one thing we want to do for 2022 is we want to add an eighth person on one of our shifts. When SAFER started we had 6  Battalion Chiefs and there’s a Full-Time Battalion Chief working at each station 24/7 and they’re in charge of the crew. As Battalion Chiefs retire or leave, they are being replaced with a Captain and we have one of those that has started already on Blue Shift. We’ll have one Battalion Chief and one Captain, we don’t really need two Battalion Chiefs on duty at one time, we can have a Captain they will do a very similar job but they make a little less money, so it saves us a little bit of money there. The long-term goal is that the Battalion Chief will be at this station (in Weston) and the Captain will be at the station in Rib Mountain and the hope is that we can have staffing of 5 and 3. Five people at Station 2 and 3 people at Station 1. The Battalion Chief would be at Station 2 and he/she is responsible for running the crew, because right now our Battalion Chief’s spend 50% of their time running ambulance calls, which Battalion Chief’s don’t do. We want our Battalion Chief’s in the station when there’s a structure fire or a bad vehicle crash or something where we can have their knowledge and expertise. We don’t want them out on a nursing home call. Another thing the eight person does is we can get more interfacility transports out. - Maloney asked what is the ratio at both stations? - Deputy Chief Finke said it stays about the same with about 65 to 70% of calls out of this station (Station 2). - Schaefer asked where are all of the interfacility transports calls coming from? - Deputy Chief Finke said they are from all over the state. I think the reason why is the instability with Spirit right now, with Aspirus buying out Ascension. Marshfield Clinic Health System kind of has an ambulance service, but it’s not their thing. From what I’ve heard they run one ambulance 12 hours a day, but they’ll only do Marshfield Clinic to Marshfield Clinic transports. With the shortage of Paramedics and EMS providers, I think that volume is going to stay there. That is a very long dissertation of the Part-Time Regular and what we’re trying to do. - Opall said (to the Fire Commission) if any of you gentlemen what to ask some questions, feel free. - Deputy Chief Finke said Part-Time OT as you can see in the budget and we’ve been talking about this quite a while, we’re way over on our Part-Time OT. IFT Pay increase of $5,000.00 like we said earlier, more IFT’s and we did bring on two people that are starting next Monday one is a nurse the other is a paramedic. They will be initially hired to do interfacility transports only and they will continue on with their fire training. Social Security and WRS those needed to be increased due to the increase in staffing. Health Insurance, I’ll be honest is a shot in the dark. We don’t have any numbers on that, so we estimated. - Trautman said Cory had emailed the other day and they are looking at zero. - Maloney said I thought the last two years we overstated. - Deputy Chief Finke said we did. I ran the numbers and right now we have $220,000.00 budgeted and one of the things we wanted to do in 2022 budget is offer the two employees that we hired full-time for this year, remember they were no benefits and no health insurance. We wanted to offer them health insurance for 2022. I got the numbers from Cory, and if it is a zero percent increase, if everybody takes health insurance which we have a couple people that don’t take it, the amount would be $217,000.00. The $15,000.00 increase we have in this budget, if it’s going to be a zero percent, we can take it out. Unemployment Insurance increase of $2,000.00, we haven’t had that line item in our budget, but last year we had to start paying it out. Employee Health Tests decreased since we are hiring a smaller number of employees. We had several small increases for Legal, Auditing, Fire Software and Utilities, we’re assuming costs will go up due to inflation. Copier Lease, we can take $750.00 out of there because our Capital budget has a new copy machine and for that first year, we will not have to pay for the maintenance plan. Outside Contracted Services, LifeQuest our ambulance billing company, we are bringing in more revenue and they take a percentage. Also, we are seriously considering, yet we haven’t been able to get ahold of them, but we’re considering moving some things over to CCIT. Captain Stieve was here a few months ago and he talked about IT items, he will be around for a little bit, but he is starting to work his way out. With our dispatch system and everything, it was a giant hurdle to get the dispatch equipment up and running simply because we’re not in with CCIT. There were all these extra firewalls, static IP addresses and all kind of items we had to have to connect to them. I still need to follow up with them. IT is only going to get more part of our lives, not less, so that’s something we need to work on. It’s been neglected over the years. If the Board wants to explore a different direction, but the big reason we looked at CCIT is because of the integration with CAD and all those types of items. Registration Fees we increased by $1,000.00 assuming some of these classes are going to become more expensive. Same thing with Lodging, Janitorial and Uniforms with small increases. Gasoline we increased by $5,000.00 since gas prices have gone up and we have more calls. EMS Supplies increased a little bit, especially  gloves have gone up about 400-500%. Insurance increased $1,000.00, we haven’t heard back on a cost. This is the general overview of the Operating Budget. - Schaefer said when you come with a budget that’s relatively flat like that, with