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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Thursday, October 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 18:01 by SAFER Chairman Al Opall. Members Present Board of Directors – Maloney, Opall, Schaefer and White were all present, Langenhahn was absent and excused. Also present: Town of Rib Mountain – Finance Director Dunbar; Village of Weston – Administrator Donner and Director of Finance Trautman; SAFER – Fire Chief Savage, Deputy Fire Chief Finke, Battalion Chief Lang and Administrative Assistant Latimer. 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 September 14, 2021. Motioned by Maloney to approve prior meeting minutes from September 14, 2021. Second by Schaefer. Motion carried 4:0. Board of Directors approval of expenditures and receipts from September 2021. Motioned by White to approve expenditures and receipts from September 2021. Second by Schaefer. Motion carried 4:0. D. Business Items Discussion and possible action on 2022 Operational Budget. - Chief Savage said the bottom line hasn’t changed with the loss of Kronenwetter. Items were reshuffled around. - Schaefer asked what did you shuffle? - Deputy Chief Finke said the biggest line where money was taken out was line 290 Outside Contracted Services for the EMS Billing. We talked to our contact at LifeQuest, we asked how much did we have for Kronenwetter last year and I know the cheapest they bill is 6% and we took that number out of line 290. We took a little bit out of 392 EMS Supplies since we will obviously be using less supplies. I worked with our EMS Division Chief Bechel and figured out how much we spend per call, multiplied it times the number of calls we go to Kronenwetter and took that amount out of there. I believe I bumped fuel down either $500.00 or $1,000.00, it was very minimal. We took out their revenue they pay for their annual fee which was roughly $38,000.00 and took out the amount of money that comes in for EMS revenue. We balanced it out to make the bottom line, so we added money into EMS revenue and to line 46230 to make the budget balance. Then we also took some money out of line 125 Part Time Wages-Regular because we’re going to delay the eighth person on the one shift. We’re still on track to be about $200,000.00 above this year what we had budgeted for EMS revenue. - Maloney said we were taking out those interfacility transfers, did those recently start or have those always been a revenue stream? - Deputy Chief Finke said we’ve been doing those for 10 years at least. Our 911 calls are up close to 400 calls this year already. - Schaefer said if you take out Kronenwetter and add back in what you’re seeing extra, are you going to balance out? - Deputy Chief Finke said we will, we talked about that too, if we would’ve lost Kronenwetter last year our run volume would’ve still been up even without them. - Schaefer said I love interfacility transfers because they generate revenue, but it’s hard for you to do them with 911 calls. Will you have more ability to do that because you’re not running to Kronenwetter? - Chief Savage said technically yes, but Kronenwetter is about 10% of our call volume overall. We’re going to start taking intercept calls out of Station #1, which would’ve been primarily the response for Kronenwetter. - Schaefer said the original budget had the eighth person, now we’re delaying that to help balance this budget. That means next year, what will be the delta we need to come up with day one because the question is, I understand what you’re doing, but we’re putting ourselves in a hole next year with “X” what is that next year? - Deputy Chief Finke said that number is fairly minimal which is right around $12,000.00. - Chief Savage said the ultimate goal is to get eight people on all shifts. - Schaefer said has this been looked at by the Fiscal Agents? - Trautman said it has and we have something to add, we know we are looking at big Capital for next year and with that we would like to use the levy limit worksheet line where we can increase our levy for a joint fire district. Knowing that next year with the potential large purchase, it would bump us out of using that for next year. We are hoping to be able to add onto the budget about $390,000.00 so the budget this year for Capital would be $390,000.00 higher and then next year it would be $390,000.00 lower. Adding this to the budget, it’s a Capital item so, it would be part of the borrowing and if the municipalities don’t pay the budget, it’s okay, but we need it in the budget. The State doesn’t look at your actual, they look at your budget. - Schaefer said when they do the levy limit adjustment based on a joint fire, they look at the budget and they don’t care if you borrowed for it or otherwise. - Trautman said they should, that’s where the State is faulting, they’re including the budget in this calculation. It should solely be the amount that’s assessed to the levy, but they’re including the debt. Unless we want to treat these large purchases differently, we need to do this to so we can use the line. That’s the item I’d like to add to this budget for consideration. - Schaefer said that would go to the Capital budget though. - Deputy Chief Finke said which was approved at the last meeting. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to approve the 2022 Operational Budget as presented. