We'll go ahead and call our meeting to order on July 7th, 2026 at 6 p.m.

Welcome to our meeting.

This is an open meeting of the Grand Island City Council.

The City of Grand Island abides by the Open Meetings Act in conducting business.

A copy of the open meeting act is displayed in the back of the room as required by state law.

Now I'll proceed with the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Undergone, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Councilmember Shearn.

Present.

Council Member Stelk.

Councilmember Conley will be absent.

Councilmember Nickerson.

Present.

Council Member Brown.

Present.

Council President O'Neill.

Present.

Councilmember Hazi.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Present.

Councilmember Pollock will be absent.

Councilmember Lanfear.

Present.

And Mayor Still will be absent.

The sign-up sheet was available in the lobby for individuals wishing to provide input on any of tonight's agenda items.

If you did not sign up to speak an agenda item, please come forward, state your name and agenda topic on which you'll be speaking on.

And none have come forward, so we shall proceed.

Good evening.

For those of you that are on the interlocal committee, this is going to look very familiar.

But when looking at the budget uh for the emergency management department, we have uh our department is split into three funds, the general fund, the 215 or the uh landline E901 fund, and then the 216 or the wireless 911 fund, and that is brought in by an allocation annually from the public service commission according to a set formula.

We don't have a lot of changes in ours, no new FTEs this year.

Um but we do introduce the first year of the ongoing Motorola maintenance contract for the new for the new system, and that's a 222,000 dollar increase in the budget, which is sizable uh nonetheless.

Uh what we have currently is all but two of our employees are on the general fund.

And for a number of years, we had two uh two of the public safety dispatcher positions funded out of the uh a mix of the two fifteen two sixteen funds.

What we find quite frankly is I'm always moving employees off of that fund and then uh newer or other uh other employees onto that fund because as wages increase the the the revenue of those two line items don't typically increase.

Um so unlike a lot of my um operating expenses that are more predictable and more static.

The employee costs that were on that 215, 216 mix tend to um over uh to overgrow uh and then we'd move them to the general fund and find two lower cost employees uh to put on there.

For a number of years we've been looking at the right time to reshuffle the cards in and the expenses and bring all the employees into the general fund and push uh a number of my uh typical and annual expenses to the special revenue funds, and so this was the year we decided to do it.

So what we did is um uh we moved about uh I'd say a hundred thousand dollars or more over uh from the two fifteen funds and two sixteen fund, and then we replaced it with uh allowable expenses in those in those two special revenue funds.

And by doing so, it allows us to align uh cost like employees that grow with the general fund that has a greater capacity for growth than the landline or the wireless fund.

Uh the wireless fund is a set construct, and our landline 901 funds haven't really gone up much over the last 10 years.

Not a lot of new landlines are being installed in a community.

So we're fortunate now that we have what we have, but we don't anticipate that really growing in any great measure.

Uh personnel uh increases for the department are up uh 11%.

But again, a lot of that is because I brought in two new employees into the general fund that we didn't have before.

And then uh that includes step and level uh uh step and cost of living increases uh for the staff, and also it estimates changes that might be made for um insurance costs.

And uh insurance is one of those things that you we budget in September, and then in J in January, a lot of times we may see elections change, and uh we have sometimes some unanticipated growth because we don't always know what insurance changes we'll make.

And I'm kind of a small enough department, it's an interesting phenomenon to see how one or two people changing their insurance uh choice will have a pretty sizable effect marginally on how we operate.

Uh operating expense increases 23%, and that is a lot.

Um, but that's really we're looking at 222,000 of new expenses, and uh as you know that's that's set for the next five years.

It'll grow slightly over the period of five years.

Uh we divided roughly half of it to the general fund and the other half to the special revenue funds.

Uh let's see.

This year we don't have a lot of um, we don't have a lot of capital improvement uh plans for this year.

Currently, we're finishing the radio project.

I just signed the third milestone, the installation milestone today.

That means in the coming weeks, we should see uh invoice number three, and that's for 15% of that three million dollar cost.

And then, of course, we get reimbursed by the county for their portion of the match, and then 75% of that invoice from the grant that we received.

And I would imagine probably hopefully by the end of the summer, we'll sign the fourth milestone of final acceptance and then get invoice for the final five percent.

Uh we also are working uh on uh a number of uh we finished the HVAC upgrade downstairs that got installed and and and put in, and we appreciate and thank uh city maintenance for picking up the tab on that.

And then um our cameras will be uh new cameras installed at the building.

Those new cameras are there because the ones we have today are Chinese made, and uh we need to uh remove Chinese-made devices when it comes to security cameras and putting something that's uh approved uh by the Fed.

So next year's plan is um two sirens.

We always budget for two sirens just in case the siren dies or um or we can't replace it any longer.

We have two uh in our back pocket on the shelf all the time.

Um we always uh try to be prepared to replace two more.

Uh so we always have two on the shelf.

Did you replace the car?

Did you replace any this year?

Uh we no, we bought one, we but we did buy one because we were sitting on just one on the shelf.

So we did purchase one.

We've done quite a bit of repairs, um, but uh haven't had to replace a whole one yet.

So I think the last one we replaced was conicrum.

I think someone no Sealy Miles School, someone hit the telephone pole, and we had to do some repairs and replacement there.

We're about done with all of the old 1981, 1982 circa uh sirens that got installed shortly after the 1980 tornadoes, and over the past 15, 20 years, we've been trying to replace two at a time.

We have 40 sirens, so we're about done with uh that older model.

Then uh we do have uh one radio repeater, just a good old UHF radio repeater, even though we are migrating to the new system this summer, we are maintaining UHF analog radio for county road uh county roads, county uh city streets, um city utilities, and um and uh public works.

So we we do still maintain uh UHF repeaters and uh this $8,000 is so we can always have one repeater on the shelf in case one dies.

Uh the UPS batteries in our uh UPS in the new building at North Road need to be replaced about every four to five years.

Uh we replaced them four years ago, um well, three and a half years ago.

So by this time next year we're gonna be looking to replace them again, and that's uh about $15,000.

And then now we want to grow the consoles, but we don't, and we want to grow staff, but we if I grow staff, I won't really have a place to put them.

Uh we have radio consoles, dispatch consoles, and if I add the the FTE that we talked about back in February, there's a chance there there will be times that we could have six on duty.

That would be a dream, but I don't have a place to put the sixth because I only have five operating consoles.

So what we're looking at doing is purchasing through um Watson Furniture, they're the same company that has our current furniture because then the parts are analogous and they can we can fit them in and attach them together.

We'll buy four more.

Found that the cost for four consoles was only about $25,000 less than the price for two because a lot of that money is actually labor for construction.

So we decided to propose uh all four uh new consoles that'll take us up to eight, I'm sorry, nine complete consoles.

Currently we have five consoles.

You can see those those outlined in black with the idea that we would have two pods of four when we built the building.

But what we found when we now that we've been putting someone on that fifth station for the last year or so, we find that the fifth station tends to have uh a bit of well, the four they have pretty good crosstalk, meaning as things are going on, the four dispatchers in that small pod of four can talk pretty clearly with one another, but they're that fifth person is pretty isolated, and so the dispatchers um at that fifth console aren't always situationally aware uh of things that are happening in the room as well as we need them to be, particularly in large and complex incidents.

I was there uh got three four weeks ago when we had a fairly serious uh thunderstorm uh come through, and it was pretty busy, it was pretty crazy.

We had about 200 phone calls in in a couple three hours, and I saw how that fifth state person at the fifth station kept having to stand up, turn her head around and ask for help or ask for clarification.

Well, we believe is if we change the configuration into a big pot of eight, then that's going to facilitate better crosstalk because we won't have anybody isolated uh in the uh in the corner, as it were, and then we can uh utilize the center four as our primary four, and then the corners five, six, seven, and eight uh as uh as uh as conditions change.

The funding for this um it's about a hundred thousand dollars.

That's come coming out of the fund balance in the 215 fund in one of the special revenue funds.

So it's not a general fund uh general fund capital expense, but it'd be a special revenue capital expense.

And that's an artist rendition of it all.

So just kind of in summary, not a lot different as far as function.

We do have that um pre that uh well-known and anticipated 222,000 increase in operations.

Uh we don't really have any other operational cost increases.

In fact, we we tried to shave as much of the operations that we could to fit 222,000 and nipping and tucking here and there uh where we felt we wouldn't do too much damage, and then uh spread about half of that 222,000 onto the special revenue funds.

Um again, we're bringing those two employee FTEs out of the special revenue one on the general fund with the rest of the staff.

Uh, it's gonna make budgeting easier for my office for finance, and I think it just I think it it corrects it corrects something that we it was a change we made about 15, 20 years ago, and we already kind of right sizing it now.

Uh after um after all the split with the city and the county, um it's a $342,000 increase or 13% total uh compared to last year.

Uh that's an additional 17148 for each city and the county.

Uh in our interlocal committee meeting, this was the budget that they felt uh uh they comfortable recommending to both uh council and the county board, and uh we anticipate maybe an FY28 and 29 when the new consoles are in and equipped.

We that's when we would probably discuss with you and the county board about additional FTEs.

Any questions, Mr.

Brown?

Yeah, I was on that uh council meeting, and uh you had it all laid out exactly, and and we can't do anything about the radio, you know, annual cost.

I mean, that's we're gonna exorb it somehow.

And that you you did a good job in doing that.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Mr.

Sheard, thanks.

Uh can you go back to your drawing?

So right now we have two sets of four.

No, right.

Well, right now I have two sets of four, but the orange ones, when we first purchased the building, we installed five new ones, and then I found these.

I found three old broken ones from the NSB.

I got them for $700.

I hope they would work.

They are broken, so they're not gonna work.

And they don't have the size.

We have four large monitors, and we found that we wouldn't be able to fit.

So um they're between the fact that they're broken, about 15 years, 20 years old, and too small, we're gonna pull those old ones out.

I don't I know furniture is expensive, but are you telling me these are 25,000 desks?

They are we can buy a Ford fusion for 25,000 dollars.

