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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, July 12, 2022 @ 17:30 A. Call to Order The meeting of the South Area Fire & Emergency Response District Board of Directors was called to order at 17:30 by SAFER Chairman Mark Maloney. Members Present Board of Directors – Cronin, Langenhahn, Maloney, Opall and Schaefer were all present. Also present: Town of Rib Mountain – Finance Director Dunbar; SAFER – Fire Chief Finke, Deputy Fire Chief Lang, EMS Division Chief Bechel, Fire Marshal Christiansen, Captain Zellner 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 June 14, 2022 and expenditures and receipts – June 2022. Motioned by Schaefer to approve prior meeting minutes from June 14, 2022 and expenditures and receipts from June 2022. Second by Opall. - Cronin said I have a question and it’s more just my curiosity, I saw an item on there for a recliner for $4,000.00. - Chief Finke said that was for eight of them through DreamSeat. Motion carried 5:0. D. Business Items Discussion and possible action on the Procurement Policy for ARPA funds purchases. - Chief Finke said Dunbar and Trautman wanted this brought back, so we are following federal requirements that we have this policy in place. I believe this is the one that came from the Village. - Dunbar said yes, and I wish Trautman was here so I could ask, but page nineteen of the overall packet, #2 mentions police department and I don’t know if we missed replacing that. - Cronin said in 4.0 #3 and #4 the word vendors is spelled wrong. Also question on 5.0 #4, do we have to draw lots in public? - Dunbar said this policy came from Weston; this would be a Trautman question. Action: Motioned by Schaefer subject to correcting the word vendor and taking out the reference to police, move to approve the Procurement Policy for ARPA funds purchases. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 5:0. Presentation of 2022-2026 Strategic Plan and District Employee Survey. - Chief Finke we did a Strategic Plan shortly after I was initially hired here and we did an employee survey at that time. That Strategic Plan ran its course, so we did another one. There was a group of about eight people that wanted to be part of the committee. I will briefly go through the main five-year goals and strategies that  we came up with, unless anyone has questions. IT is something that we definitely have to look at, I personally don’t want to go with the big companies. - Maloney said what if we do the same thing with IT, maybe do something else but keep it within ourselves. Just like the HR thing, that’s not gone, we’re pushing for that. - Chief Finke said I have been talking to a person that provides service to Mosinee Fire. We have reached out to CCIT, multiple times and they came an went through the buildings and took down all the computer information and they never got us a bid, even though I asked for it four different times. Physical and mental health was talked about the most. We talked about a peer support team and we’re looking into that. A Chaplain for the fire district that we’ve been actively trying to get for over 90 days and we can’t find anyone that is willing to help. Officer development for Lieutenants, Captains, Battalion Chiefs and above and Deputy Chief Lang has already started that process with inhouse officer development program and we’re in the process of adding an educational lab for fire officers and we’re going to develop a similar EMS type training lab. Employee retention and the pay study we’re going to be talking about later on in the meeting. Education on retirement especially for the younger staff. Community risk reduction is going to take the most effort and will take years, Deputy Chief Lang and I are going to work on standard of cover which is a large document that is going to assess the needs of the community and the type of coverage we need. Staffing shortages, we looked at ways to try and improve staffing. Then we have the survey in here with 75% of the members competing the survey. - Schaefer said you have taken this twice; I think it’s important to take it yearly and then track those numbers on how we’re doing. Stick with the same questions and get a roll-up score. - Cronin asked in the beginning part of this survey there was a lot of fours and fives and a few questions in relation to the officers where we had a lot of twos and threes, is there anything we can do? - Chief Finke said we already started on that and talked about in the officer meeting. The weak spot was definitely the officer group. Opening of Ladder Truck bids. - Chief Finke said we received two, we sent them out to four agencies of Pierce, Sutphen, Rosenbauer and Seagrave. We received bids from Pierce and Seagrave. Pomasl Fire Equipment out of Anitgo is the dealer and it’s