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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, June 13, 2023 @ 17:30 A. Call to Order The meeting of the South Area Fire & Emergency Response District Board of Directors was called to order at 17:31 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 – Administrator Rhoden (via Zoom), Finance Director Dunbar (via Zoom); Village of Weston – Director of Finance Trautman; SAFER – Fire Chief Finke, Deputy Fire Chief Lang, Battalion Chief McBain, Captain Klapoetke (via Zoom), Captain Lohman (via Zoom), Lieutenant Zellner (via Zoom), Engineer Schultz (via Zoom) 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 May 9, 2023, and approval of expenditures and receipts from May 2023. Motioned by Schaefer to approve prior meeting minutes from May 9, 2023, and expenditures and receipts from May 2023. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 5:0. D. Business Items Election of SAFER Board of Directors Chair and Vice Chair. - Schaefer said in the past when I first got on here, what we did was we rotated between Rib Mountain and Weston, then you (Maloney) came in and did a very nice job and we appreciate it. Do we want to continue that rotation? - Maloney said the rotation is fine with me, if it goes back to Opall, I’m fine, or if you want me to take one more year, I’m fine. - Opall said how about two and two? Action: Motion by Schaefer to nominate Maloney as Chair and Opall as Vice Chair. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 5:0. Election of At-Large Fire Commissioner. - Chief Finke said this would be for Mr. Phelps. Action: Motion by Schaefer to nominate Phelps as the At-Large Fire Commissioner. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. Discussion and possible action on Ladder Truck purchase. - Chief Finke said this is follow up from the last meeting and my memo is in the packet. I have nothing to add to that, except last night I got an email and Pierce has another option for us and is a 75’ aluminum ladder  truck with no platform on a cheaper chassis, with a smaller engine and would have a total price of $1,069,424.00 which is $281,603.00 cheaper than the platform. - Opall asked how many stories will that service? - Chief Finke said it has about a 68’ reach, so about 5-6 stories. - Opall said a solid 5 stories. - Chief Finke said yes. - Schaefer asked what is our tallest building in the two districts? - Chief Finke said it’s St. Claire’s and the Hilton are all fairly close to each other. - Maloney asked how tall? - Chief Finke said 5 stories. - Maloney said because Everest (Sports Complex) will be 79’. How wide would a building have to be? If you go out to Wausau Supply, that is one massive building. - Chief Finke said with some of these large buildings, and we show up with six crew members at Wausau Supply, we have bigger problems if we have a ladder truck or not. - Deputy Chief Lang said the biggest difference between the four trucks besides the length of the ladder, is the tip load. The truck we have on order right now has a 1,000-pound tip load with the water charged, where the 75’ will have a 500-pound tip load with the water charged and you’ll only have one crew member on the ladder instead of having two. - Maloney asked how much does the water weight account for? - Chief Finke said 8 pounds a foot. - Deputy Chief Lang said the other thing is the wind load, the truck we ordered you can operate in a wind of 50 MPH, where these other trucks can handle 35 MPH. - Cronin said I personally think we should keep the truck that we have on order. - Chief Finke said my recommendation is in the memo. If we purchase ours, there will be three trucks exactly the same in the metro area, plus Wausau’s other ladder truck which is a 75’ mid mount stick. Red Power Diesel was there all day today working on our current ladder truck, they left and were gone for about 15 minutes, and it broke again when the crew took it out to run it a little bit. Then we shut everything off, started it back up and it magically worked, and we called Red Power Diesel and they think it’s the voltage control board. They didn’t give me a price but did say it’s very expensive. - Maloney asked there’s no penalty from Pierce? - Chief Finke said by tomorrow at 4pm they have to have a decision. - Deputy Chief Lang said I agree with Chief Finke 100%, the biggest thing we’re talking about with this ladder truck is staffing. In my opinion with the longevity of my career at the department, we think within the next 5, 10, 15 years we’ll have