a potential for an upside based on conservative revenue. - Maloney said it’s turned a course for sure. - Deputy Chief Finke asked is there anything you want us to tweak or leave it as is? - Schaefer said I think what you need to do is tweak it to the point with the actual number, figure out what the actual is and you can get those numbers done to real amounts. - Deputy Chief Finke said Capital with IT Equipment, we need a new printer, the one that is at Station 1 is very old and EO Johnson said it cannot be supported anymore. We have found another printer through Marco, nothing fancy and very similar to the one we have except it can print color. - Battalion Chief Lang said the color is helpful for Chief Savage and the MABAS cards which are in color and helpful at an Incident Command standpoint that would give the Incident Commander how quickly do we need to call for the resources. - Deputy Chief Finke said two new laptops for myself and EMS Division Chief Bechel and two Toughbook’s for the IT Equipment. Turnout Gear, we replace a few sets of them every year. They expire every 10 years and we have to replace them. Also replacing helmets and boots. EMS Equipment for two ultrasound machines for cardiac arrest. Furnishings for recliners, which we bought cheap ones and they’re starting to fall apart. Communication Equipment, this is a big one with radios, which is a disaster with 3 different models and it’s difficult to maintain. Ambulance Remount which is up for a little bit of discussion, right now our Interfacility Ambulance is roughly at 120,000 – 130,000 miles on it. So, the plan like we’ve always talked about is to remount that ambulance and technically it could wait until 2023, the problem is in 2023 the 5-year budget plan has the Ladder Truck to be replaced in 2023 and we don’t want to add anything more to that year. That will be for discussion next year, but this is why the ambulance remount is on this year’s budget and it probably wouldn’t get done until the end of the year. - Maloney asked does any of the new equipment have the actual SAFER emblem on it? - Deputy Chief Finke said it’s South Area Fire District. It’s the same emblem we’ve had for several years. - Maloney said I don’t know if we’re telling our story. - Deputy Chief Finke said we can redo it anyway you want, but obviously it’s expensive. - Maloney said maybe we should talk about that. We’ve talked about the buildings, there is nothing on the buildings. - Schaefer said it says Weston on the building. - Maloney said it says Rib Mountain on yours. You have five doors on both sides of that building and we have five doors here. I could see SAFER eight feet high on every one of those doors in red and you’re going to be surprised when you see this building. - Opall said what you’re saying is on the emblem maybe in smaller letters Weston and Rib Mountain. - Maloney said that is something that I would like to do on this end. I think it’s important that we tell our story, we have a mutual agreement with other municipalities but we’re not telling that story here. EMPD has it with three and SAFER has it with two. It’s a big deal and on this sign when we get it done, I want to have the Village of Weston and Town of Rib Mountain right on it. So, people understand that we have a mutual agreement in ownership together. Not on the trucks, but on the buildings it would be nice. We never hear SAFER in the media, if you look at the ambulance where would you get SAFER from, you would get this whole District thing. It would be neat to have a shield with SAFER on it. We’re selling the brand, and if we’re marketing the other communities to buy in that is going to be a key element. It’s just a thought. - Opall said on the side of the trucks there is nothing wrong with identity. - Deputy Chief Finke said the Battalion 1 Chase Car right now we have two ex-Police vehicles, one runs as Battalion 1 and one runs as Medic 1. They’re starting to get expensive to maintain and they keep on having problems and about 120,000 – 130,000 miles on each. What we found is that Fire Marshal Christiansen drives a Ford F-150 for his Inspection vehicle and every time we go to a fire, we have nowhere to put our dirty or frozen hose, so someone has to go back to the station to get Fire Marshal Christiansen’s truck. As we replace the Battalion cars, we want to replace them with pick-up trucks. When the Battalion Chiefs respond to the incident, they respond in a pick-up truck and then we’re going to have that truck there. The truck that we’re looking at is in the preliminary stages for the new F-150 Lightning electric truck. The part we like about it is  we want to have a Command post in the vehicle at the larger incidents and they have the Frunk, and because there is no engine the hood in the front is a trunk. In there is multiple power outlets and lights so we can have our iPad in there so you know which engines or ambulances you have responding and a direct connection to CAD and because of that battery you have all that power. You don’t need the noisy generator and you don’t need this or that. We didn’t get a quote back, we were supposed to get a quote back by now, but the $50,000.00 we think is a safe place holder right now. Fire Inspection Van like a Ford transit van, so the plan is the Fire Inspection F-150 would get bumped down to one of the Battalion vehicles. We are getting rid of two SUVs. - Schaefer said you should keep the $50,000.00 marker in there. - Deputy Chief Finke said for the Rescue Boat, right now we have a Fortuna boat which can be used for water rescue, it’s mainly for ice rescue. We also have the old red inflatable rescue boat in Rib Mountain. There was a rescue boat that Weston had that we