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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, September 14, 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 Vice Chairman Mark Maloney. Members Present Board of Directors – Langenhahn, Maloney, Schaefer and White were all present, Opall was absent and excused. Also present: Town of Rib Mountain – Finance Director Dunbar; Village of Weston – Administrator Donner and Deputy Finance Director Trittin; SAFER – Fire Chief Savage and Administrative Assistant Latimer, Deputy Fire Chief Finke and EMS Division Chief Bechel were attending the Village of Kronenwetter Board meeting and were absent and excused. 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 August 10, 2021. Motioned by White to approve prior meeting minutes from August 10, 2021. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0. Board of Directors approval of expenditures and receipts from August 2021. Motioned by Schaefer to approve expenditures and receipts from August 2021. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. D. Business Items Discussion and possible action on 2022 Operational Budget. - Chief Savage said the only change is we missed a payment to Marathon, which is a wash coming in and going out. It doesn’t change anything with the budget, but now it’s accounted for on the budget line as it should be. - Trittin said the revenue was budgeted before, but not the expense so you were under levying in a sense by the $11,818.62. - Chief Savage said depending on how things go tonight, we do have a plan in place if it doesn’t go in our favor, it would be about $63,000.00 to $70,000.00 if we don’t get the contract, which we can make up for in the budget by not bringing on the eighth person right away. We would wait till second or third quarter. - Maloney asked how much is that contract worth? - Chief Savage said it’s about $70,000.00. - Schaefer said there’s $42,000.00 in a fee, there’s $10,000.00 in other fees and you’re getting ambulance revenue. - Chief Savage said then it wouldn’t cost us as much with our billing company because they wouldn’t be processing those bills. We can refuse an intercept because it is not a primary service. For example, we refuse intercept requests now if there’s only one paramedic ambulance available in the district, so if two were out and a call comes in from Tigerton, we don’t take it because we maintain the coverage in the district. Most of the time those are for pain management, so we start an IV we give them fentanyl to feel better and we ride to the hospital with them. - White asked has both joint municipalities finance departments taken a look at this budget? - Dunbar said yes and I have a question, Trautman and I met with Deputy Chief Finke and Administrative Assistant Latimer a few weeks ago, and Deputy Chief Finke mentioned the Kronenwetter contract is roughly $140,000.00. So, are you netting out what the payments are? - Chief Savage said yes. - Maloney said would it be prudent to hold this off for a month until we find out what the (Kronenwetter) Board says tonight? - Chief Savage said then I can give you hard numbers based on everything. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to move to defer the 2022 Operational Budget to the next meeting. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. Discussion and possible action on 2022 – 2023 CIP Budget. - Chief Savage said both municipalities borrow in a two-year time span, so we put this on the agenda to talk about a two-year capital equipment purchasing. It’s the addition of next year and 2023, the breakdown of 2023 is the sticker shock of replacing an aerial (truck) and what we try to do is keep everything low because we still need radios, furnishings and turnout gear. Everything else deferred either a year before or a year after. - White asked what specifically is furnishings? - Chief Savage said desks, tables, chairs and office chairs. - Maloney asked which station? - Chief Savage said both, some of that is the recliner chairs that we rotate them out. We are looking at more of the industrial kind. - Maloney said look at Franklin, they are made in America and they’re in the high-end RVs, fifth wheels and buses. It’s not the highest end, but it’s a really good brand. The furnishings for station 2 has already happened on the remodel, correct? - Chief Savage said correct, other than the lounge chairs which are on CIP for next year. - White said a question on Truck 11, and I know this has been asked before many times, lease to purchase has that been researched? - Chief Savage said we haven’t researched anything as far as the ladder truck yet, simply because I didn’t think we would talk about it at this budget cycle. - Rescue Hovercraft Presentation. - Schaefer said $5150.00 for two people to get trained, there’s a trailer, shipping, the engine upgrade. - Maloney said versus what? - Chief Savage said versus 50HP. The 50HP is not fuel injected and the 65HP is fuel injected, so it’s a 50HP carbureted engine. - White said what would be the plan for the boats that we do have. Still keep them? - Chief Savage said I have it in the budget to sell that one. - White said why not keep one? - Langenhahn asked what is that worth? - Chief Savage said maybe $6,000.00 for the boat, motor and trailer. 10 years old and less than 30 hours on it. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to approve 2022 – 2023 CIP Budget including the amounts listed for 2023. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. Discussion and possible action on 2022 CIP Budget. Action: None due to previous business item being approved. Discussion and possible action on Fire Safety House. - Chief Savage said it’s sitting at station 2 and it was fantastic when we got it and we own it. It’s over 15 years old and we don’t use it like we used to, we would take it to schools and schools just don’t operate that way anymore. We didn’t have it at the Open House this year and no one seemed to miss it. It’s going to need a new roof soon. We got it on a grant and we put 10% into it which is roughly $3,000.00. We would like to put it on the auction website. Action: Motioned by White to dispose of the Fire Safety House however you want. Second by Schaefer. Motion carried 4:0.  