Yeah, but a Ford Fusion is in the fire truck.

And I totally get it.

It's it's a lot of money for at your dispatch consoles, whether they're Zybex, Watson, they they are always quite expensive.

What is special about these for I mean, I get holding four monitors, sure, but a 25,000 dollar desk.

Right.

Well, a desk like that, it comes with its own, uh comes with fans, computer fans, wire management, uh, extra power strips.

I mean, because we we'll run we're running four uh with every monitor.

There's you know, there's a lot of power runs, uh, cable management, uh they're directly wired into the ground uh as opposed to just desks that are uh that are that you bring in and put computers on.

They're ergonomically built to allow them to stand uh when they work.

Uh the there's a lot of mechanics to to uh provide um not only um up and down but the compute the the computer keyboard area comes up and down to to meet the dispatchers' needs.

Similar to a chair, if I buy a chair from EX for three, four, five hundred bucks, like uh your typical office chair, we would break that in about two years because it just it gets constant use.

Uh furniture is the same way.

I can buy a typical office furniture, but it will it'll be broken in in no time because it gets 24 hour, seven days a week use, it's different than an office chair.

How long do you think these will last?

Well, the ones I have downstairs that I bought in 2008 are still pretty good.

Uh the ones that we have here, they'll last, they'll last a long, long time.

So we feel pretty comfortable that uh once you buy them, they're you don't replace them, not for decades.

They're about 25,000 dollars along that.

Yeah, you're not wrong.

Yeah, yeah, like I said, the the four we bought four consoles downstairs, they're still up and running, still working.

And the nice thing is with Watson, you can still typically you can still get replacement parts if if a motor runs out or breaks or one of the switches breaks, you can still get them.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, trust me.

Yeah, I know.

Mr.

Nickerson John, it's always good to see you.

It's only like once or twice a year we get to see in here, but thank you for sharing with us tonight.

One thing I did get to do at the last interlocal meeting that I'd never done.

Uh afterwards, someone asked, Do you want to go in and see this console room?

And I thought, hey, why not?

Never been in there.

Walked in there, it was just like that first picture you showed, very impressive.

Four people sitting there, and it was quiet.

And I learned what you don't do when you go in in a 911 center, you don't say, Wow, this looks like a quiet day.

They said, No, no, you just jinxed us, get out of here.

So when you go into the 911 center, don't say anything about being quiet because they enjoyed that few seconds apiece.

Uh, and they were ready to throw me out because I said that.

Having said that, I I saw the layout and and your uh request here, and obviously it'll work much better because there is somebody kind of off in the corner that when that person is there, they can't really hear what's going on in the inner circle here, and that that makes a lot of sense.

We didn't talk about this in the meeting, so I just thought of it just now as you talked about reallocating all your costs in the right bucket so that you can manage it like you should, which is really what a good accounting is anyway.

When you get into knowing that all your people are in the general fund bucket now, do you anticipate any problems with that in the future?

Because you've been kind of shuffling to try to keep costs under control.

I know you're still trying to move things around.

What drives the revenue stream for your general fund?

Is that all taxpayer uh city and county general fund right?

Right.

Okay, so that's where the revenue increases would have to come from when and if that happens.

Right.

Okay.

And you may remember back in 2008, 2009 when we were having uh riffs.

Um I feel pretty comfortable you should be a light, we're not likely to be riffing dispatchers in the coming year.

So I'm gonna we decided to bring them back out into the open financially.

Yes.

And I think that's a good thing.

Good financing and good accounting is having everything in the right spot, so you really know where your problems are, so you can manage them.

So this is really a perfect thing to do, and I understand why you've had to do what you've had to do.

The other part of this is the county, you know, we're we're half of the funding.

Have you had a chance to meet with them yet, or is that coming up in the nearest?

I think that's in a week or two.

Yeah.

Okay.

And do you anticipate any concerns?

I know some of us have been in those interlocal meetings.

I didn't see a lot of pushback from, but there was always the questions about the increased dollars.

But do you anticipate anything?

I haven't had anybody mentioned it on the side yet either.

So uh if the prevailing thought process in our interlocal committee carries through, I I don't anticipate too much concern.

Um I you know, when we when I shared with him our budget, uh talked about the fact that this was an anticipated operational increase.

Uh and you know, we did take where we took steps to decrease wherever we could to uh in the operations.

So uh it's hard to say.

I can't speak for them until I sit in front of the room and see how it goes.

I don't anticipate too many concerns.

Um I think we were all kind of consigned to the 222,000 dollars when we signed the contract a couple years ago.

And uh uh we've been working pretty diligently to keep all of our operating costs pretty man pretty well managed over the next two years because we knew it was coming.

And uh we had little intention to rock the boat too much, hence that's why we're not asking for the uh the FTEs that we discussed about back in February.

We just it's just not a wise course of action at this point.

And the benefits of this new radio system are vast because they just give us better radio coverage and more capability with our radios than ever before, isn't that correct?

Well, they really do.

And interestingly enough, this uh week we had a bit of an unforeseen uh thing happened.

We uh we didn't realize that there was an extra charge, and it's fairly minor.

So there's an extra monthly charge to use the Wi-Fi function of the radio.

Motorola never really talked about that until just lately.

So I I was a little disappointed.

So uh I took a handheld radio with one of the police officers to uh a handful of their most concerning spots as far as in building coverage, and we found that the digital radio, even without the Wi-Fi capability, already performed better than their UHF radios that they have today.

So we're gonna we're still working with Motorola, they need to get me a quote on what that per radio charge really actually will be.

Uh, and then we're gonna uh talk to the agencies that own those radios and see if they can fit it into their budget.

It's not a huge cost, but it's not nothing.

It was a bit of a surprise.

I was more bothered by the surprise than the likely amount.

Um that being said, the system already in building, particularly in town, will be better for inbuilding coverage.

All right, very good.

Thank you, John.

John, just a few things.

I know Jack was talking about the desks, and I agree.

I mean, it sounds like 25,000 is an expensive desk.

However, uh, when you get into specialty equipment, that's where that kind of stuff happens.

And uh working technology, I've seen some you know, pretty unusual setups.

And uh, because I know you're not running a collections department, you're running emergency services over there, which is absolutely critical to have runtime.

And I I know you um so those workstations are probably tied into your battery backup system as well.

Is that yeah part of what that's running to?

Well, and they also run fans and cooling systems because we'll have anywhere from five, four or five to six PCs in or under those uh those desks and get pretty warm.

So there's there's temperature control for the equipment and um keeping keeping things running, and and it's an ergonomic opportunity for the dispatch because when you sit at a desk for that's all you really do is sit at that desk.

Um we find that we need that ergonomics to maintain some management control.

I have a question, too.

Do you know what your runtime is on the battery?

And uh, do you guys have like a generator if you exceed that too?

Or we do um when I look at when I think when I go back and hit that little button on that on the big um well, I'll go back to there it is.

When I hit the little screen, I think it shows about three and a half to four hours typically for battery backup.

Now, of course, that battery is just battery backup for the dispatch center.

We didn't extend the battery to all the other areas because quite frankly, dispatch matters more than everything else.

We would cut that to two hours if we were putting, say, the emergency operations center in there.

But we do have a generator, it's natural gas generator.

It's placed right by the uh radio tower.

We chose natural gas because living here in this building for 20 years and that uh 5,000 uh gallon diesel tank, that was a real trouble uh real a real spot of trouble for the city.

Um we decided to go with natural gas.

It's uh it's it's a very stable um uh fuel source, and the generator is dual fuel.

So if for one reason we don't have natural gas, we can bring in a propane nurse tank.

And if none of that works, we'll just come back here back to our parents' basement.

And and I know that those batteries are very expensive, and to maintain warranties, you have to buy usually the the uh OEM type of batteries as well.

And yeah, I went through replacement as well, it's probably similar costs about a year ago, so I think that's very accurate too.

Um and I know your call volume is very high, I think, compared to other pure cities as well.

Uh I know I've seen some renumbers earlier in the year.

Um, and I know you're keeping your your FTEs flat, but uh sounds like you've maybe been implementing a lot of other technology tools to kind of help you.

Um have you been seeing some efficiency with that with uh any other type of like AI type of assistance as well, or is that something you could touch on?

Well, our AI right now that we're utilizing is comms coach, and that's uh a training and uh and a um call review tool that's been uh allowing our dispat our senior dispatchers to spend less time having to listen to every call, and they can comb through data uh as opposed to listen to uh spend a lot as much time away from the consoles listening to calls.

So it has that has really improved our uh seniors' capacity to see uh uh I guess I'd say we can survey uh wider fields and and to see how how we're doing broadly as opposed to spot checking five or six calls uh uh per dispatcher per month.

We can look at hundreds and then comb through and and pick out areas that we really want to have marked recognition for improvement or areas that they're doing really well.

So our seniors have really been benefiting from that that comms coach and then the dispatchers then can look and they get a uh they get updates and they can look at their own scores.

And if they feel like they get they're getting uh uh let down by the system, sometimes the AI doesn't necessarily hear very well.

Then they can chat with their senior, they can they can do their own little quality assurance and analysis and find out where am I missing points and how can I get better.

Um thank you.

Uh one of the thing too, so on the Motorola Radio Network, obviously that's been a very big project.

You mentioned you're getting pretty close to milestone four of kind of sign off the whole deal.

So then a lot of the infrastructure uh implementation costs will be done.

Then it'll just be more recurring expenses after that, correct?

Should yes, mostly it should be covered in that two of 22.

Because when that in that 222,000 that's that's covering uh software hardware, uh should be pretty minor.

If we have any equipment, it's it better be pretty minor stuff.

And just to clarify, just for everyone's understanding, too.

So those radios have like an ongoing subscription, correct?

Of not any longer.

Um well, there was a subscription to the state in order to utilize the system, uh what they paid uh $13 per radio per month.

I remember the number correctly.

Now that we're a partner with the state, that fee is waived.

And so all of our radios can operate on the state right statewide radio system for free.

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

I didn't know that.

Um Mr.

Hasi.

Thank you.

Um John, I just have a couple of first one.

