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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, December 13, 2022 @ 18:00 A. Call to Order The meeting of the South Area Fire & Emergency Response District Board of Directors was called to order at 18:04 by SAFER Chairman Mark Maloney. Members Present Board of Directors – Cronin, Langenhahn, Maloney and Opall (via Google Meet) were all present, Schaefer was absent and excused. Also present: Town of Rib Mountain – Administrator Rhoden (via Google Meet) and Finance Director Dunbar (via Google Meet); SAFER – Fire Chief Finke, Deputy Fire Chief Lang, Battalion Chief Genrich 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 November 10, 2022 and approval of expenditures and receipts from November 2022. Motioned by Cronin to approve prior meeting minutes from November 10, 2022 and expenditures and receipts from November 2022. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0. D. Business Items Discussion and possible action on Purchase of Ambulance. - Chief Finke said we have two bids which we will open up now. One is from Braun which we currently run and the other one is Osage. These are for full ambulance to replace a 2014 we currently have in service. If we order this ambulance today, we’re looking at a two year wait. - Deputy Chief Lang said Osage with a power load cot is $312,000.00. - Cronin asked would you keep the cot or get a new cot, what’s your preference? - Chief Finke said we always get new ones, they’re only supposed to have a life expectancy of eight years and in fact, Stryker won’t even work on them anymore if they’re older than that. - Deputy Chief Lang said Braun is $323,102.13. - Maloney asked is that with or without the cot? - Deputy Chief Lang said with. - Cronin asked what is the rest of the fleet right now? - Deputy Chief Lang said they’re all Braun. - Chief Finke said except for the one that this one is replacing. - Deputy Chief Lang said the long-term plan is we’re doing that on purpose so that we can re-chassis. Every ambulance we re-chassis will be half the cost or less than half the cost. - Langenhahn asked what kind of chassis? - Chief Finke said a Ford E-450 gas. - Maloney asked are the other ones the same?  - Chief Finke said we keep two truck chassis with the four-wheel drive, one at each station for weather like we have coming and then everything else is a van chassis. - Cronin asked how big of a difference layout wise, are they set up the same? - Chief Finke said yes, they would both be laid out the same. There are some minor differences here and they have them listed out. - Cronin said if we went with Braun, it would be exactly the same. - Chief Finke said yes, exactly the same. - Cronin said from a consistency stand point I’m going to be honest, I know it’s $10,000.00, but that’s the direction I’m leaning. - Maloney asked how tight are these bids? I don’t know what the protocol is, I just know in my world I can deal and I would say not good enough. - Chief Finke said I can try; we have a good working relationship with this company. - Deputy Chief Lang said we have a re-chassis that we’ve had on order since November last year. - Cronin asked how many times can you remount? - Chief Finke said when I picked up our last ambulance, they had one that was a 1986 box that was being remounted. I did ask the rep today if this price is locked in and they said for the module yes, meaning the part that Braun or Osage actually build, they will honor that price, but they cannot control the chassis price. If Ford bumps their prices up 10%, the chassis price will go up 10%. Action: Motioned by Cronin to approve the Purchase of the Braun Ambulance in an amount not to exceed $323,102.13. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0. Attorney Referral. - None End of Month Budget review. - Chief Finke said if anyone has any questions, we can certainly go over them. On the revenue side for EMS, there was a deposit made that is not reflected in here for approximately $102,000.00. We are obviously over on some lines, mostly because of price increases. - Cronin asked are we looking good for year end? - Chief Finke said yes, we should be $250,000.00 to the good. We’re going to be very close to on target as far as the budget goes, we might be a bit over, and we’re going to have more revenue than we had planned on. Another thing to look at really quick, if you look at the bottom line, keep in mind if you go back to line 15- 52200-139 Bonus Pay, that is actually ARPA money. Action: Motioned by Cronin to acknowledge the End of Month Budget. Second by Opall. Motion carried 4:0. E. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Fire Chief Finke said myself and Deputy Chief Lang went to a Chiefs meeting awhile back and one of the major discussions was about some of the departments getting trucks or having trucks on order and they’re getting these price increases either halfway along the way or when the truck is done. That got us talking and do I need to look into that contract that we just signed with Pierce on the ladder truck. I reached out to our salesman twice and he said Pierce has not done that to date. I’ve read the contract five times, but I haven’t sent it to the Attorney yet and to me it contradicts itself a little bit where one area it seems the price is locked in, but another area it has some fancy lingo where it seems like they could raise it if they needed to. I reached out to our salesman again and I said I’m looking for something firm that says can you increase this price and he hasn’t responded to me. I called directly to Pierce and it took them a couple days to get back to me and they called me back yesterday and they said they have no intention of doing that, we don’t want to do that, but they said yeah. o Maloney said we have to wait until that happens. That is two years from now. o Cronin asked do we have the option to add an addendum on our end to that contract. If there is an increase it can’t exceed a curtain percentage?  o Chief Finke said Deputy Chief Lang brought that up too and I didn’t ask that question. We can look into that. I wanted to make the Board aware and we don’t get two years into this and all of the sudden I need another $400,000.00. Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Fire Chief Lang said my report is in the packet. The bulk of this report is the personnel movements that we’ve had. - Personnel report: We finished an academy, and we hired two people who’ve worked out really well. Firefighter Schultz was promoted to Engineer on November 21st. We just ran a process in the middle of November and we hired two internals and one external. Firefighter Riesterer who chose us over Wausau (Fire Department) and he will be testing for his paramedic. The second was a little more difficult, we offered the job to one individual who chose Wausau (Fire Department) over us, so the second person on our list we offered it to who is an internal Firefighter Ewan and he has to complete paramedic which starts in January. We hired Glynn Novak who is an Engineer with the City of Stevens Point (Fire Department) and has been there for about 16 years and has been an Engineer for about 10 of those years and will start January 27th as the Captain on red shift. - EMS & Fire Incidents: EMS & Fire reports are there. We had a couple of chimney fires and a structure fire. - Training: Hours are there. - Apparatus: The truck is currently on the auction site. - Fire Prevention/Public Education: - Grants/Projects: F. Business Items 18:38 Motion by Cronin to move into closed session pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 19.85(1)(c) to considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility, to wit: 2022 annual review of the Fire Chief. Second by Langenhahn. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Cronin X Langenhahn X Maloney X Motion carried 3:0. 18:55 Motion by Langenhahn to convene into open session. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 3:0. Discussion and possible action on closed session agenda item. Action: Motioned by Maloney to increase the salary of the Fire Chief of SAFER Fire District by 6% for 2023. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 3:0. G. 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, February 22, 2023 at 17:30 at SAFER Station 1. - Cronin has nothing. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Maloney has nothing. H. Adjourn Motion by Langenhahn to adjourn. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 3:0. Maloney adjourned at 19:00