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. Discussion and possible action on Fee Schedule. - Chief Savage said this was brought forward after some discussion on Intercept fees, right now it’s at $150.00 and that’s been unchanged since we started doing Intercepts. Actually, when we first started it was $50.00 and we rapidly realized that was not going to pay anything, so we bumped it up to $150.00 and it’s been that way for probably 10 years. - Schaefer asked how many intercepts do you get? - Deputy Chief Finke said a couple hundred a year. - Chief Savage said I’d say 250-300 a year, without EMS Division Chief Bechel being here, off the top of my head I’m not positive. - Deputy Chief Finke said it’s guaranteed money, because we bill the service not the patient. - Schaefer asked do we have to have an agreement with the service? - Deputy Chief Finke said we do. - Schaefer asked do we have an agreement with Kronenwetter? - Chief Savage said it wouldn’t be for Kronenwetter, it would be for Riverside. - Deputy Chief Finke said which we do have an agreement with them currently. - Schaefer asked does it stay at $150.00 or does it stay pursuant to our schedule agreement? - Deputy Chief Finke said I should have looked at one of those today, if I remember right, the Intercept contract gives us a 90 day out. - Opall asked what would you like to raise it to? - Chief Savage said we talked about this and my recommendation is going from $150.00 to $225.00. I would like to wait on the rest of the Fee Schedule till we hear back from the EMS Billing company. - Deputy Chief Finke said they go out to all the different services and get numbers put together and they put a schedule together of what they think we should be billing based on what everyone else is billing. - Schaefer said I have a couple thoughts, I don’t have a problem with the $225.00 right now, the way you would do this is the contract line, just amend the contract for the Intercepts. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to approve going to $225.00 on the Fee Schedule for Intercepts. Second by White. Motion carried 4:0. Discussion and possible action on credit balance with 5 Alarm Fire Equipment. - Deputy Chief Finke said this is for some air packs we sold back to them 2 years ago, when we took the rescue truck out of service. 5 Alarm bought those packs from us, and gave us a credit on their account, at the time the direction from the Board was the leave it there. 5 Alarm reached out to us and said we don’t carry this much money on our books for you forever, not that they would take it away, but would really prefer you spend it somewhat soon. - White said cut us a check. - Deputy Chief Finke said they won’t do that. - Schaefer asked how much is it? - Deputy Chief Finke said $20,859.60. There are some items in Capital for I believe 2023, thermal imager cameras are one of the big items that would be a target for that at about $15,000.00 to $17,000.00. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to approve the 5 Alarm Fire Equipment $20,859.60 credit by purchasing items that would be purchased anyway in 2023 and beyond. Second by Maloney. Motion carried 4:0. Attorney Referral. - None. End of Month Budget review. - Schaefer asked how many more payments are we getting from our EMS collector? - Deputy Chief Finke said our Ambulance Fees there will be two more deposits, November and December. - Schaefer said and we’re already at budget. Looks like you’re pulling in $122,000.00 a month? - Deputy Chief Finke said right around $120,000.00 to $125,000.00, it’s been steady for the last four or five months. - Schaefer said you’re looking at $240,000.00 over on revenue. 18:53 Motion by Schaefer to adjourn to closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statute Section 19.85(1) (f) Preliminary consideration of specific personnel matter, if discussed in public would be likely to have an adverse effect upon the reputation of any person involved in such personnel matter: Including discussion regarding performance concerns by department employees. Second by Maloney. Roll-call Vote: NAME: Aye Nay Maloney X Schaefer X White X Opall X Motion carried 4:0. 19:42 Motion by Schaefer to return to open session. Second by White. Roll-call Vote:  NAME: Aye Nay Maloney X Schaefer X White X Opall X Motion carried 4:0. No action taken in open session after returning from closed session. E. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Chief Savage said my wife has Covid and I’m waiting on my test to come back. We have a Battalion Chief out with Covid. - We burned the house on Orchid, it went really well and the weather that day was perfect. - NTC has reached out to us within the last couple of weeks and we are now excepting NTC students back at SAFER. They are Paramedic students doing ride-a-longs. - I went to the Town’s Association conference and talked to a few people in the fire service. Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Chief Finke said Braun Ambulance has asked if we could have the ambulance that we got from them three months ago, if they could have that at the Wisconsin EMS Convention that is coming up here in two weeks to Rothschild. They asked if they could have our ambulance on display there, and they will detail it inside and out. We have one more ambulance we are waiting for and our rep is trying to get Braun to knock off $500.00 or $1,000.00. - Talking about Covid and the possible mandatory Covid vaccine for employers who receive funding from Medicare and Medicaid would have to have all their employees vaccinated. We probably need to prepare for I think in the next 60 to 90 days we’re probably going to be forced to have 100% of our people vaccinated. The problem with that is we have one full time employee that is already looking for a new job and there’s potentially two others. 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 Tuesday, November 9, 2021 at 18:00 at SAFER Station #1. - Maloney said under the check ledger we have a name in there, but can we categorize i.e., lunch, dinner, hotel etc. like a charge to Factory Outlet Store, what was it for? - Chief Savage said those were Open House supplies. - Maloney said just to have a category on the credit card purchases. - Deputy Chief Finke said they are categorized under the GL Account number, if you look at the CMC Rescue 15-52200-340-000, the 340 is our catchall firefighter supply fund. - White said question on the voided checks, there seems to be a lot of them. What’s going on there? - Administrative Assistant Latimer said I had put the blank checks into the printer, hit print and Deputy Chief Finke had printed his work just before me on the checks. All the checks had to be voided and reprinted. - Opall has nothing. - Schaefer has nothing. - White has nothing. G. Adjourn Motion by Schaefer to adjourn. Second by Maloney. Motion carried 4:0. Opall adjourned at 19:49