I just want to follow the money.

Yeah.

On the 215 and the 216, the so the 215 is the I'll call it your home phone.

Yes, land line.

And the 216 is like a cell phone.

So on every one of these home phone or cell phone bills, there's a half a dozen or more taxes, you know, a whole bunch of them listed out.

Correct.

One of them is like a 9-11 surcharge or those types of things.

So isn't that what the taxes that are on their cell phone bill or on their home phone bill?

The taxes go to the Nebraska PSC, the public service commission, and they turn around and yeah, divvy it back to you.

The uh the landline surcharge within Hall County is set by the Hall County board, and it's up to a limit of one dollar per handset or equivalent.

So uh and the Hall County board has set it at that dollar, and it's been at a dollar for probably 30 years.

The um wireless surcharge is collected by the public service commission, and it the rate is set by them.

Public service commission then receives all that money, and portion of that is used to purchase and pay for uh EZINET costs.

The ESINET is the statewide network that receives 911 calls from the carriers and then distributes that to the 911 systems that uh are spread out through the state.

So they'll pay for this the public service commission out of that E911 fund that uh their two their version of the 216 fund, they pay for statewide costs uh that benefit all the PSAPs in the ESI net and network charges between the SINET and what we call our 901 host.

They pay for statewide costs that benefit all the PSAPs in the ESINE and network charges between the SINET and what we call our 901 host.

From the 911 host to the PSAP, that's where we pick up the you know the cost.

We own our hosts regionally with a cooperative agreement with about 14 other counties between Columbus and Custer County.

And then we'll pay for connectivity to those hosts with uh with that funding.

The 216 fund, we that wireless fund is allotted to each PSAP according to a ratio.

The first 20% of the allocation money is divided equally amongst every PSAP, regardless of how size, how big you are for population or call volume.

If I remember correctly, 40% then is uh is assigned by population and 40% by call volume.

Uh and the Public Service Commission in its efforts, they wanted to make sure that every PSAP in the state could rely on a certain amount of money coming to them to cover those basic costs.

Then the other 80% is a mix of do you have a lot of people that live in your county, or do you get a lot of phone calls that come into your county?

Uh we have a lot of phone calls that come into our county, so we actually benefited uh quite a bit from the change uh when they went to call volume as about a 40% portion of that.

So and then they allot that to us every year.

We we fill out um basically a grant application for the lack of a better term.

Give them all of our stats, uh, call volume, number of dispatchers, the age and ver uh the age of all of our equipment uh related to CAD 911 and so on, as well as the last time we had updates and any future updates.

We give them all that information, and then they turn around and send us an allotment of uh I'll have to look to see what it is this coming year.

I'm sorry.

How much does each of those funds get in in this year budgeting?

Just so I have an idea of how much money you're sure.

The uh 216 fund receives about 100 and will receive about 193.

I'm gonna have to look at the revenue there.

Sorry about that.

About 193,000, and then that was this year, and we go up a net 10%.

The state public service commission decided to allot more to the dispatch centers this year than last year, about 10% more.

So we're gonna see about a 10% increase this year.

The wireless, I'm sorry, the landline fund brings in about 175, 165,000 a year for the landline, and it's been it's been down to that point for about the better part of a decade.

It hasn't grown any, but it's it's bottomed out to about 165, 175, depending on if I get 13 uh century link uh checks a year, or if I get 11 or if I get 12.

And so a lot of that variation is when that check comes in.

I suspect I'm one of the few that still has a landline, so you might be.

Thank you.

We appreciate your dollar.

You're you're talking, well, I have a cell phone too, but uh on your outdoor sirens.

You know, I I walk regularly, and there is one of those outdoor sirens in the in a residential person's backyard that I walk by from time to time, and so it's interesting, it's right off the cushion.

But I'm like, why would someone in their backyard have this siren sitting on the ground?

It's not on a pole, it's on the ground.

Oh, that is a private siren.

That's not one of mine.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I uh we have uh we have an individual in in town who likes to purchase refurbish, um, but they're not one of mine.

All of mine stand on polls.

So does he take it with them to Husker Game Day?

Is that what he does?

It's not quite sure what he does.

That kind of a noise.

Okay, uh the my last question is really on following up to Ryan's, you know, on the AI application.

Yes.

It it just seems to me that emergency management is is a perfect arena for all kinds of applications, including this senior review capacity stuff you were talking about with Comcoach.

Is there any other thing on that you're looking at or in the future that we could expect to see using AI in the application to help service the community?

I'm glad you mentioned that.

Um as you know, a couple of years ago we purchased uh EMD Pro QA, emergency medical dispatch pro QA protocols.

And instead of having a book with flip charts where the dispatchers would choose the chief uh medical condition, flip go to the flip chart and read the questions.

The Pro QA system marries with SpillMan Arcad, and when they open up a call, now they do it on a computer screen, and it feeds them one question at a time.

See, and depending on the answer of that question, it shunts the next question, then the next question, the next question.

And it helps streamline the call taking for the dispatchers.

It also lends consistency and question interrogation.

So we're providing a more standard quality of medical care to the patient as it as an emergency medical dispatcher.

Similar if you think you get into an airplane and the pilot is has a checklist and they never deviate from that checklist for good reason.

It may take a little bit longer, but you know you're safe.

EMD Pro QA has that software capability of doing some of that quality assurance.

And they're billing out some AI tools that could do that just like or similar to the comms coach does, but according to their specific protocols.

Or with Comcoats, we'll we're looking at Commscoach as we write the rules and what we want to measure.

Pro QA will measure according to their protocols.

So we're really looking forward to exploring the ability of adding an AI component within that Pro QA and seeing when they can release that and then get that to us.

And something on the deep horizon, not this year, but probably next year, you'll hear me coming to you to talk about expanding that Pro QA to fire dispatching calls.

Recently, um division chief Phil Thomas and my staff uh received a presentation about fire pro QA and the power that that has to provide the dispatchers the opportunity to give some pretty impressive pre-arrival instructions for that resident safety that today your dispatcher isn't really uh that aware of.

For instance, depending on what what is leaking in the person's uh home, they may they may say open the windows or close the windows.

Don't keep the doors open or shut the doors on your way out, don't turn off, don't flip the light switch on your way out the door, and so on and so forth.

These are pre-arrival instructions that we're we don't use today.

I mean, right now, if they have a fire, get out and let us know from the curb how things go.

With fire pro QA, we anticipate, just like with uh Pro Q EMD Pro QA, we'll be able to provide a more consistent, a more complete standard of care when it comes to fire and hazmat response.

And so it's not on this budget because you I didn't want to ask for too much all at once.

And it didn't come until after I'd submitted my budget.

But I'm gonna you're gonna likely see me coming back to you next year to discuss um expanding Pro QA into fire.

Uh I think it's going to not only benefit the fire department in a more accurate and a more uh detailed uh dispatch system, but it's going to improve our the way we can protect uh our callers and members of the public.

So it's actually pretty my folks were pretty impressed and quite excited about it.

Good.

Thank you, John.

And and maybe this is a Corey or Phil question later, but does it help with a billing?

You know, because medical billing has always been kind of difficult no matter what medical field you're in.

Does this help the billing system?

Can't say that at all.

I don't know anything about the billing.

And I do try to stay out of the billing as much as I possibly can.

Okay, thank you, John.

Thanks.

Mr.

Stilk.

Mr.

President.

Um my questions is on uh Motorola contract.

You've been in there about five years now.

How happy are you with that?

Um we actually are starting year one.

Year one.

It's year one of a five-year con.

So I don't know yet.

Um speaking speaking uh with other users of the Motorola system, um, it's a good system, and they they are pretty they are pretty um responsive.

The state of Nebraska is looking at having to uh renew their contract with Motorola for their system, and and I'm I'm hoping they chose they choose Motorola.

Um, I'm hoping that Motorola can give them a competitive bid because I just joined the club and I'd hate for them to change the rules a year after I joined the club.

That being said, it's P25.

We should be able to figure out a way.

To my uh my experience with Motorola is they're a great company.

You pay a ton of money.

It seems like they got a good product.

They have a very good product.

And and to be frank, there's a reason why they have 90% of the uh of the market share in things like this.

They do a good job.

Uh you're gonna pay a lot of money when you do that, but you are getting a very dependable product uh not only in the system but in the handsets and the mobile mobile and portable radios.

It's hard to beat that quality, and when you spend this much money, um quality really matters.

Uh, it also should be known that when we went out to RFB a couple of years ago, they were actually the low bid.

Uh we went out to bed, and the other and other companies did provide bids that were slightly over.

So Motorola actually came in as the lowest bid on this one as well.

So it was a win-win.

At that time, it was out for bids.

There was a lot of discussion on the placement of your towers.

Are you did they get that figured out right?

And are you happy with all is there any communication gaps or problems?

Um, you will always you can always you can't change the laws of physics, and so there will always be somewhere where we can't get a radio signal, but we're working through a number of different technologies to overcome that.

Um as far as our tower locations, the at the very corners, the outskirts of Hall County, I would say would be the most challenging, particularly to the west.

The city to the City Hall Tower here does a great job in covering the western, particularly in the northeast and the southeast uh corners of Hall County, but the western end of the county can be a little shady when it comes to uh radio coverage, and particularly up north west of Cairo, where uh we finally get a little bit of topography in Hall County.

That being said, uh the Hulk County Sheriff's Department, when they purchased their radios, they purchased the APX Next Radio, and that radio was very expensive, but it was about a thousand dollars more per radio than well the city bought for PED and fire in most cases.

It has the ability to put a SIM card, um an LTE card for a cell phone company, and they put in a first net card.

Unfortunately, there are first net towers in each of the villages and towns in Hall County.

So if a deputy is down in a basement in Cairo and can't get to my tower in Alda, if they can get a cell phone signal into that basement, we can talk to them.

So that's uh that's some of the benefits that you have when you you're exercise.

You're paying a lot of money for these devices, but they perform in a way that will help overcome issues such as uh tower placements and distances between those.

So and um because we partnered with Buffalo County and the state.

