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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, December 12, 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 17:32 by SAFER Chairman Mark Maloney. Members Present Board of Directors – Cronin, Langenhahn, Maloney, and Schaefer were all present, Opall was absent and excused. Also present: Attorney Dietrich; Village of Rib Mountain – Finance Director Habeck; Village of Weston – Administrator Gebert, Director of Finance Trautman; SAFER – Fire Chief Finke, Deputy Fire Chief Lang, and Administrative Assistant Latimer. B. Business Items 17:34 Motion by Schaefer 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 Cronin. Roll-call vote: NAME: Aye Nay Cronin X Langenhahn X Maloney X Schaefer X Motion carried 4:0. 18:13 Motion by Cronin to reconvene to open session. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0. 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 November 8, 2023, and approval of expenditures and receipts from November 2023. Motioned by Schaefer to approve prior meeting minutes from November 8, 2023, and expenditures and receipts from November 2023. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 4:0. E. Business Items Discussion and possible action on sale of fire equipment.  - Chief Finke said I want to ask the board if you’re okay with us listing the current aerial device. We can list it on the public surplus site, but if we’re going to do it soon, I’d recommend we try Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus and do the broker route. We have 6 to 8 months to sell it and I think if we list it now, fire departments have fresh budgets now and we can say it’s not available till August 1. When we get our new truck in August, if we put it up for sale in September, we don’t have anywhere to put that and I don’t want that truck sitting outside when it’s 10 below next winter. - Schaefer said if that thing were to leave tomorrow, we’d have no access to it. - Chief Finke said we would be just fine, we have an auto aid with Wausau. The other one is we obviously purchased the hovercraft a couple years ago, we’ve run into several issues with it in the two years that we’ve had it. Overall, for our needs it’s a good device. We’re having problems getting people initially trained on how to use it and finding the time to keep them trained. It’s difficult to operate, trying to get up next to somebody that’s in the water you have to be pretty good at it. You have to spend some time in it to get yourself finessed that good. The second part of it is maintenance and we knew going in that hovercraft’s do require a fair amount of maintenance, it’s probably one in every three times that we take it out that something breaks. It’s not major worth $1000.00, a lot of the times it’s the skirts that go around the bottom of it the clips that hold them break frequently. - Maloney said what would we be able to sell this for? - Chief Finke said I’ve tried to get some estimates from people in the industry and there’s very few people in the hovercraft industry, the closest I can narrow it down to is about $30,000.00. Another issue this time of the year when it’s over in Rib Mountain, most of the time we have two people over there so if they’re on an ambulance call it can’t go out anyway because there’s nobody there to take it out. - Deputy Chief Lang said the day of the water rescue we had seven on staff and six of them were in Stettin at a vehicle accident. - Schaefer said what did you do? - Deputy Chief Lang said we called Wausau immediately and they brought their airboat. - Schaefer said whose drone was involved? - Deputy Chief Lang said Wausau PD because the patient escaped the Healthcare Center. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to sell both. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 4:0. Discussion and possible action on 2023 Budget Amendment. - Chief Finke said we’re going to have a little bit of extra money in our operational budget at the end of this year. In conferring with our fiscal agents, because we anticipate some increased costs in the ladder truck, we’re going to shift some of that money into capital to help offset that cost when it comes. We maxed out our budget on the ladder truck and that truck may come in higher than we expect, they’re not guaranteeing the price they quoted us. - Trautman said I did print off some information which has a budget status through the end of December and the financial statements from 2022. I would like basically what is going to be left over for our surplus be transferred to capital because we don’t know what it is. - Schaefer said we have our fund balance built up and spend our surplus on capital. Action: Motioned by Schaefer to take the surplus that we end up with at the end of the year transferred to capital. Second by Cronin. Motioned carried 4:0. Attorney Referral. - None End of Month Budget review. - Chief Finke said the up-to-date budget is in there and Cronin you had a question. - Cronin said on page fifteen, miscellaneous other revenue-unbudgeted we had just over $5000.00 for the month and $14,000.00 for the year. Do you know what all of that was? - Latimer said those are deposits and $5000.00 was for workers compensation refund. F. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief  - Fire Chief Finke said we talked about the rescue from the other day. The biggest thing we have one open position right now and we have those three positions to fill the first of the year. We posted for the positions and we have 10 applicants that we will be interviewing Thursday, we have five internal and five external. 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: We had that badge pinning last month and will be doing interviews tomorrow. One thing we have talked in previous meetings about the SAFER grant and the process is going to open soon, we don’t need to talk about it right now maybe will put it on the agenda for next month but I wanted direction on whether or not to put in for that grant and if so, how many to put in for. Our thought on the low-end if we’re going to put in for grant would be six and on the high-end would be nine. We don’t know what that number is and what you’re comfortable with and referendums. We can make a presentation for the next meeting. o Cronin said with historical graphs showing what the growth has been as far as call volume. - EMS & Fire Incidents: EMS and fire responses are there. We did go to an interdivisional MABAS request up in Tomahawk. We had a structure fire on Foothill in the Village of Weston, crews did a fantastic job stopping the fire. Then we had a fire under a concrete slab on Rib Mountain Drive. - Training: Training hours are listed. We tried an online format, which didn’t go well. So thankfully this month were going back to live EMS training. - Apparatus: Nothing for apparatus except for inspections the work Latimer has done. - Fire Prevention/Public Education: Those are listed. - Grants/Projects: No grants. Projects are listed. 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, January 9, 2024 at SAFER Station 1. - Cronin has nothing. - Langenhahn has nothing. - Schaefer has nothing. - Maloney said Merry Christmas and enjoy a safe and happy holidays and thanks for all the hard work. H. Adjourn Motion by Cronin to adjourn. Second by Langenhahn. Motion carried 4:0. Maloney adjourned at 19:02