a Pierce Apparatus that is built in Appleton. Kevin Pomasl told me when he dropped this off yesterday, he quoted two trucks, two different chassis but the same body one is called the Velocity and one is called the Enforcer. The Velocity is a little bit more of an expensive chassis, when we sent these specs out, we made them as generic as possible the chassis and the body of the trucks are built to be very robust, but the accessories outside of that were extremely minimal and then my plan was based upon the proposals, I was going to ask the Board to give us between $50,000.00 - $100,000.00 to add on items because we didn’t have them add on generators, scene lights and those types of things. The Pierce bid for the Velocity is $1,268,798.00 and the Enforcer is $1,238,224.00. The Seagrave bid is $1,829,090.00 Discussion and possible action on Ladder Truck bids. - Schaefer asked is there any reason whatsoever not reading the bids why we would not go with a Pierce? - Chief Finke said no. - Opall said so you gave us two figures on Pierce, of the two chassis which one fits your needs the best? - Chief Finke said this is the piece of apparatus that we keep the longest, when we talked to both of these vendors, we told them that we wanted a truck that was simple so it’s easy to maintain, but we need a very solid chassis, so I will personally recommend the Velocity which gives you more cab room. - Dunbar asked do you remember what you put down for borrowing on that? - Chief Finke said $1.4 (million) is what we had budgeted. We were actually hanging on to a little bit of the ARPA money, because we assumed Pierce was going to come in at $1.4 - $1.5 and Seagrave was going to be $1.6, so Pierce came in a little bit cheaper than we expected. My request is we purchase the Pierce with the Velocity chassis, I would like to ask for some extra money on top of that to add some of those extra pieces of equipment like scene lighting and a generator and not to exceed $1,368,000.00. The price of the bid is valid for 60 days. - Maloney said I would look for an Act of God clause. - Schaefer said it’s also called a Force Majeure.  Action: Motioned by Opall to approve the purchase of the Pierce Velocity and not to exceed $1,368,000.00. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 5:0. Opening of Billing Services bids. - Chief Finke said we sent these out to five EMS Billing vendors and we only got one back, from LifeQuest which is who we have now. We are at 6% right now. Discussion and possible action on Billing Services bids. - Deputy Chief Lang said they dropped to 5.75%. - Chief Finke said I’m trying to look for it, but I assume this will lock us in for 3 years. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to approve the Billing Services bid from LifeQuest. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 5:0. Discussion on findings of wage study. - Deputy Chief Lang said the way we conducted this study is the Wisconsin State Fire Chiefs Association puts together a spreadsheet of all the different departments of the state. The first part of the memo is the history and currently where we’re at. Currently Firefighters at starting wages are making $42,952.00, Lieutenants start at $48,048.00, Captains are making almost $60,000.00 a year, then it goes through what our Battalion Chief wage is, Administrative Assistant wage, EMS Division Chief wage and so forth. The wage study showed the average starting salary for firefighters without Engineer responsibilities to be $58,652/yr. currently we pay them $42,952/yr., Engineer average over $60,000/yr. currently we pay them $51,018/yr., Lieutenant average $66,235/yr. and we’re paying $48,048/yr., Captain average $79,302/yr. we’re paying $59,987/yr., Battalion Chief the average was $71,674 - $84,395/yr. and we’re paying $62,608 - $74,256/yr. Administrative Assistant average was $25.92/hr. and currently $17.50/hr. - Maloney said and Administrative Assistant Latimer started at part-time and is now full-time? - Deputy Chief Lang said no, Administrative Assistant Latimer is at part-time working around 30 hours a week. - Maloney said by choice? - Administrative Assistant Latimer said I could be full-time. - Chief Finke said we didn’t budget for full-time. - Deputy Chief Lang said Administrative Assistant Latimer’s role has expanded a lot. The Division Chief and Fire Marshal were very difficult to nail down because departments don’t have them. The Deputy Fire Chief was also difficult because some departments title would be Assistant Fire Chief. The Fire Chief was set by the Board. - Schaefer said I appreciate it being rolled out; we have to sit with this a little bit. Plus, I’d like to see this spreadsheet with the existing wage, just add another column. - Maloney asked how did you determine the 15% pay range? - Deputy Chief Lang said when