If what for one reason or another we can't get them with a Myalda tower, then towers in Gibbon or Ravenna uh uh are available, and they'll just roam right onto uh my neighbor's system.

Yeah, um the the future of of technology, uh how happy are you communicating with the different state agencies, especially on emergencies and stuff like that.

Are there any issues or do any um problems with uh technology to be able to communicate with like Howard County or Lincoln or whatever?

No, the the tools are there with P25 radio systems.

The question is what local jurisdictions will choose, and will they choose one that talks to their neighbors or not?

And sometimes you choose a system because you want it and you have autonomy, but it doesn't really allow you to talk to your partners.

Um we selected uh systems that would allow us to talk to our uh to our partners and and you purchase radios for the PDE and the fire department that they can switch um from a UHF to 800 megahertz to a VHF band.

So conceivably the handheld radio on their hip will be able to speak to anybody in any county in Nebraska, and really in any place in the United States.

Uh that's all I wanted to know.

Thank you.

Yeah, and just a couple other things to touch on it.

Um, so there's a lot of parallels to some of the stuff that you do that I've dealt with as well in projects uh in a call environment like that.

Um so I know you're you're doing a lot of training with some of the AI stuff you kind of talked about earlier, then you mentioned Pro QA.

Um, so really uh a couple other things where AI could really enhance it.

You're trying to get it'd be nice if you have more of the the real-time assistance, what you're saying, like if you're gonna call, hey, you missed this, this or this.

Yeah, that's kind of the goal where you're trying to get it.

It really is, and we're on the doorstep now.

There's a there's a tool called Rapid SOS.

We have the basic tool right now, and it provides a more improved uh location for your cell phone.

Uh Rapid SOS Unite is a tool that we're working with Public Service Commission to have installed and up and running.

It actually has an AI that listens to the phone call, and it will do a little closed caption of text underneath it.

So as the caller's talking and as the dispatcher's talking, that AI is going to provide a little closed caption text underneath it.

And you can imagine some of us maybe I'm at the age now that I watch TV with the closed captions because my hearing is a little funny.

And we hear better when we can read it.

And even if we reread it at a little bit delayed, what that's gonna allow up my dispatchers to do is sometimes with the radio and other dispatchers and other calls and things happening, they can miss something, or when they're talking on the radio, someone might want they may the caller may say something that we don't pick up, but we'll never know what we missed.

Sometimes we know we missed something and we'll hit that instant recorder.

But if there's something that we didn't know we missed, but we can see that there was something said by the caller in text, I can read that sentence in a half a second and know immediately one.

I missed something to two.

That's probably what they said.

I can continue my conversation.

So AI and this Rapid SOS United and some of the other tools, they're really going to be great in providing a bit of a safety net because we've had dispatchers, you know, and it's split air listening is a challenge to hear two or three things at once.

And there are times where we've missed something.

This provides that extra safety net.

Uh hopefully we won't miss too much traffic at all.

And communication with what you guys do is extremely important, um, whether it's the fire department or police department.

If they if uh the fire department misses one key detail that maybe didn't catch on the phone, that could be a huge uh difference in that caller, the outcome.

Um so I think it's really good to have something like that.

I in fact uh was an I'll tell the story.

He's gonna be mad couldn't take a lot of time.

I was during this big storm, the county roads department or the county fire department were going crazy.

They could they're talking all over each other.

I heard something on my handheld that I knew dispatch didn't hear it.

Well, my radio, I could go through and look at the last 10 things that were said on that.

So I have an instant recorder on my own portable radio now.

The ability then that puts a computer in the responder's hand, not just in the dispatcher's hand.

And the and the user now has access to hear things that they didn't hear or they didn't quite catch the first time in ways that we never had either.

So there's a lot of pretty cool things with this system.

We've just scratched the surface.

And one other thing I want to point out too is even outside of the actual calls, um, you have a lot of data in your system of everything that you guys have.

And um, I have a friend of mine that does data science work out of town, and if you get really creative, there's a lot of interesting analysis you can do and really study why you're you know your volume is so high.

Um, I I'm sure you look, I know you have your numbers there.

I don't know how much of a breakdown you get on that currently, but I think there's probably some real potential where you break that down.

I don't know if you'd ever get to the point where you have proactive things to kind of find those trends or kind of get ahead of it, you know, before it comes to you.

But yeah, I think there's a lot there you might be able to learn on the stuff that you do have.

Yeah, I'm really excited.

I think as as in as uh software and and hardware improves and the ability to analyze and maybe even analyze in real time, that'll give not only the dispatchers the ability to monitor things better, but in the emergency operations center where we can take one extra step back, and we have the freedom to analyze when we're not taking every phone call.

Uh, allows us to have a little bit more of a strategic overview on large and complex incident.

Uh would anyone else like to speak on this one?

All right, thank you, John.

Thanks.

Um, next uh fire and ambulance budget proposal with uh Chief Schmidt.

Well, good evening.

It's always a pleasure to stand in front of you.

Uh our budget, kind of like John's, is split into a couple different sections.

Ambulance and fire, uh, just for the sake of conversation, we kind of lump those together to talk about our increases and in our case decreases.

Uh, if you have any questions, as always, just feel free to stop me or I can come back to them later.

Uh always the big thing to ask for is people, and we uh we are requesting three additional firefighter EMTs.

Uh they have to become firefighter paramedics within three years, and the cost of that would be 231, 181.

And uh I'll get back to the details on that.

But really, what's what's driving that uh request is something we call the relief factor, and basically the relief factor is how many people do you need to fill your minimum staffing slots and still be able to cover absences, and there's kind of a balance there between overtime and your current staff to do that.

There's a company out there uh called ESCI.

Uh, they created a relief factor of 3.75, which is what I'm basing this on.

And as you're some of you are probably aware, the minimum staffing for ground fire department on any given day is 19.

If you take 19 times that 3.75 factor, that covers all three of our 24-hour shifts, and that comes up with 71.25 people.

We currently have 69 people assigned to shift.

So we're just a little short of that number.

Uh over the years, our relief factor has dropped.

Uh prior to 2014, our minimum staffing was 16, and maximum staffing per day was 21, and the relief factor was quite a bit higher then.

And then uh in 2014, we added a battalion chief position that increased our minimum staffing from 16 to 17 and changed that relief factor to the negative to 3.71.

And really the most recent and biggest impact lately, especially came in 2024 when we staffed that third ambulance, and that took our minimum staffing from 17 to 19, and the relief factor went from what it was the 3.71 to the 3.63.

And again, why is this important?

Why do you care?

Again, trying to balance normal day-to-day staffing with coverage and not drive up overtime costs.

That's where this uh this factor is important.

And what we're finding uh, at least in the fire service, I think it's kind of a trend to cost all jobs.

Back when I started nearly 30 years ago, people liked overtime, not so much anymore.

People want to go home, they enjoy their their time off, so it's getting harder and harder to use overtime to fill those uh short-term vacancies, and in our case, sometimes those are long-term vacancies.

And one thing that the fire department has that some other city positions don't have is it takes us quite a bit of time to fill open positions.

We're governed by civil service, and there's a hiring process that we have to go through.

And generally speaking, from the time we actually have a vacancy occur to when we can fill it with an employee and start their their first day on the job is about three months.

Now, once they start, there's quite a bit of training that's to take place.

Roughly, we put them through about six months of training to complete their probationary period.

From there, they have to complete the paramedic course, which is another year.

So roughly it takes us from the time someone starts to the time we can say they're fully trained and and for the most part somewhat experienced, it can take anywhere from 18 months to two years.

So using overtime to temporarily fill gaps is very, very difficult for us, and it can sometimes be very long term, and that's where the relief factor is really important.

The impact of adding those three, it would improve our relief factor to 3.78, which is puts us slightly above the 3.75 recommended.

It's going to cut overtime cost, and one of the things that I really need to talk about is the use of mandatory overtime.

A lot of jobs, you're asked to work overtime.

In our contract with the union, we can force people that don't want to work overtime to work overtime.

It's imperative that we maintain minimum staffing.

So we do use mandatory overtime, which means even if a person doesn't want to work overtime, we don't allow them to go off shift, and we have them stay at work and work that mandatory overtime.

And that's uh it's a hardship on the employee on their family if they had plans.

It causes a lot of heartache, and I can tell you we've seen more mandatory overtime over the last several years than I have in the last in the prior 20 years before this.

It's it's really increased.

And again, where mandatory overtime uh comes into play is when someone doesn't volunteer to work it, we're forced to use mandatory overtime.

Obviously, the more overtime that that we use, we run the risk of burning out employees, and uh the relief factor again is is where that gets addressed, and again, it takes us quite a long time to to fill open spots, but the reef relief factor also comes in when there are no open spots.

We have, for instance, several people that are uh in the National Guard, they get deployed for six months to a year, so we can have an active person on our roster, but they're unavailable for six months to a year, and we're having to fill those slots at times, and it's it's very difficult.

And the big question is well, yeah, it sounds important, but how do we pay for that?

And I think there's a couple ways that that we can help with those costs.

Uh, one is GEMT revenue, which I don't know if most of you are aware of what that is, but basically the federal government passed uh passed a uh law for government-based ambulance providers to receive extra uh revenue from transporting Medicaid patients, and generally the government dictates on Medicare and Medicaid patients how much they're gonna pay.

Well, Nebraska recently passed a law that allows us to enroll in a GEMT program.

We've done that.

They project that we should receive about 140,000 additional revenue from that program.

The other way is reduction in the overtime costs.

As I mentioned before, we use a lot of overtime, our overtime budget is very high.

By adding more staff, we're going to reduce our overtime ask.

And then the the third way is very rarely are we ever full.

So we typically have vacancy savings.

And going back to the our people that are in the National Guard.

In that case, even though they're on staff and we are full, we're not paying their salaries when they're gone for an extended amount of time.

So we have vacancy savings even when our roster is full when our people are deployed.

So there's a couple things there that would help offset those costs, which I think would make it not only beneficial for the city in terms of paying for it, it would definitely help our workforce and be help us be able to bridge that gap when we're short on employees.