Discussion and possible action on Audit RFP. - Chief Savage said the RFP is in the packet. - Dunbar said it is almost the same as the one that you sent out 3 years ago. - Chief Savage said it is updated, but I did just note that we need to update the total revenue and year. We are looking to send this out for audit for 2021 audit. - White said the question I have, under item 5 is C. do we still utilize that? - Chief Savage said no, that’s a good catch. The only thing I did not include in here, that we did last time, is the list of the people that we are going to send it to. Action: Motioned by Schaefer subject to those suggestions to go forward with the RFP. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0. Discussion and possible action on Fiscal Agent Payments. - Schaefer asked do you guys get along? - Dunbar said yes. - Maloney said when we had that discussion last time, you just wonder how it’s going and that’s good. So, both entities get along, that’s great. - Dunbar said we made our proposal as municipalities jointly we’re going to do the fiscal agent work and at the time Wipfli was charging about $30,000.00 a year. So for 2020, we said we are going to use that to cover the cost of the software, plus the cost of Wipfli doing the final audit of 2020. Now we go into 2021, part of that proposal was that the $30,000.00 would be paid monthly by SAFER to the municipalities at $2,500.00 a month. It was never deemed at what rate, what area. The idea of leaving that $30,000.00 in the budget was in case we ever go back to third party or SAFER grows to the point they have their own fiscal, it’s already in the budget and we’re not having to add something that big back in later on. - Maloney said the percentage, I thought in good faith we would stay at 50/50. - White said if a municipality is doing more, that they would bring it to us. - Schaefer said and right now are we being paid? - Dunbar said no, this year we did not. We need to know this going forward because we’re planning our budget. - Maloney said the ask is to us? Let’s throw it back to you (Fiscal Agents), what do you two think? - Dunbar said it’s a hard item, I struggle with the fact of the exact same question, do we really want to pay ourselves? We’re already paying part of the expenses, so it’s that weird accounting stuff again where we have to show the expense line and we also have to show the revenue line. - Maloney asked what kind of work is it on both? - White asked how much does it take out of your duties as a financial person for the Town and the Village? Is it really involved, is it sporadically? - Dunbar said I don’t think it’s to the level that we anticipated. - Maloney asked higher or lower? - Dunbar said it’s lower than we anticipated. Latimer does a fair number here; we’re gathering the monthly items that need to happen when the revenues come in, the journal entries more so. But the in and out and the payments or the receipting are taken care of here. - Trittin said the alternative would be to keep that $30,000.00 in a contingency and not pay it out at all and just keep it in the budget. The municipalities keep paying for it and they kind of get it back, it’s kind of a wash. We do the same thing with EMPD, we’re their fiscal agent and they budget for that and we bill them for that. - Schaefer said here’s a thought, we don’t want to go down to $0.00 because if we ever go back, that’s a big hit. We don’t necessarily need the revenue coming to Weston and coming to us (Rib Mountain), because we’re just paying ourselves. Instead of taking $30,000.00, putting it in a fiscal agent fund and it sits there and we can spend it as we want or we go down to $20,000.00 that way the budget comes down by $10,000.00 and if we do have to go back it’s a hit of $10,000.00 instead of a hit of $30,000.00. - Maloney said I’m fine with that. - Schaefer said we just saved ourselves $10,000.00 on the budget. Put $20,000.00 and we’ll mark that in to a fund called Accounting Services. That will be whatever we want to use in the future and at some point, we’re  buying a truck we can say 3 years later there’s $60,000.00 and we didn’t use it, let’s put it toward a truck. Anything but operational, we can use it on a software update or a new computer. Action: Motioned by Schaefer create Accounting Services fund and put $20,000.00 per year in. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0 Discussion and possible action on Policy for Sale of Capital Equipment. - Chief Savage said this all came to head because we sell a truck, we put that into capital revenue fund, but what do we do with it? - Dunbar said right now you have it in your operational. We’re talking about when you bought a capital item, you sell it we believe that money should go back into your capital fund. Then it will offset the expense in the future on the next capital item. - Maloney asked it can still sit there though? - Chief Savage said yes. - Trittin said if you have a lot of sales of equipment next year, you can put that towards your truck to reduce what the municipalities pay. - Schaefer said this would be a SOP. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to direct staff to draft a SOP on Sale of Capital Equipment funds received go into Capital Equipment fund. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. Attorney Referral. - None. End of Month Budget review. - Chief Savage this is updated numbers as on 9.9.21, on the revenue side the good thing is that we are definitely projecting a revenue at the end of the year. - White said does the Board have a plan for that? Is it going to go into reserves? - Schaefer said it would go into the general fund and stay there. Right now, we have a general fund deficit of $275,000.00 and I think this would eliminate this general fund balance. E. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Chief Savage said things have been really good, we are burning a house hopefully, but the weather is not looking good for the training burn. We invited Kronenwetter and Mosinee and no one is sending anybody. - Also Deputy Chief Finke and EMS Division Chief Bechel are at Kronenwetter and the Board is still in closed session. F. 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 Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 18:00 at Village of Weston Municipal Courtroom. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Maloney has nothing. - Schaefer has nothing. - White has nothing. G. Adjourn Motion by Langenhahn to adjourn. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. Maloney adjourned at 19:39