enough staff to staff the truck then we should think about this, but if we’re not going to staff the truck, do we need 3 of the exact same truck in the area? - Schaefer said so run down some scenarios. - Deputy Chief Lang said the scariest scenario is Birchwood Highlands in Weston is a four story unsprinklered elderly apartment complex, with lightweight wood frame construction, with underground parking and they’re starting to put in electric car chargers in the basement. - Chief Finke said we go there a lot for ambulance calls and some people are immobile. - Deputy Chief Lang said the tactic and we’ve practiced at live (training) burns is to do a fire attack off of the bucket by bringing the bucket up to the fourth story and hook in a line because there are no standpipes for us to hook into on the fourth floor. If Riverside (Fire District) is staffed and they have their truck, they’d probably be there as fast as us and Wausau Fire would be delayed by 5 minutes. The only other question is what’s the difference in training that we’re doing compared to Wausau and compared to what Riverside is doing? Right now, we prepare for this particular scenario, so we train for it. - Schaefer asked so do you need that truck right there (pointing to the picture of the ladder truck on order) to respond to that fire? - Chief Finke said ideally yes, honestly as it sits today it’s a 50/50 chance whether it’s coming or not because the ladder truck is in Rib Mountain where there’s normally two staff members, so if they’re out on an ambulance call there’s nobody coming anyway. - Cronin asked how much do those odds swing if we add the staffing that we discussed? - Chief Finke asked odds as far as? - Cronin said whether it’s coming or not. - Chief Finke said it goes up drastically. - Maloney said so the ladder sits in Rib Mountain because there’s a ladder in Rothschild. - Deputy Chief Lang said no, the ladder sits in Rib Mountain because of the deployment model that it deploys to Weston. Our firefighters in Weston when we get a fire would get on the engine, so we’re deploying the ladder truck from the opposite station. - Chief Finke said the chances of our ladder truck getting to a fire in Rib Mountain are close to zero because they’re going to take the engine. If there’s a fire at the Hilton right now, they’re taking the engine. The only time the ladder truck goes to a fire in Rib Mountain is during the day when Deputy Chief Lang and I are there, or if Fire Marshal Christiansen comes in off duty at night. - Schaefer said I honestly think we’re going to increase our staffing. - Cronin said I saw something else in here, how often is the engine over here (Weston) going out? - Battalion Chief McBain said it’s very hit and miss. - Chief Finke said now we’re staffing the rescue. - Battalion Chief McBain said before yesterday I think we didn’t have it out for two or three weeks. - Cronin asked can we keep the ladder on order and sell the engine? - Chief Finke said Battalion Chief Meyers brought that up as a consideration, my concern is I would not want to rely on a 100’ platform to respond in place of an engine. A 100’ platform is a slow, clunky not a rapid response vehicle, they don’t maneuver well and has a 300-gallon water tank, so if we wanted to go that route in my opinion then you would need to do a 75’ quint and at least a 500-gallon water tank. - Maloney said when you brought this to the Board last month, how’s the crew? - Chief Finke said the crews want to keep what we have coming. - Maloney said so you two (Chief Finke and Deputy Chief Lang) are saying we don’t need this because of the area support, but the whole rank believes that it should keep coming. - Chief Finke said correct. - Deputy Chief Lang said and we presented to several groups, the officer group, fire committee and emails and everybody says they want the truck. - Chief Finke said don’t get me wrong, I would love to have it to, but my concern is when Joe Q Public comes to the fire station and says explain to me why we need this when they have one, they have one and they have one. - Cronin asked what do you (Battalion Chief McBain) think? - Battalion Chief McBain said I think we should keep the truck. - Deputy Chief Lang said there are advantages and disadvantages both ways, that’s why I bring up the staffing issues. - Battalion Chief McBain said we have a great relationship with Wausau (Fire Department), we have a good relationship with Riverside (Fire District) and that’s always a year or two from possibly changing, you just never know. Ten