Operationally, uh we're looking at overall increase of 115,000, 116,000 roughly.

And really, for the most part, we're cutting our budget.

And the reason I say that is for that GEMT program, we had to create a revenue or expense out account of 140,000.

We do it intergovernmental transfer to the state of Nebraska for 140,000.

We put in an account.

Once they receive that federal portion, they pay it back to us along with ours.

So we had to create 140,000 expense account.

On the other side of that, we're going to have a 280,000 dollar revenue account.

That shows up in our budget, and it looks like it's an increase, but in all actuality, it's in or it's out and it's back in.

Overall, when you consider GEMT, we have a reduction operating cost of about 24,000.

And that was possible.

I know Pat worked on it pretty heavily, but we cut some operational expenses, such as uh building maintenance.

Obviously, uh, we have a new fire station that was built.

We anticipate cutting some costs associated with upkeep on buildings.

We also looked at some other costs that have dropped.

As far as things that have increased, uh medical director, computer services.

We have some software that uh that we use that we're contractually obligated to to see an increase, but overall, again, pretty minor in the big picture, and we're gonna see a reduction after accounting for GMT of about $24,000.

Capital requests, uh, we have some carryover things.

Tech rescue equipment, uh, we haven't purchased that yet.

It's getting late in the in the game to be doing that.

It's 205,000.

And as some of you probably recall, we ordered an ambulance in the summer of 2024.

It's still not here, it's gonna be here next summer.

So we're carrying that over once again.

And then as far as uh station three, we have the possibility of owing up to 113,000 more, but um pretty proud to say we're gonna come in under budget on that project about uh two hundred thousand dollars total cost.

So what's out there is I think we have to pay for uh the sign, the flag pull, some minor things, but overall uh we're coming in under budget of approximately 200,000.

New capital requests.

Uh I've got a list here, and I can go into more detail on each one, whatever uh you you all want.

But we had $800,000 target.

Uh we did go a little bit over that.

Apparently, I'm a very bad estimator, and I'll get to that.

But uh the biggest item on there is a storage building behind Fire Station One.

As you might remember, uh we had some outbuildings behind Fire Station 4 and Fire Station 3.

Uh when those buildings got got replaced, those outbuildings went away.

Now, as far as fire station three, we attempted to move the outbuilding that was there to station one.

Uh one of the uh contractors that we had to deal with to move that their cost was very expensive to lower the power or not power lines but communication lines to where it wasn't cost prohibitive to move that building.

Uh they wanted approximately $70,000 just to lower that particular line so we could move that building on top of pouring new cement on top of the expense to have the movers move it, and on top of the uh utilities department and some of the other things that had to do their line work as well.

So in the end, we had to let that building go just due to the cost.

Uh other things on there.

Uh here's where I'm very poor at uh estimating the station one air conditioning system is on its last leg.

Um in my mind, it's not that old.

As it turns out, it's almost 20 years old.

It's an R22 system, according to the contractors.

Uh we've put a quite a few uh dollars in and into it the last couple years.

They say the parts are hard to come by, and you're putting money in something that's still gonna go out here in the near future.

And unfortunately, we're seeing that now.

Uh, we did an RFP RFB process to get bids to replace that, as it's uh probably not going to make it through the summer.

I estimated that at initially about 50,000.

Well, it came in at uh 183,200.

So uh it's quite a bit off on that.

Uh unfortunately, I found out today uh that's going to take up to 12 weeks to get that system ordered and in place, so we're gonna have to figure out something in the meantime.

Uh mobile radios, uh John spoke in depth about mobile radios, but a mobile radio is a radio installed in our fire trucks and ambulances.

This new radio system uh it's not not compatible with our old mobile radios.

So, in order to talk to EC, we have to replace all of our mobile radios.

We've done that, and our we are in the process of doing that with our frontline fire trucks and ambulances, but our reserve or backup units, they all have that old style.

This 102,000 is to get those up to speed as well.

Uh bunker gear, you might remember uh we had about a two-year process.

We bought about 400,000 in gear talking with Pat uh and trying to maintain uh a good rotation.

We're gonna order 12 sets a year and kind of smooth that out.

So instead of having the 400,000 cost, we'll have about a 75,000 dollar a year cost instead, and then it'll keep our rotation going.

Uh engine twos engine uh again.

This isn't necessarily exciting stuff, but stuff that has to happen.

It's burning about a quart of oil a week, about a gallon a month.

Neil at City Shop said you need to replace the engine, the engine's sixty thousand dollars.

Uh Phoenix room remotes, these are kind of interesting, and it does leverage technology, but the new fire station three, each each dormitory has a little box in it.

And the person that occupies that room, each shift will program which vehicle they're on.

So if they're on an ambulance or an engine or whatever, they program that in, and then at night, instead of going to an all-call system and waking everybody up, it'll wake up the occupant of that bedroom if it's an ambulance call or an engine company call only.

So it's better for the employee and and the uh long-term health of them as well.

It makes sure we have fresh employees that are ready to respond and uh doesn't burn them out unnecessarily.

Other request, uh, we have had a patient ventator that's used for long distance transport.

So if we had a really critical patient going from Lincoln or Omaha and they need oxygen as far as uh from a bag valve mask or some sort of supplied oxygen, this vent will breathe for the patient.

Our vent uh unfortunately doesn't work anymore.

The company that we purchase it from is no longer in business and it's not serviceable.

We have to buy a new one.

I would say this is something that's used probably three to four times a year, but when it's needed, it's very, very important.

In its absence, we have to send an additional person and provide breath to a patient by squeezing a bag valve all the way to Lincoln or Omaha, and it's very, very difficult, hard to get it consistent right.

Uh, the brush truck, uh, that's a wildland firefighting truck.

We came to council a few weeks back, received permission to apply for a grant.

That truck is approximately 260,000.

The 24,000 here is the local match for that grant if we get it.

And then uh chain link fence, uh, the train tower behind Fire Station One, according to NFPA standard, needs to be enclosed or lockable.

Right now it's wide open, and I'm sure you've all been uh past Fire Station One and the water park.

We got a brand new huge parking lot behind us, it's a lot more visible than it used to be.

We want to secure that site that way we don't have unwanted visitors that might get hurt.

And again, I got more detail on each one of those.

I just give you the gave you the high flyover portion.

Uh this again, I don't have a lot of opportunities to come talk to you all, but I wanted to uh at least get this out there so you're not surprised in the future.

Uh we need to purchase a new fire engine.

Those things have gotten very expensive, like everything else.

Uh they're estimated at 1.1 million.

We expect to bring this to the council in the near future, but it's a two to three year wait.

So it's one of those things where I don't like obligating future funds, but if we don't get in line and speak for it, it's it's gonna be even longer and more expensive by the time we we would get in line for one.

And our plan is to rotate engine two, which is the one that's getting the the new engine to a backup uh status, and then we have a 99 unit that we'd rotate to a training status.

And just to put things into perspective, typically you'll get about 15 to 20 years out of a fire engine or any frontline apparatus after 25 years.

Typically, it's recommended get rid of them because they're very old and unreliable.

Uh our newest reserve unit right now is a night or is a 2,000.

So our newest backup vehicle is a approximately 26 years old.

Our thoughts are replace engine two a little bit earlier, rotate engine two to backup status.

We'll have a uh reliable backup because that's a 2014 with a soon-to-be new engine, and then bring in a new uh new fire engine to to take the place of that one, and that'll get us a more reliable fleet, and then some of our real old models we can start phasing out.

Uh ambulance, uh, we're gonna we try and replace ambulances every two years to purchase a new one.

We have a total of seven.

That puts our oldest one at 14 years.

It's about time to order another ambulance, even though we didn't get our one we ordered two years ago yet, just to stay with that rotation, and again, we're looking at a two to three year wait on ambulances as well.

Uh in the future, we have to replace rescue three, and I I'm just guessed on that price because in two or three to five years, I would assume prices are gonna keep going higher and higher and higher.

We're estimating at 1.4 million, and that's something that needs to be looked at within the next three to five years.

Uh and then finally, uh fire station two.

That's a very big ticking item, and I'm gonna need guidance on on what we want to do there.

But station two was built in 1957.

Uh it's an old building.

Uh it's it's been a good building, but it doesn't meet the uh the new requirements of a fire station.

It doesn't really keep up with the demand of that station, and at some point we're either gonna have to do a major remodel or do a rebuild, and at that time we need to really look at station location and decide what's the best move for the city and how do we move forward in the future?

And I know Pat made a comment a while back, and he said he had a meeting there, and he said it's like going back in time.

For those of you that have been in the building, it's a 1957 building.

It it's it is like going back in time.

Uh, it's gonna be needing a new roof in the near future, and that's gonna be fairly pricey.

So it's my recommendation at some point in the near future just to study that, determine how to move forward, come up with some options, and then see what's best for the city and and the fire department's needs.

So, again, those are future things.

I just want to get that out in front of you so you're aware.

And then right now, I'm I'll take any questions you have.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Uh I really appreciate seeing that last slide of the future needs.

Um that helps us just know what what the schedule looks like.

Uh that's a lot.

Yeah.

A lot.

So when you say a two to three year wait for a 1.1 million dollar engine, are you thinking when you say that and you're gonna bring it to us this month?

It's gonna, I hope to bring it to you this month or next month, and in two to three years it'll show up.