we were looking at the ranges that were in the study, the committee felt 15% would be appropriate, so if you’re getting 3% raises it would take you 5 years to get there, if you’re getting 2% raises it would take you 7 years to get there. One of the things we want is to encourage people to try to promote every 6 to 7 years, so that would be in that range to get towards the top and try to promote into a different job class. - Cronin said you’re proposing a 6% for those with a paramedic license and 2% for Advanced EMT, so right now with everybody who is employed, if we gave that, what kind of number are we looking at yearly? - Chief Finke said I ran the numbers employee by employee and the numbers I came up with the wage increase and extra WRS costs we will be right around $65,000.00 to $66,000.00 a year. - Schaefer said everybody? - Deputy Chief Lang said yes, that’s the entire department. - Maloney said can we go back to the 15%, we just did this in our company and we’re at 30% within a range and that’s a tested amount. I just don’t understand the 15%, is that in other departments? - Chief Finke said the City of Wausau was 15% when I worked there, it may be different by now. - Maloney said my point is, if they don’t advance, they could top out and now they sit. - Deputy Chief Lang said they would still get a merit increase but would be paid out as a bonus. - Schaefer said when you get to the top, you’ve been recognized and it’s time to move up, but there are people who are very satisfied with just coming in everyday and doing a confident job and not wanting to be a leader. - Chief Finke said a lot of our higher employees are right where they need to be, the Battalion Chiefs would get a raise of about $4,000.00, the biggest raise goes to the three Captains of $11,000.00 and the firefighter/EMTs across the whole district would see a raise of about $17,000.00. EMS Division Chief Bechel started to allude to this before, the 15% we also have to look at the issues of wage compression, if we allow a firefighter to have a 25% increase on their base pay, then the starting pay for an Engineer is going to have to be higher to make them promote into it. - Deputy Chief Lang said part of the consideration we made in these wages is the Chief’s wage was decided on, so we worked down from there. - Cronin asked how does this effect the budget for next year? - Chief Finke said there’s a lot of moving parts to the budget, but it would add up to $65,000.00. - Schaefer asked is there any way to test this without spending a lot of money? - Deputy Chief Lang said the one thing that we could do is get some Union contracts and we could look at what their percent is and their contracts. - Schaefer said add the column that shows the current. - Maloney said would it change it a lot if you add the 25%, not 30% range. Leave the 15% there. - Deputy Chief Lang said I can extend this and show what 25% to the top would be. Action: No action taken. Attorney Referral. - None. End of Month Budget review. - Chief Finke said we’re right on target and we’re on track to be just a little bit over on salaries and I figured right around $20,000.00 - $30,000.00 and we should come in really close to on target. We are budgeted to be over on ambulance revenue about $500,000.00, we can possibly safely budget more money in our anticipated EMS revenue for 2023. - Schaefer asked how much are interfacility transports? - Chief Finke said I don’t know the answer for sure, it’s hard to track. - Schaefer said the ambulance revenue I think has a lot to do with the combination of different things including interfacility, and if that goes away next year, we always have to be weary about that because it could go away next year. 19:06 Motion by Opall to adjourn to closed session pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 19.85(1)(e) Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session: Discussion on future District Expansion. Second by Cronin. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Cronin X Langenhahn X Maloney X Opall X Schaefer X Motion carried 5:0. 19:48 Motion by Schaefer to return to open session. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 5:0. No action taken in open session after returning from closed session. E. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Fire Chief Finke has nothing. Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Fire Chief Lang has nothing. 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 Wednesday, August 10, 2022 at 17:30 at Village of Weston Municipal Courtroom Conference Room. - Cronin has nothing. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Opall has nothing. - Schaefer has nothing. - Maloney has nothing. G. Adjourn Motion by Opall to adjourn. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. Maloney adjourned at 19:52