years from now all it would take is one mad Fire Chief or one unfavorable Village Board or City Council, I don’t want to rely on that. - Schaefer asked when is this coming? - Chief Finke said fall of 2024. Action: Motion by Cronin to keep the 100’ platform that we have on order. Second by Opall. Motion carried 5:0. Discussion and possible action on Increase in Third Shift Pay Rate. - Chief Finke said I have a good description in the memo, our Part-Time and Majority-Time employees currently get paid an hourly rate of $13.50 per hour from 11pm to 8am, this is the hottest topic that we hear complaints about right now. On a day like today for example, Battalion Chief McBain is making his full salary and Firefighter Hanson is making $13.50 after 11pm. So, two people could be working side by side making very different wages. - Deputy Chief Lang said last night is a great example, Firefighter Stanchik was working making $13.50 and they got called out at 1:30am and he was done at 6:00am working a fire scene until 5:00am and then he had to turn around and go to work first shift at his regular job. While the Captain and Engineer on duty were making their regular wages. - Chief Finke said when SAFER first started it was minimum wage when they were sleeping, and if they would get up and go on a call, they would get paid their regular wage. This was an accounting nightmare and overtime we said if we were ever going to get this to were the crews get paid full wage, we have to start at this rate and we’ve been building this up for 4 years. - Maloney said action happens and you’re out the door, I would still get paid $13.50? - Chief Finke said yes. - Deputy Chief Lang said unless if they go on a transfer, they would punch in for the transfer pay and that’s the only difference. - Maloney asked how much more? - Deputy Chief Lang said it depends on your EMS level, basic makes $22.50, advanced makes $23.50, paramedic makes $25.50 and critical care paramedic makes $32.50. Only while on an interfacility transfer. - Maloney said so for $13.50 pay, you have to be here, you can be sleeping, you can be eating, you can be studying for more schooling, you can’t be home. - Deputy Chief Lang said and that’s the other thing, they’re making $13.50 and now that fire came in last night and Joe comes in off duty because he was sleeping at home and he’s making his regular wage between $16.00 - $20.00. - Schaefer said it used to be that you paid the minimum wage and then you up the wage if a call came in, right? - Chief Finke said correct. - Schaefer said and now you’re just at a straight $13.50. - Deputy Chief Lang said part of this is the national movement to $15.00 minimum wage. When we were at $7.25 4 or 5 years ago and there was that push for $15.00, for us to go from $7.25 to $15.00 was a $300,000.00 a year hit to the budget and we couldn’t sustain that. - Maloney said, but everybody said that, you’re not talking about fire and safety, you’re talking everything from McDonald’s, Kwik Trip and are they all there now? - Deputy Chief Lang said yes. - Maloney said I can’t even equate $13.50 to other jobs and this is public safety. - Schaefer said so now I might want to take the night time shift because I could potentially sleep. - Chief Finke said you don’t. When was the last time you slept through the night Battalion Chief McBain? - Battalion Chief McBain said it’s been a long time. - Schaefer said the only argument against this is you’re paying people to sleep, but we’re not paying people to sleep and you’re not filling the shift anyway. I don’t see a reason not to especially since you’re telling us you can’t fill the shifts. - Chief Finke said firefighters across the country are paid at night to sleep. - Deputy Chief Lang said there’s other fringe benefits to this, we’re having some WRS issues that this potentially will fix, we’re having some training issues because of the different way the employees are paid that could help out administratively. - Maloney said I don’t see the dollar amount. - Deputy Chief Lang said it’s an impact of about $17,000.00 for the rest of the year - Maloney said but it’s $13.50 to what? - Deputy Chief Lang said whatever their wage is, a brand-new firefighter/EMT is making $16.00 per hour and a brand-new firefighter/paramedic is making $16.96 per hour and the top pay is $19.50 per hour. - Maloney asked and how many $13.50’s do we have a night at each station? - Deputy Chief Lang said four a night. The other big impacts are the $13.50 effects their overtime and we have to do a blended overtime, and