So is that an expense now or an expense in two to three years?

know what what the schedule looks like uh that's a lot a lot so when you say a two to three year wait for a 1.1 million dollar engine are you thinking when you say that and you're gonna bring it to us this month it's gonna I hope to bring it to you this month or next month and in two to three years it'll show up so is that an expense now or an expense in two to three years we'll have to pay in two two or three years okay but I think and again the reason I'm bringing it forward is we can plan on how to pay for those things in the future because it is a long wait time but uh it's a big price tag and then with the fire station uh what did the fire station three you said you're gonna be about 200,000 under budget what does that end up being the uh contracted amount was five million forty one thousand within that five million forty one thousand there's a 2500 contingency uh you know for all the change orders and things like that to date we've spent about 4000 in change orders so in theory we have about 210,000 left uh or that that we didn't spend that we could have spent had things you know popped up that that we didn't foresee but we've done a good job I think uh being on top of that and and making sure the cost didn't uh then go higher than what what we wanted would there be an opportunity and I don't know Pat if we could have a study session like how soon would you want to have a study session to talk about this I think sooner the better just because we have a couple issues going on with the roof uh the air conditioning system there isn't great but I think on top of those things probably the more pressing issue is each year we're seeing increases in cost it's just gonna get higher and uh I think direction would be helpful so will construction cost the longer we wait yeah so yeah I'm just wondering are we looking at three months in the next three months we need to have a study session or the next six months I would look to Pat and say Pat you you know the issue what do you think there's a lot that's gonna have to go into this we're gonna look what's the best location of it what's the best you know absolutely that is key especially with fire station two being in a neighborhood there's in a really good location so there's there's options but we want to keep it in that same area I believe.

Preferably so uh just on the surface obviously I would probably combine the fire station the pumper and the fire engine on one loan in 10 15 years have a payment paid off so but I think I think the issue is finding location I think we need to see what options would be and what you know I know you draw your circles about time response times where the best place would be and I don't want to talk about it now but I just want to I I think a study session on that might be good.

I'm just wondering as soon as this fall to start planning ahead I think probably October November.

Yep.

Because everything I mean I don't know I just complain about a hundred thousand dollars for four desks and we're if we're looking at some of these other costs you know twelve thousand dollar chain link fence yeah so these it's some expensive stuff but it's very expensive I uh I'm trusting that when you look at these costs you're you're getting the best we can uh the best price we can to so we can do more yeah and again especially on that fire station that is a very very rough guess it's not based on anything other than it needs to be a little bigger than fire station three might have to acquire land don't know how far in the future so these are just that's not the one I mean I'm not worried about that because that's so much unknown about it.

It's more of the you know just the other costs they start to add up but I don't see anything on here that's frivolous so good presentation Mr.

Hasi.

Thank you Corey so I just had a couple of clarifying things just to kind of uh I'll go back to kindergarten uh the four fire stations fire station number one is on Fawner Park Road Fire Station two is on Broadwell yes fire station three is on South Webb Road and fire station four is on 13th and North Road or that that general decision all correct well I've been here a long time and and Mitch and I have probably seen three of those four fire stations already built you know I think three of the four of them have been built in our time or our terms when you talk about the 19 minimum staffing that is one battalion chief three captains one battalion chief four captains three ambulances and then uh really four fire engines or a ladder and each I'll break it down but each fire station has at minimum a fire truck with three people and then stations one two and now uh three have a staffed ambulance and station two

One battalion chief, four captains, three ambulances, and then uh really four fire engines or a ladder, and each I'll break it down, but each fire station has at minimum a fire truck with three people.

And then stations one, two, and now uh three have a staffed ambulance, and station two has the bat chief there as well.

But uh 19 is that breakdown of the minimum staffing for those positions.

So when a battalion chief doesn't show up for work one day because of whatever the reason is, um, doesn't one of the senior captains just fill in?

Yeah, and I mean, if you really wanted to get down to the detail, that relief factor applies to every position, you know, because there's specialties there, but what we have done over the years is we try and train people to move up when needed.

So a senior captain that that completed a task book, and our task book is basically a training book with a bunch of check boxes.

You know, they've got to demonstrate this, this, this, have these formal classes, and then they can write up as a bat chief.

The same thing is true for captains.

So if we have a captain gone, someone, a firefighter paramedic or firefighter EMT, they're also going through that same process, but they're completing a captain task book and filling in for a captain, and that helps keep the cost down and it gives us the ability to train uh future officers and prepare them for those more difficult roles in the you know, as as their career progresses.

Okay, that's good explanation.

Thank you, Corey.

So I think the now it comes just down to the numbers.

And my I have two questions.

What is the overtime budget or expense for this year?

That what are we spending this year?

What are we predicting to spend in this year for overtime?

And then in next year for the budget, if we give you the three staffing for 231,181 dollars and twenty-three cents, what is the overtime budget for next year?

I'm just trying to see how does it how does it cut down?

What are what numbers are we getting back in the in the reduced overtime?

And I don't know if maybe Pat has it on spreadsheets.

I I thought it was in the packet on one of those sheets.

I I can talk about it in general, and there's double check my numbers, but overtime, especially now, we're it's kind of confusing.

And we went our shift people went from a 2448 schedule to a 4896 schedule.

And part of that change changed their annual work hours from 2808 on the 2448, so 2808 hours per year to 29, 12 hours per year on 4896.

The difference in hours that you're seeing with the 4896 is we no longer give Kelly days.

And Chuck, you've been around a long time.

You know what a Kelly Day is, but for most other people, Kelly Day was a scheduled day off without pay for firefighters, and a Kelly Day happened every three months, and I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible, but firefighters generally worked each pay period, and for us the pay period was 28 days, nine days, nine days, and then on that third period, they're scheduled to work 10 days.

We would give a Kelly day during that work period where they were scheduled to work 10 days to reduce them back down to nine and keep those hours more manageable.

It was cheaper because we weren't paying overtime.

Well, with the 4896, there's no Kelly days.

So instead of giving them that day off, if they meet all the other criteria, they're getting up possibly time and a half for working those extra hours throughout the course of the year.

The extra hundred hours used to be scheduled time off, and now it's built-in time that they're compensated for unless they've been sick or something.

And the reason I say that is that obviously skews the overtime numbers.

The other thing that that we have going against us now to talk about overtime is we've got a lot of vacancies.

So six vacancies in order to maintain that minimum staffing has drove up our overtime costs just because we have to replace those with overtime instead of permanent people on staff.

That being said, our overtime is higher there as well.

Do we think we're going to get the 200 or how much of the 231,000 will we get back if we approve the people?

Will we see a similar offset in the overtime?

No matter what the number is, Corey, I'm not worried about the number.

It's just will we see that benefit come back?

Because in my experience, we went through this with the police department a long time ago.

And their overtime, they were burning out.

They we had over $650,000 in overtime because whether it was for training or whether they had to go to court or for a number of reasons.

There's certain overtime that I can't do away with.

So when we hired additional police officers, we got a dollar for dollar benefit.

We were able to hire more police officers, reduced the uh overtime like a similar number, and so it was it was an easy answer.

The easy answer was it pays for itself.

My question is does this pay for itself?

Um I'm guessing, Chuck, that we would offset about 100,000 in overtime, roughly.

Uh there's some operational considerations that have to be talked about.

Uh, one is the event center.

The event center used to have uh and Fawner Park in general used to have their own EMS service, and some of our people work there as a part-time job.

Well, for the most part, they're out of that business, and we've taken it over.

So we've taken it over, and we generally hire off duty firefighters and paramedics to work shifts out there to cover standbys for a concert or a siege football game or what whatever it is.

Now the reason we do it with off-duty is because you know we're short on staff.

A way to gain back more would be do we send a unit over there on duty to cut those costs.

And if that's something we would pursue, then you're gonna save a little bit more money on overtime because you're gonna do those standbys on shift.

The flip side is you're tying up some on duty resources, and you know, we have them for a reason, but those are things that we we would have to really dive into to see what what makes the most sense.

Um there is opportunity there, but I don't know if it's the right thing to do.

Uh but yeah, as far as actual overtime savings, we kind of run that razor's edge between giving people their vacation time, covering on the job injury, military leave, whatever it is, and generally we will allow, and it's changed over the years when when we're full, four people to be gone at any given time, pre-scheduled as long as staffing allows.

Well, sure enough, we schedule those four people to be gone because we know it's not gonna cause overtime, and then someone gets deployed, someone gets hurt, someone whatever, and then that causes overtime.

Where these three additional people are gonna help is it's gonna push that overtime threshold back one person, and just in theory, using simple firefighter math, an overtime shift for a firefighter is 800 to 1,000 for a 24-hour day.

So if we could save a hundred overtime shifts, which I think is very possible, you're looking at up to a hundred thousand dollars.

And over the years, uh our overtime has gotten a little bit more expensive.

The state statute changed now, pension match is due on overtime hours, and the city's portion of pension match is 15 percent.

So overtime now is 15 percent higher for the city because we have to pay that pension match.

So there's a lot of factors here, but the easy answer is it'll save money.

I'm guessing 80 to 100,000, but that's a guess, and there's other ways to increase that depend on how aggressive we we want to be with uh using on-duty resources instead of paying overtime to cover some of these standbys.

Well, thank you, Corey.

That's a very good explanation, and thank you, Phil and Russ, for being here as well.

Mr.

Nickerson.

Well, my first question is gonna be for Patrick, and this is probably what I should ask him for.

We're starting to get into the meat and potatoes of our budget now.

John was a little easy.

He was like the uh appetizer, but now we're getting into the meat and potatoes here.

And uh so for Patrick, this is a question I failed to ask last year until we were about halfway through the budget.

Everything that's coming before the council now, has it been through screening of what I call the executive directors?

I don't know what else I would call the folks that are looking at it before we get it, or are we all looking at this just as you would without a screening process?

Uh this has been reviewed.

Okay, so what's coming before the council is made it through screening saying this is in your opinion worthwhile presenting and possibly able to be budgeted.

I would say for full transparency, here's what they're asking for.

So my recommendation will come later.

Yes.

And I that's really what I'm after.

Yeah.

Because the we've already started the conversations with the dollars, and it's it's coming down to dollars.

We're talking about FTEs.

We're talking about massive costs and equipment that we're going to have to do, you know, sooner or later.

So we have to figure out a way.

And I appreciate the fact that that we can be told in transparency that look, this is this is what they're asking, but it's not really been approved by I always call it the executive council.

Because there was a time where all this stuff was screened really in detail before it came to us, and now it's a little looser that the last couple of years has been a little looser in how that works.

I think the bottom line, as I said in our retreat, you know, we can ask for all the people we need and all the people we want, but we're going to have to know for sure if we're able to sustain those needs, not for just one year, but for the next three to five years.