sold at least 2 years ago, it was very old, we couldn’t keep air in it and the engine never ran. The problem we are running into is over the last 3 years we experience more and more kayak rescues, the other part of it is ice rescue. Our current boats cannot navigate or handle the rivers and lakes, especially when the rivers get lower, we can’t get our boat in there with the motor because we’re going to wreck it. We don’t have anything that can navigate the Eau Claire River which is where the vast majority of our water rescues come on. I think we’ve had more water rescues in the last three years than I had in the previous 17 years that I’ve been in the Fire Service, it’s very popular. - Schaefer asked what percentages of your water rescues come out of Weston verses Rib Mountain? - Deputy Chief Finke said I would say it’s about 95/5. - Maloney said I know this kayaking thing is getting big. Where do you put it, in somebody’s backyard? - Deputy Chief Finke said this type of vehicle is very mobile and can go over land or water. A big place we try to set up and work from is Iozzo’s/The Jig and now it’s a church and we can either go upstream or downstream, but it’s normally upstream. Obviously, we can go to (County Rd) J. This particular vehicle gives us a lot of flexibility because you can put it in almost anywhere and it’s very versatile for the types of rescues we’re doing whether it’s ice rescue, water rescue, swift water, whatever it may be. - Maloney asked where would we buy this from? - Deputy Chief Finke said there’s a place in Indiana, there’s very limited places that make these. - Maloney asked does anyone have one around here? - Deputy Chief Finke said no. - Maloney said we would probably get called a lot. - Deputy Chief Finke said we would probably get asked for mutual aid and it would be a good compliment to Wausau’s (Fire Department) airboat, because this can go places the airboat can’t and the airboat can go places that this would not be ideal for. Two weeks ago, up in Maine, us and Wausau were out searching for several hours. - EMS Division Chief Bechel said our boat struggled, the water was very high and fast for the boat that we have. - Deputy Chief Finke said the boat we have now only has a 15HP motor, if you’re up against a strong current it doesn’t keep up so well. - Battalion Chief Lang said we had a rescue about a month ago and the Battalion Chief on duty had to commandeer another boat because we couldn’t get the other boat to shore. - Schaefer said besides Maloney’s concern, I would debate this too because it’s a fancy piece of equipment and it’s expensive. You only need it for one to pay off and that’s the problem. I kayak myself and that’s why I don’t like to go on the Eau Claire (River), because you don’t know what you’re going to find or who you’re going to find. It’s like $370,000.00 worth of equipment. - Deputy Chief Finke said $367,000.00. - Schaefer asked how much are the previous amounts that you sold of equipment to apply to it? - Deputy Chief Finke said what the Chief had put in here and wanted to discuss with the Board tonight to see if you wanted to dip into those other numbers we looked at earlier in the Audit there was $137,525.00 in previous equipment that was sold, he didn’t put any of that in here because he didn’t know if you wanted to keep it. For the current boat that we sell, we think we could get $5,000.00 for it. Then he put down $8,000.00 for the sale of the two SUVs, I think that’s being very conservative and I think it could be closer to $12,000.00 to $14,000.00 and then we have one more ambulance to sell for this year’s budget. The other item he didn’t  put in is the chassis retiring from the old ambulance, that probably isn’t going to be worth much maybe $4,000.00 - $5,000.00. - White said I see in a couple of spots you mentioned that you could delay some of these items. - Deputy Chief Finke said the ambulance remount could get delayed, but then it’s going to make next year a little bit rough. Remember from 2 years ago we delayed for a year so now our backs are up against the wall, because other than the new one all of our ambulances are up there in miles. The one ambulance we have to make live another 3 or 4 years already has 130,000 – 140,000 miles on it. - Maloney said I think we leave a cushion in and whatever we’re going to do here, if we’re going to do it all or not at all. I’m sorry on the kayak thing, I think we should wait a year. I don’t know what to say there. - Battalion Chief Lang said one other comment I want to make on the boat, it’s a big safety issue for our people because we have to get in the water. From a technical rescue standpoint, the Fortuna boat the only way we can utilize that for swift water rescue is we have to set up a high line system and tie that boat in which takes a lot of time. Honestly there’s probably six of us on the department that even know how to do that. - EMS Division Chief Bechel said our current boat cannot be used on any lake at night because there’s no lights on it. - Deputy Chief Finke said this is not a bells and whistles machine, they only make two different models and this is the cheaper of the two and the other was $90,000.00. - Schaefer said sounds like we’re not sold on the hovercraft yet, but we’re not going to dismiss it. - Maloney said I made the point that we could put it off, but I stand corrected with what you said, and just because we didn’t buy the boat doesn’t mean you’re not going to go in there to try and save them. - Schaefer said I was going to suggest a better presentation on it. - Maloney said that’s a good point, can we wait one month? - Langenhahn said pictures? - Schaefer said maybe a video on it? I’m leaning toward getting