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

OFFICIAL MEETING MINUTES SOUTH AREA FIRE & EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISTRICT Board of Directors Meeting Tuesday, March 12, 2024 @ 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, Maloney and Opall were all present, Langenhahn and Schaefer were absent and excused. Also present: Village of Rib Mountain – Administrator Rhoden and Finance Director Habeck; Village of Weston – Administrator Gebert and Director of Finance Trautman; SAFER – Fire Chief Finke, Deputy Fire Chief Lang, Captain Klapoetke (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 February 13, 2024, and approval of expenditures and receipts from February 2024. Motioned by Cronin to approve prior meeting minutes from February 13, 2024, and expenditures and receipts from February 2024. Second by Opall. Motion carried 3:0. D. Business Items 17:31 Motion by Opall 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 Maloney X Opall X Motion carried 3:0. 17:46 Motion by Opall to reconvene to open session. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 3:0. Presentation of 2023 Audit. - Director of Finance Trautman said I handed out my memo even though you have the financial statements in the packet, this is just a general summary of what the financial statements will look like when we get them. The total fund balance for both our general fund and capital equipment fund is $3,393,292.00. $2,151,086.00  was in the capital fund and $1,242,206.00 was in the general fund. The general fund balance of $1,242,206.00 is 37% of the 2024 budgeted expenditures which is usually how they look at gauging whether you have a healthy fund balance, which is well within the recommended range. Another interesting number that a lot of the Board members don’t get to see is the total actual receivables for SAFER for ambulance calls is $1,641,140.00, that’s money that we’ve billed out that we have not received. We have an allowance set up of $1,138,706.00, so a lot of what we bill we don’t always get. Actual revenues were over budget by $295,367.00, of that $191,007.00 was excess ambulance revenues. As it was recommended by the Board late last year, we did transfer $300,000.00 out of operations/general fund to the capital equipment which will be good when in the future when we’re looking at buying an ambulance and items, we won’t necessarily have to be borrowing. Discussion and possible action on Creating a Position and Hiring a Part-Time Fire Prevention Specialist. - Chief Finke said I have a memo in your packet about this, we continue to struggle with fire inspections. We’re in March and we’re already 160 reinspections behind. We’ve tried multiple different things that’s not working, my proposal is that we hire somebody for a temporary part-time position and take it up for the 2025 budget. I would like to hire a part-time person for 16 hours a week for the remainder of this year, my plan is to watch the budget. Action: Motioned by Opall to approve hiring part-time Fire Prevention Specialist. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 3:0. Discussion and possible action on Increased Rates for Fire Contracts. - Chief Finke said this came up with the meeting I had with the finance and administrators the other day, obviously the district is going to be taking on a fair amount more expense and we already have, but we will be taking on substantially more in 2025. There was discussion about increasing the price on the fire contracts, I know I brought this up last year and at that point we did not and we decided to leave them the way they were. I wanted to bring it up again, and we don’t have to take any action on it tonight, but if the Board is interested in that, we will either need to take action at the April or May meeting because the way our contracts read, we have to let the contracted areas know by June 1st. - Opall said what kind of percentage are you looking at? - Chief Finke said I don’t have any percentages, right now we’re at $22.00 per $100,000.00 of assessed value is what our contracts say. - Cronin said I would be in favor of taking a look at that especially since it hasn’t changed. Action: No action taken, requested to bring this to the next Board Meeting. Attorney Referral. - None End of Month Budget review. - Chief Finke said the up-to-date budget is in your packet. We did make a payment on the actual ladder part of the ladder truck. E. Staff Reports Report from Fire Chief - Fire Chief Finke said on Friday I got an email we’re getting a 2% fire dues audit on April 2nd. One of the things we were faulted on last time when they did it was, we were doing training but our records were not done well, and those have significantly improved since then. - We’ve had a fair amount of CPR classes last month, so we had a couple in Rib Mountain for the poll workers and we also did EMPD and I think Rothschild PD was in on that too. - Our new Brush truck is here, it’s a F350 and still has to get outfitted and I’m waiting on one more quote to come back on that. - Farm Technology Days is in Chippewa County this year at the same location as Country Fest and Rock Fest that we already do ambulance standby at. They requested us to do standby about three or four months ago and at that time we told them no, they came back to us again about three weeks or so ago. We are going to  provide ambulance service for them on 13th, 14th, 15th of August and I gave them a price based upon our fee schedule and they were quoted $9,000.00. We have to provide two ambulances plus an extra person, so that’s five people. There’s a fairly good chance myself, Deputy Chief Lang and Director of Medical Services Gordon will be two of those five. One of our Medical Directors who works at Marshfield Medical Center that’s an ER doctor is willing to go. - The training structure at station 2, the inside is done and we’re now working on the outside and should be done in the next two to three weeks. 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: Nothing on personnel. - EMS & Fire Incidents: EMS and fire responses are there. We got all the software in and caught up for February and those are accurate numbers. - Training: Training hours are there and up quite a bit especially our EMS training that’s being done in house and Director of Medical Services Gordon is doing a fantastic job with it. - Apparatus: The Brush truck is here. - Fire Prevention/Public Education: Activities are listed. - Grants/Projects: No grants. 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 April 10, 2024 at SAFER Station 1. - Cronin has nothing. - Opall has nothing. - Maloney has nothing. G. Adjourn Motion by Opall to adjourn. Second by Cronin. Motion carried 3:0. Maloney adjourned at 18:15