And I'm not going to know that till we see the budget worksheet with all this stuff in it.

And that's where we're going to have to make some tough decisions.

So I'm not going to dispute that you need three people, and I understand the reasoning for it.

And you're just one department, you're department number one asking for more FTEs, we have more to come.

So when we're looking at all the budget requirements, we know that the 231,000 is year one.

That next year is multiplied by 231 times 1.05 or 1.06 or 1.1, and then that's compounded the next year and the next year.

So we would just see these costs go up.

I just want to wait till we see where's all the shakeout in total costs, and then how does it work in our worksheet and where is our funding streams?

Because from what I understand, and I don't know anything about it hardly, is that our ability to raise property taxes or any type of revenue is going to be very limited compared to what we may have been able to do in the past.

And I'm going to ask Patrick again without any notice.

What limitations as of now are legal for cities to raise roughly in dollars.

Do you have any idea what we possibly could raise with the restrictions?

I believe right now, currently it is uh growth, whatever growth that the county tells us that we've had, plus two percent.

So each percent would be approximately 130,000.

Which isn't a heck of a lot.

It is not in the good old days.

I used to do the mental thing here, the mental math on one mill increase was about a quarter of a million dollars, but that doesn't really count anymore, does it?

If we do raise it a mill, I mean we can still say it's probably roughly 250 or whatever that number is now.

Yes.

But we're gonna be limited in the number of mills we can raise.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so we don't know, I don't know what that cap is.

I mean, Patrick does.

So that's gonna drive all this stuff.

I mean, that revenue stream is gonna drive that source and then whatever else we good we find.

Uh some of the things that Chuck said, I was noodling over here as well.

As far as you know, where do you get the savings by adding three people?

And my first question to you, I I think first of all, but you if you find yourself shorthanded on a shift, I'm gonna assume the ambulance, the third ambulance is the first thing that gets put away for the time being, or how's that work?

We generally don't take anything out of service.

Uh I look at each response area around a fire station as a mini Grand Island.

And when we start dropping vehicles out of that particular Grand Island, we're leaving people unprotected.

So generally we use mandatory overtime to hold someone in to make sure those vehicles stay in service.

Okay.

That's a pretty pretty risky move in my opinion, because instead of having a four minute response time to whatever, it might be eight or ten.

And so we we don't generally do that.

But if you do find yourself short, maybe it doesn't happen where you just really can't staff everything at the level you like.

What gives in that situation?

If theoretically, if we for some reason couldn't find anyone, someone went home, middle of the shift, we had no options, we'd take an ambulance out of service.

Okay.

One of the things I was wondering, also based on some things Chuck was saying with the police department, it it seemed to be maybe easier to see and maybe more relevant with the cost, the vacancy savings and giving them authority to overhire because of because of all the you know all the things they were battling.

I thought, well, man, I'm gonna ask Patrick while you were presenting, what's your vacancy savings right now?

I'm thinking it's gonna be a hundred and some thousand dollars.

I know Pat gave us a number from last year.

I don't know how he figures vacancy savings, but I think he said 76,000.

It's half of that.

It's 40 about 10.

47,000 lines.

47,000?

Yeah.

How do you figure that?

Actuals against budget?

So does that factor in overtime?

Are you looking at personnel costs?

Uh all personnel costs.

Okay.

So salaries, overtime, benefits.

My my two cents there is there isn't gonna be a lot of vacancy savings.

Right.

Because you're spending it in overtime to ensure that staffing level.

And that's what he just confirmed with the number.

I expected to see a bigger number, it was 47,000 bucks.

So I'm I'm just trying to figure out because you're in a situation we're talking you're gonna be down five or possibly six here.

If and and I'm just thinking out loud, and I'd get input from Patrick, you and whoever, but if because of that and the lag time to get people up to the level that you need them, if you were authorized, and I'm gonna use the word overhire by one or two people because of the stuff that's always going around, to make sure you've got enough people coming in to even a little bit extra, in your opinion, Patrick, and this is only going to be your opinion, would that put them in a huge deficit for personnel costs with all the turnover and retirements and all that, would it have a bigger impact than what we see maybe on the police side of it?

It's only an opinion.

Uh so being the overhire only comes in effect when you're fully staffed.

Right.

So if he if he gets there, that's then that's when you start to see the deficit or the additional cost.

Yep.

So if if we use the same model that we've done for the police and it was we allowed you to overhire, you've got your cap now of X number of people, but if we thought it through and said, okay, let's raise that by two or three.

You're not it's only going to happen when you're fully staffed, and that might be for a month or two or six months because something else, because all these years are transpiring, the next group of people may be getting ready to retire or go elsewhere.

Does that appear to be anything manageable on your point versus I want three people and I want to know I can count on them every day?

I mean, there's pros and cons to it.

I guess if we're looking at a true relief factor, meaning you know, you're trying to create that cushion that overhire might help, but the problem I would have with overhire, and I I did talk to Pat about this if you're fully staffed and you overhire, you're gonna go over your budget, right?

Because there's no vacancy savings to pay for.

How often have you been staffed fully for any longer?

It's been a while.

Yeah.

That's so that's that's a reality.

Yeah.

Right.

So it's always the what ifs, you know, and if that what if happens, then we would have to cross that bridge.

But life happens and people don't stay in the same jobs forever and ever.

And a lot of people aren't gonna stay in their jobs as long as many of you have right now.

Yeah, it's a it's a different world out there.

But that that'd be my issue with it is it's great.

It would help.

But the funding's not there because those aren't funded.

Right if you get fully staffed.

Yes.

Well, something to think about.

We did it with the police and it gave them a little bit of extra flexibility.

I don't know exactly where the numbers are with the police right now either, but it may help you get what you want without costing 231,000.

That's something we can talk about probably down the road.

When we talk about trucks and ambulances, I don't know how many people here saw the news segment the other day on Investigate TV.

I think that's the name of the group.

It's on an NBC station, maybe some other stations.

But they were they had a segment entirely on exactly what you're talking about.

These fire trucks and these ambulances, the lead time, the costs, what's driving it.

And they've showed pictures of places like Chicago that have dozens of trucks sitting that they can't use.

And I mean it was it's bizarre.

We're we're a mini, you know, microscopic portion of that, but you I think we're fortunate they were able to get the trucks that we're needing so far.

But one of the things that they identified in that newscast was one of the reasons they are far behind, besides the demand and the impact of the pandemic, the extra money that came for first responders and able to everybody wanted to order, was that some people order custom equipment, and that custom equipment causes a lag time.

And they're finding in their infinite wisdom that if we buy a standard truck or a standard ambulance, we'll bring it in house and retrofit a couple things we need.

They even go as far as custom colors.

I mean, I get that's nuts.

Are we in that category?

No, we we generally buy what's called semi-custom, which means we can configure some compartments, but we're overall taking what's available and having it painted to our specifications because they have to paint them anyway.

So rolling off the assembly line, it's gonna come you know, unpainted a box.

Semi-custom means we can tweak a few things, but not a lot.

And I think that uh that tower that we got last year is a great example.

The reason we were able to get it as quickly as we did was it was a semi-custom vehicle, meaning it was in cue and it was being built, and we spoke for it early enough to where we could say instead of this compartment being on the left, this bigger one, let's put it on the right.

But overall, we don't have a lot of ability to to customize them, and that lowers the price, uh, increases the availability of a unit like that and makes it quicker.

So, yeah, I I've heard the same things, I've saw the same things, and I think as a whole, the fire service is trying to push.

Let's just come up with a standardized fire truck, you know, for whatever situation, and you have option A, B, and C, and kind of make those your your three choices just to address what what you're talking about to where it's not crazy customized, which drives up the price and definitely increases the the time to get them.

What we're doing and the time it takes is pretty much a pretty basic truck, along with uh everyone else wanting a pretty basic truck, and then the reason again going back to the tower that we got, we were told two to four years.

We got it in two or a little under two because we didn't customize it.

If we did customize it, it would have been four.

Yes.

So I think there's a lot to be learned from that broadcast as well for the sake of getting your equipment when you need it.

Uh there was one incidence where they wanted a certain light mounted on the side, and it it basically held up the production.

And then they decided, you know, let's buy it without the light, we'll stick it up ourselves.

Brilliant, you know, brilliant.

But it's just crazy stuff like that that happens that affects first responders that's unnecessary.

But it's a custom color.

Our has ours has to be a certain custom shade of red.

Gets to be nuts.

The last thing, yeah.

The last thing I noticed there that I really was happy to see, and it's probably happens a lot more often than what I would know.

The decision to replace an engine, you know, keeps keeps a very vital part of that that truck in operation.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense, and 60,000 is a heck of a lot cheaper than you know, a million dollars.

Do you see us needing to do that more in the future on some of the things, transmissions, um engines, or it's just on occasion that we see that happen?

We we've done it in the past, not necessarily on engines or transmissions, but something large like a pump, fire pumps and bigger ticket items.

But for the most part, our city shop, our fleet services does a very good job maintaining.

Uh since I've been here, we really haven't had a lot of major mechanical issues to the point where we have to replace an engine.

This is the one this is the only one that I can think of.

So we we've been fortunate.

But obviously, if uh if a new one's 1.1 million and an engine 60,000, we're gonna do it.

No brainer.

Yep.

All right, Corey.

Well, you were the first meat and potato entree here.

And uh you brought a lot good stuff for us to look at.

But in my mind here, I need to really see all the needs.

Sure.

And then I need to see what's our ability to take care of those needs long term.

And if we can overhire to give you additional people, if that will work for you, I'd rather see us go that route than just try to spend another quarter million dollars that which is gonna be more than a quarter million the next year, plus the equipment and all that.

Talk about our our options.

I don't want to remember that, but you kind of made me think of something just now.

Even using that adding three or over hiring three, uh going back to adding three, and I think you hit the nail on the head.

We're very seldom full.

We're very seldom gonna bear the brunt of those costs, whether it be over hire or adding three because we're not full.

We haven't been full in 20 years, probably.

And if we have, it's been for a month, right?

And then we see the same in police.