this because I kayak and I understand and I don’t want to put the firefighters imperil. - Deputy Chief Finke said it’s extremely versatile and it’s fast. The big thing with these water type rescues and ice rescues is that it has to be fast and even in the winter time when a person falls through the water out by Blue Gill Bay, we have equipment to go out and get the person, but none of it is fast. We have to deploy multiple items, we have to get suits on, we have to get ropes out, we have to fill up the Fortuna boat, and we don’t have all that time. - Schaefer said the idea would be to come back with a finalized budget with fine-turned numbers and some sort of presentation on the boat like a video and we can take a look at it. Action: Direction to staff to fine-tune the numbers in the budget and a presentation on the boat. Discussion and possible action on Kronenwetter EMS Contract. - Deputy Chief Finke said EMS Division Chief Bechel has been working on getting the RFP together for Kronenwetter. It’s almost the same RFP as last time, they’re requesting bids for 1-year, 3-year, 5-year and 7- year contracts. We went through it today and have about 98% completed and we’re going to complete it on Thursday and it’s due on Friday. One of the items they ask is that we need a signature from Chairman Opall and Vice Chairman Maloney, that we’re authorized to put in a bid. Attorney Referral. - None. End of Month Budget review. - Deputy Chief Finke said the Ambulance Fees we just received another deposit for August and that brings it up to $927,055.00 for the year. We have four more payments that will come in 2021. - EMS Division Chief Bechel said the next payment might be slightly delayed, there were some issues with our patient care reporting system uploading into the billing system. They are working on getting it all caught up, but there might be a small delay. - Deputy Chief Finke said I’m anticipating a $200,000.00 to $250,000.00 over projected budget for ambulance revenue. Everything else looks good, a couple of those expenditure lines that we’re over on.  - White asked on your Outside Contracted Services for LifeQuest, they actually take their money before we get it? - Deputy Chief Finke said that is correct, if you look at the Ambulance Fees for the revenue, that is how much we collect total before they take their share out of it. Then their share comes out as an expense in that line 290. E. Staff Reports Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Fire Chief Finke said just a couple of things, we are doing Technical Rescue training this month and all three crews have done a lot of it already and I’ve been working with them as much as I possibly can. Tech Rescue is something that we probably do more of then anybody else in the area because of the quarry in Rib Mountain, and we have some risks over in the Village. We did some training at County Concrete last summer; they have their conveyor that they go up and do maintenance on and they have mixers and other equipment inside and confined spaces. We work together with Wausau (Fire Department) if we get anything major. Tomorrow we have a large tech rescue training up in the quarry in Rib Mountain with the Badger State Sheriff’s Association. They’re coming to Wausau this year for their annual training and one of the things they requested was technical rescue, not that their going to do technical rescue, but if they get in an incident, they want to know how they can help. Battalion Chief Lang is going to do a lecture tomorrow morning and then in the afternoon they’re going to come out with myself, the Chief and several other people are going to be up in the quarry and we’re going to be doing several exercises so they can come up and see. - Mostly for Opall and Schaefer, so you’re aware September 18th we’re doing a training burn on Orchid in Rib Mountain. Other than that, we have been very busy, July was our busiest month ever at SAFER from a call perspective. The crews have been doing a spectacular job F. Remarks from the Fire Commission to set the next meeting date as well as discuss items for the next meeting agenda. - Next meeting already scheduled for Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 17:00 at SAFER Station #1. - Jackan has nothing. - Phelps has nothing. - Tatro has nothing. - Hebbe has nothing. G. Adjourn – Fire Commission Motioned by Jackan to adjourn. Second by Tatro. Motion carried 4:0. Hebbe adjourned at 19:40 H. Business Items 19:45 Motion by Schaefer to adjourn to closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statute Section 19.85(1) (e) Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conduction other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session: Contract negotiations with Joint Service with the Village of Marathon and Fire Contract for the Town of Marathon. Second by Maloney. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Langenhahn X Maloney X Schaefer X White X Opall X Motion carried 5:0.  20:00 Motion by Langenhahn to return to open session. Second by White. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Langenhahn X Maloney X Schaefer X White X Opall X Motion carried 5:0. No action taken in open session after returning from closed session. I. Remarks from the Board of Directors to set the next meeting date as well as discuss items for the next meeting agenda. - Next meeting scheduled Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 18:00 at SAFER Station #1. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Maloney has nothing. - Schaefer has nothing. - White has nothing. - Opall has nothing. J. Adjourn Motion by Maloney to adjourn. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. Opall adjourned at 20:00