a Lieutenant who’s making $19.00 an hour and works a lot of third shifts and the $13.50 brings it down and the overtime wage is actually less than his regular wage. - Maloney said we don’t have a job that starts less than $19.00. - Cronin asked, Trautman any concerns? - Trautman said no. - Chief Finke said I figured out the budget and budget wise we’re running right on target for expenditures, or just a touch under, but we’re running over in revenues. - Maloney said you’re still speculating $17,000.00 if we go to whatever their rate is for the rest of the year, so next year it would be $34,000.00. - Chief Finke said it can vary by $5,000.00 if a person that make $20.00 an hour picks up more hours versus the person that makes $16.00. Action: Motion by Schaefer to approve Third Shift Pay shall be their normal rate effective beginning this pay period of June 12th. Second by Opall. Motion carried 5:0. Discussion and possible action on Ambulance Purchase. - Chief Finke said as you are aware from some recent other conversations, we are well overdue for that chassis on the transfer truck which is quickly approaching 200,000 miles. The truck looks beautiful, and you would never guess it has 200,000 miles on it, but obviously 200,000 miles we’re probably starting to wait for a problem. We do have the opportunity to purchase an ambulance that another company can’t take delivery of, so it’s available for immediate delivery. It’s an Osage, not a Braun like what we currently buy and North Central Ambulance where we buy our ambulances from, this is another brand that they sell and a competing brand that we’ve looked at in the past for other ambulances. They do make a decent truck, and it would be white, so it won’t match the rest of our trucks. - Schaefer said the existing one we were going to take it off and re-chassis. - Chief Finke said correct, we cannot get a chassis and we’ve been waiting almost 2 years now and we still have no ETA. When I talked to our rep yesterday, she said I don’t know if you’re ever going to get it. I went to another place Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus that does some remounts and they were looking for a chassis for us and hasn’t gotten back to me yet either. - Maloney asked how did they get ahold of you? - Deputy Chief Lang said we have a really good relationship with the Braun rep, because of the purchases we’ve made. When this became available, she immediately texted Chief Finke. - Maloney asked does she have this on hold for us or something? - Chief Finke said no, she was sitting at the dealer meeting when she sent me a text and said she was going to send some drawings of an ambulance that’s available right now. I asked her if she thought it would still be available next Tuesday? She said I don’t know, but all the reps were made aware of this at the same time. I asked her yesterday if it was still available and it was, there is one other person that’s going to their Board also for approval. - Opall asked what can we get for the old one? - Schaefer asked or do we wait two years for a new one and re-chassis it then? - Deputy Chief Lang said we asked our IFT staff about that, do we order a new rig? If we would replace this one with a brand-new rig, we’re into a 450 chassis which is considerably bigger, and they said they wouldn’t like that because of the narrow streets of Milwaukee, Chicago and bigger cities. This ambulance is the smaller one and is going to service us for 10 years. - Chief Finke said we’ve got about 6 ½ years out of the current one. - Deputy Chief Lang said unless the market changes in 6 years, we’re going to end up getting the bigger ambulance, but the next 6 years we still will have the same. - Chief Finke said this one can still be re-chassis too. - Schaefer said you have a current vehicle that has a chassis that’s worn out, with a perfectly good box on the back. What chassis is on there now? - Chief Finke said a Ford E-350. - Schaefer said they’ll never get one of those in? - Chief Finke said we’ve been waiting for two years, haven’t been able to get one in and no ETA, the rep said I don’t know if you’re ever going to get it. - Schaefer said my point is, wouldn’t we just park that one order the vehicle, and it takes three years to get it, it takes three years and then re-chassis it then? - Deputy Chief Lang said the problem is, we can’t re-chassis that with another 350 because they’re not making them. We ordered a 350 two years ago, it was cancelled on us and then reordered, and I believe the Braun rep said it might get cancelled again. We could get one in 6 months or never. - Chief Finke said the Braun rep told me that Ram cancelled all their chassis for this year. - Maloney said the re-chassis is $120,000.00, but $193,000.00 would get us the entire unit. - Chief Finke said we budgeted $120,000.00 and we’re over budget by about $73,500.00. We have about $30,000.00 in FAP money that we could put towards this.  - Schaefer asked what is FAP? - Chief Finke said Financial Assistance Program from the State, the State of Wisconsin sends us money every year. Part of it is for education and the other part is support and improvements which is meant exactly for items like this. - Opall said so $30,000.00 from FAP and maybe $20,000.00 for the sale of the old ambulance which would be $50,000.00 - Chief Finke said the rest would need to come from ARPA. - Trautman said about $70,000.00 or $80,000.00 - Schaefer said buy it, I like some innovated thinking of what to do with the old one because it has so much value because of the box on it. - Chief Finke said I have no issue sitting on if for awhile and in 9 months they tell me they have the chassis, we get it re-chassis and sell the white one. We have the room to park it, we have the music festivals coming up this year. - Deputy Chief Lang said and we’ve been running two transfers at the same time. Action: Motion to purchase a new ambulance not to exceed $200,000.00 for Transport purposes and to also look at buying a crate engine for the current transport ambulance using FAP and ARPA. Second by Schaefer. Motion carried 5:0. Attorney Referral. - None End of Month Budget review. - Chief Finke said the up-to-date budget is in there, and everything is looking really good. - Schaefer said the ambulance fees again don’t impress me. - Trautman said somebody forgot to do the entry. - Chief Finke said right now we’re running $125,000.00 ahead on revenue. - Schaefer said I know it’s May, but I need to divide by four because you accrue the first month to last year. E. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Fire Chief Finke said Deputy Chief Lang will be at State Fire Chief’s conference in the Dells next Friday and Saturday. I will be out of town starting next Wednesday evening and returning on Sunday. I will have my phone with me and I will be answering emails. - We had a fire last night on Deer Street, the neighbor did a very good job knocking it down with a fire extinguisher. We also had a mutual aid fire in Mosinee last night. Tech rescue in the Village at the skate park and another in the Town on Rib Mountain Dr. - The balloon rally will be coming up before our next meeting and Deputy Chief Lang and I have a meeting next Tuesday in Marathon, but I might be late for the Town Board meeting next week. Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Fire Chief Lang said the report is in your packet and I’ll give you the highlights. - Personnel report: Division Chief Bechel accepted a position with Marathon County and her last day was May 19th. Since then, Captain Novak and Engineer Breit are Co – EMS Coordinators and we’re giving each of them 8 hours of overtime a week which equates to what the hourly rate was for Bechel. What we’re finding after being a month in, we’re doing this to evaluate that position and what we can do with those duties and we should have a good plan for the next meeting. - EMS & Fire Incidents: EMS calls in our district are up, the transfers where down a bit last month but are holding steady for the year. Fire responses are there highlighting the three recues that the Chief talked about. Couple of other events, we had a grass fire in the Village of Weston off Camp Phillips Rd with a really good knockdown. We had a structure fire in the Village of Kronenwetter which was a MABAS call. - Training: 423 combined hours and a breakdown listed. - Apparatus: Nothing to report. - Fire Prevention/Public Education: May 10th we did a hands only CPR and First Aid class with the United Way.  - Grants/Projects: We have a couple of grants that we’re working on right now. We have two projects, one with EPR FireWorks is the new software program and two we changed our phone system from Frontier to a VoIP. 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, July 11, 2023, at 17:30 at SAFER Station 1. - Cronin has nothing. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Opall has nothing. - Schaefer has nothing. - Maloney has nothing. G. Adjourn Motion by Cronin to adjourn. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. Maloney adjourned at 18:52