I mean, it's just one of those things where regardless of the route, it will better prepare us to weather being short by having whichever we we take over hire or adding additional, but very very seldom will we experience the full cost.

Yeah, you're exactly right.

I hope you're not full.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

Corey, uh a few questions here as well.

So, you know, talking about the three FTEs.

Um, so when you actually hire new people, I think you explained this to me once before, just for everyone's understanding, you can't have like a school have to go through where you start with like a limited number of applicants, right?

And then you know, they kind of get weeded out there if they don't pass or not correct.

And uh do you start with like 10 or what's the max class size you could even uh typically six.

We like multiples of two, but I mean six is probably one of the largest classes I can remember.

And we're a little different than especially police and and some other agencies where we don't have a school to send them off to, so we have to train in-house to firefighter one, firefighter two, and hazmat ops level, and then for the medical training, we send them to the local college for EMT, or there's a hybrid course available through uh school VMS for EMT and paramedics.

So there's a kind of a long process, but a lot of it we do internally, and we generally have a max group of about six.

They have to get through the school to necessarily get the job correct.

Um yeah, well, we we hire them uh according to state statute.

We have a six-month max probationary period, so we try and get them to that firefighter one, firefighter two level within that six months.

If for some reason through their own performance or lack of being able to learn some of these skills or gain these certifications, they may wash out of that program.

So if six is like an average class size, is there kind of a standard percentage that don't always last the six months?

Is that kind of uh you know, once once we get them on board and actually they start, I would say 90 to 95 percent finished.

But probably the majority do.

I think uh where there's some kind of uh weeding out, so to speak, generally speaking, we'll get a application period and we'll produce about 40 applicants.

Of those 40, they do a background, including driving check.

We end up with maybe a group of 30 to 35 on actual test day, 25 show up, and by the time we do the physical test, the written test, and the interview process, we end up with a list of six or seven, and then from there we hire the ones that are hireable and train them through that process and hopefully return.

It would probably be very difficult to get fully staffed then just with the amount of applicants you even get.

It would be one thing I can say, and it's not normal, but we're our application period closed yesterday, and we had 71 applicants.

It's the most we've had in years.

So I don't know what's what's causing that, but I'll sure take it.

But we have, like I said, six to seven openings.

I am sure using that same kind of ratio, we're gonna come up with a list of hopefully about 15.

I think we'll be able to fill those seven spots.

If so, I'm sure by the time we get those spots filled, get them trained, someone's gonna retire or leave, and we'll be back down a little bit.

You always have a moving number there, and um I I know Warren Buffett retired at 95, but I don't think everyone else wants to do that or work that long in that.

Yeah, no.

Um so on fire trucks.

I know at the airport a couple years ago we bought a fire truck.

I think at that time it's about a one-year lead time.

And uh, so I've seen a lot of that.

If you got in a real pinch, if you because I know at two to three, your lead time is quite a bit, and if you have a I think you said a 25-year lifetime on those trucks, it probably makes sense to own the brand new.

Uh, but is there like a second hand market for any used ones that are kind of lightly used as well?

Is that an option we've looked at too?

Or there is.

Uh, there's a couple vendors out there that do that.

Uh you know, it's we haven't pursued it very heavily in the past.

I I can say we bought a used ambulance before, a couple of them.

Uh, we had one that that was wrecked years ago, and we were in a bind, so we purchased a used one, and that is an avenue that it does work.

It's just it's it's a used vehicle, and we're very fortunate again, throwing out credit to fleet services.

We buy them new and we keep them a long time, but that's due to good good maintenance overall.

And but yeah, you you can buy used.

Yeah, as I say, it's just a concern if you have a long lead time like that.

If you had to get in quicker, that'd be about your own other option to be something that's already out there.

Um, that's pretty interesting.

Um, also on the Phoenix, I think you called it the Phoenix system was the notification thing you're talking about.

Um that sounds like that makes uh a lot of sense to me if you're keeping your crew a little more fresh out there, if it's only disturbing who needs to be disturbed at those times.

I know I went through one of your fire holes a while ago, and yeah, probably isn't fun if everyone gets woke up if no one else needs to go.

So I think some things like that could make a lot of sense and make people more effective.

Um, talking about some of your stats, so you have like an average response time, or you're trying to get an ambulance somewhere, so I assume you're kind of geographically locating the stations that have the ambulances train hit those times.

Yeah, and and again, we have four fire stations, but three staffed ambulances, so we're we're actually playing around with fire station three and four to see which spot works best for us.

Prior to us completing station three, we didn't have an option, it was station four, so that's where the third ambulance went.

And we can look at the data, but one of the things that's hard to really get a grasp on is oftentimes if the ambulance from station one or two is busy, another ambulance from a different station has to cover it.

And by us physically doing a trial run with station three, we're able to kind of get a large enough sample to see if do we put it at station three or do we put it at station four?

Because we had the numbers from four.

We're just started with station three to kind of have a comparison by the end of the year.

It'd be uh interesting to look at, especially we're talking about maybe possibly relocating a station in the future and uh maybe another study session.

So I assume that's something you always got to constantly reevaluate where you want those located, and and when you're talking about building new building, I know at the airport we had to build a new fire station too.

I I assume a lot of it's the trucks are getting probably bigger than they used to be, too.

It's probably one of the problems or it is, and uh the trucks are getting bigger, the stations are following suit.

But I talked about it with fire station three.

Uh the modern fire station is a lot more firefighter-friendly in terms of health.

Uh, some of the things that they do is they they put taller ceilings in the truck bay.

Our people oftentimes check on top the trucks, whether when the ceilings lower, people hit their heads.

Uh our exercise rooms are generally separate from the truck bay.

Station two, for example, there's some exercised equipment in truck bay, and in the basement, which fumes kind of go go wherever they go.

Uh, station two is dimly lit.

Uh modern fire station is lit very well.

Um slips and fall type hazards, modern fire station concrete's angled and beveled a certain way to make sure water stays under the truck and drains away.

Older fire stations, water pools on the floor, and people fall down.

There's just a lot of things besides size that factor into a modern fire station.

And for firefighters, the the big scare is cancer.

So the fire stations that are being built today have zones.

They'll have a hot zone, which is a dangerous zone, a warm zone, which is a transition zone, and a cold zone, which is a living area.

And the truck bay is considered a hot zone.

The hallways into the living area are a warm zone, and there's normally doors on both ends, and the cold zone is that living area, which is supposed to be clean and safe.

besides size that factor into a modern fire station and for firefighters the the big scare is cancer so the fire stations that are being built today have zones they'll have a hot zone which is a dangerous zone a warm zone which is a transition zone and a cold zone which is a living area and the truck bay is considered a hot zone the hallways into the living area are a warm zone and there's normally doors on both ends and the cold zone is that living area which is supposed to be clean and safe and the thought obviously is to keep the bad stuff out in the garage area and the clean stuff inside and to make it safer more livable for a firefighter and that's what's in a new fire station and when you walk through station two and hopefully shortly we have a grand opening for station three I think that's what what we all need is walk through the fire stations see what a modern station looks like see what an older station looks like and then what I'm saying will make a lot of sense because other than that it's just like yeah whatever hot cold what don't know they've evolved a lot of our time yeah um just a couple of quick questions too so if you this is probably rare like a holy grail when you find these people but if you had an experienced like trained firefighter from another city that relocated here they wouldn't need to go through your training program correct they could pretty much come on and have certain certifications or how does that work.

Yeah in fact we've we've been very fortunate uh we've hired a couple experienced people one lately from Yuma Arizona he came from the fire department there and another one from Alabama with those types of folks we kind of orient them to to the Grand Island system you know the the computer programs the maps and streets our our equipment but they're already firefighter one firefighter two and they're probably an EMT or paramedic so instead of going through a long academy we generally give them a fast track of a few days orientation we stick them on shift then we have another series of of tasks that we have them go through but we're able to turn them out as far as on shift to where they count towards staffing instead of after eight to ten weeks they're on shift within a week and that's a huge impact.

I don't know if there's ways to try and uh attract even you know uh former military type of people as well that maybe had the MOS in the service and uh actually I think you might be wondering yourself but yeah I was and in fact you know the civil service was kind of built for that uh there's bonus points and I don't that's not the right term military points for people that have prior military experience when they're applying for a civil service type job like police and fire so they get an additional I think 10% of their written score to try and incentivize military personnel to to come apply for police and fire it's there we've hired prior military in the past quite extensively I think I had to guess I'd say 20% of our force is prior military of some sort so that's a good group to tap into they generally know our system know our rank and how things work.

I figure you had some anytime you get someone that you don't uh that's already heavily trained it's probably a big win for you guys too so it is yeah and you know dollar and sense wise it it makes good sense to hire someone so we don't have to spend as much time training them that already has that experience and certification education.

And the only question I had too is so whenever you're buying the trucks those are always a competitive bid process to you correct they are uh over the years we've transitioned from getting three bids to using buying groups and I don't know if you're aware of how a buying group works but basically on a little bit different level it's state bid but on a and Pat maybe you can explain us better but anything like source well or something like that.

Yeah source well yeah HCAC it's it's a leverage buying group to where the price is determined by their contracted amount with a certain vendor.

That does speed up the process as well because uh obviously going through a bid process evaluating that it's uh a good one to two months just to go through that and if you go through this you're getting a very fair price so yeah yeah and it should be a competitive pre-bid price thank you I think you got through my questions Mr.

Brown yeah you stole my question I was gonna ask you if you bought it through source well but uh you answered it the other question I had was when we do uh we provide people the Fauner Park and Heartland event center do we get reimbursed for that we do we we bill according to our fee schedule so we're reimbursed that but there's still an overtime cost they don't re they wouldn't pay enough for the overtime costs then it'll it'll offset those costs and that's one thing that that we do need to look at this year is our fee schedule we're we're gonna adjust a few things but in theory we're at least breaking even on the on doing standby just wondering about that but also uh I went to Jefferson and when I went to fire station two it was pretty new yeah built in 57 yeah it was only a couple years old any other questions then our meeting is adjourned thank you

Yep.

Any other questions?

Then our meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.