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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Wednesday, November 8, 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 17:30 by SAFER Chairman Mark Maloney. Members Present Board of Directors – Cronin, Langenhahn, Maloney, Opall and Schaefer were all present. Also present: Village of Rib Mountain – Finance Director Habeck; Village of Weston – Director of Finance Trautman; SAFER – Fire Chief Finke, Deputy Fire Chief Lang, Battalion Chief Genrich (via Zoom), Battalion Chief Meyers (via Zoom), Captain Lohman (via Zoom), Lieutenant Zellner (via Zoom), Engineer Breit (via Zoom), Engineer Schultz (via Zoom), Firefighter Haas (via Zoom), Firefighter Kolb (via Zoom), Probationary Firefighter Massa (via Zoom), Probationary Firefighter Walters (via Zoom) and Administrative Assistant Latimer. One guest via Zoom. B. Business Items 17:31 Motion by Cronin to adjourn into closed session pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 19.85(1)(g) for the purpose of conferring with legal counsel for the governmental body who is rendering advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the body with respect to potential litigation, including discussion regarding union election petition. Second by Opall. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Cronin X Langenhahn X Maloney X Opall X Schaefer X Motion carried 5:0. 18:06 Motion by Cronin to reconvene to open session. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. C. Correspondence/Comments from the public on issues related to the SAFER District None D. Consent Items Board of Directors approval of prior meeting minutes from September 12 and September 26, 2023, and approval of expenditures and receipts from September and October 2023. Motioned by Opall to approve prior meeting minutes from September 12 and September 26, 2023, and expenditures and receipts from September and October 2023. Second by Cronin. - Cronin said item number 5422, $8000.00 for tires was that for one vehicle?  - Chief Finke said yes, the ladder truck. Motion carried 5:0. E. Business Items Discussion and possible action on transition of Battalion Chiefs to salary from hourly pay. - Chief Finke said this is something that has gone back and forth for the last two years, especially with the other changes going on right now, I’d like to move forward with this starting the first of the year. The Battalion Chiefs would be moved to salary and I have on there the salary that I’m recommending based upon their current pay rate and the automatic overtime they get. - Maloney said why would I want this if I were them. - Chief Finke said the one benefit to them is they’ll be off the ambulance. I did talk to them about this and they all agree. - Maloney said what is a standard week? - Chief Finke said it averages 56 hours. - Maloney said what’s expected now that they’re going salary? - Chief Finke said 56 hours. - Schaefer said when are they on the ambulance now? - Chief Finke said right now it’s not a lot, if there’s a day where we only have two paramedics on, then they have to cover the ambulance. - Schaefer said will that be a problem? - Deputy Chief Lang said with the additional three it shouldn’t. - Chief Finke said the additional three will help a lot and Engineer Ewan finishing paramedic class will help a lot. - Schaefer said will they jump on one if needed? - Chief Finke said right now they’ll get on the rescue truck for a cardiac arrest or a serious call comes in and they respond to those on the rescue truck. - Maloney said what about holidays? - Chief Finke said they would lose their holiday pay and it becomes part of their salary. If it’s their scheduled day for them they will have to work. - Schaefer said they’re okay with it, but are they really okay with it? - Chief Finke said I have not heard any pushback whatsoever. - Maloney said we are doing this because? - Deputy Chief Lang said it’s standard practice that Battalion Chiefs are on salary and with them being exempt and out of the union, it solidifies they’re not union eligible. Action: Motioned by Cronin to approve salary pay for Battalion Chiefs. Second by Schaefer. Motion carried 5:0. Discussion and possible action on 2024 CIP Budget. - Chief Finke said we don’t have a lot of CIP coming up right now. There’s $310,000.00 in there for the ambulance, that was from the sale of the ladder truck and that money is sitting in a CD right now earning interest. According to our sales rep we are not going to see that ambulance until late 2025, and we’re not going to spend that money in 2024. The Mercury boat for $27,000.00, the inflatable boat we’ve had multiple issues with it this past summer from leaks and we couldn’t get them patched. We took it to Rib Mountain Marine and they said this boat is way past its expiration date, so they wouldn’t patch it. We brought it back and the crew spent about five hours one day getting it patched and it’s been holding air now. We’d like to replace it and we’re looking at a Whaly boat that is much more durable and basically built for fire, rescue and police, and we’d source an engine for it locally. Fire equipment for $40,000.00, that’s to upgrade our jaws. The new set of jaws would be going on the rescue truck and then the current jaws that are on the rescue truck would be put on the new aerial that is coming. Radios we’re waiting on a grant and we expect to hear any day on an AFG grant, the $60,000.00 would cover our portion of those radios and that would replace all of the radios through the entire department. Trautman thinks we have enough money because we’ve had CIP money left over and we don’t need any money in the CIP fund for 2024. - Trautman said there’s $1.6 million in the CIP right now. - Chief Finke said a big chunk of that is for the ladder truck.  - Schaefer said how much have we spent on the ladder so far? - Chief Finke said nothing. - Cronin said if we’re going to move $310,000.00 to 2025, do we want to bump the 2010 brush truck forward and replace that next year? - Chief Finke said we certainly could, the brush truck is mechanically fine, the skid is at least 40 years old. That is also our plow truck at station one and a pickup truck would be much nicer to plow with. - Maloney said at station two who plows? - Chief Finke said the Village does. - Cronin said any thoughts on that? - Schaefer said that makes sense. - Trautman said another thing, the Village is giving SAFER the rest of their ARPA and a recommendation would be to put that in CIP right now, because you don’t need any more in Operations. - Maloney said you have not spent yours? - Chief Finke said not all of it. We have either $160,000.00 or $180,000.00 remaining. - Maloney said it was $260,000.00 to begin with? - Trautman said it was $220,000.00. - Habeck said there’s an additional that’s obligated from the Village of Rib Mountain of $15,000.00 that we have not paid to SAFER that was designated from our ARPA funds. Action: Motioned by Schaefer the ARPA money should go into the Capital Project fund and switching $310,000.00 and $85,000.00, and no budget in 2024 from either municipality for any Capital. Second by Cronin. Motioned carried 5:0. Attorney Referral. - None End of Month Budget review. - Chief Finke said the up-to-date budget is in there, overall it looks good. We’re going to have a little bit of money left over out of the Operations budget, because of the way we budget for health insurance and also keep in mind we lost our EMS Division Chief in May and that position was replaced with a part-time position. - Schaefer said on the expenditure side, what are you looking at coming in under on. - Chief Finke said will come in about $100,000.00 under. - Schaefer said in about $200,000.00 on the revenue side? - Chief Finke said about $150,000.00-200,000.00, we are $160,000.00 as of today. - Schaefer said your positive now. F. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Fire Chief Finke said we continue to have our open firefighter/paramedic position, we did make a job offer to an individual and sent them through psychological evaluation, after that they unfortunately turned down the position. We reposted it and we have one internal and one external applicant, the external applicant does have their paramedic license and entry-level firefighter. - We had a fire Saturday night in the Village (of Weston) on Foothill and the crew did a good job knocking it down. - In the Town of Marathon, we had a fatality from a home accident. The spouse asked us to come to the funeral Sunday and Battalion Chief Meyers who was on that call attended the funeral. Report from Deputy Fire Chief - Deputy Fire Chief Lang said the two reports is in your packet and I’ll give you the highlights. - Personnel report: Nothing for September. - EMS & Fire Incidents: EMS and fire responses are there. - Training: Training hours are listed. The EMS training in December will hopefully be back to in-house training. - Apparatus: Nothing for September. - Fire Prevention/Public Education: Those are listed.  - Grants/Projects: We received the DNR FFP Grant and it was not fully funded, we did get an AED for one of the UTVs, another drip torch and another fifty hoods. - Personnel report: Nothing for October. - EMS & Fire Incidents: EMS and fire responses are there. We had a couple of vehicle fires and extrication. - Training: Training hours are listed. - Apparatus: Nothing for October. - Fire Prevention/Public Education: Fire Prevention activities are listed. - Grants/Projects: FireWorks software, we’ve implemented the scheduling, the only things left to implement is our EMS report writing and our vehicle inspections. 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 Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at SAFER Station 2. - Cronin has nothing. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Opall has nothing. - Schaefer said I’m going through my strategery at work and I was asked, “what am I going to do as a leader to make sure every one of my people really want to come into work every single day in 2024”, I don’t know what the answer to that is, but there’s normal things that fire departments do, banquets etc. we are a very open Board. o Chief Finke said we just scheduled our banquet. o Latimer said March 2nd at Dale’s Weston Lanes. o Cronin said I do think it would be nice if the Board made an effort to be there as a group. o Opal said I went last year. - Maloney has nothing. H. Adjourn Motion by Opall to adjourn. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 5:0. Maloney adjourned at 18:43