We'll get started.

Very sorry, Chief, and everyone here for the lengthy workshop before, but very grateful to have Houston Fire Department Chief Tom Munoz and Marchelle McHenry here to present the FY27 proposed budget.

So Chief, you may begin.

Before I start, I want to just recognize the command staff behind me who's been doing an amazing job, Rochelle and her finance team.

Just I think I think with what we've done, great accomplishments, so couldn't be done without them.

But I want to thank uh everyone here.

Uh uh.

Great, and also I want to recognize former council member Sue Lovell out there.

I see you.

Great to see you.

Uh just uh we're gonna jump to page two on the on the slides.

Uh, just want to give you the table of contents that we'll be talking about today.

Strategic alignment, the expenditures by fund, uh by program, program details, revenue highlights, and of course, revenue by fund and revenue by program and the appendix.

Going on to page three.

Um, this slide shows our budget alignment with the mayor's priorities.

The majority of our budget, 90 percent is dedicated to public safety, and 10% to government networks.

A few key initiatives this year includes recruiting and retaining qualified firefighters, which you'll be able to the numbers that we show are are we very proud of those numbers, delivering life safety programs to the public that effectively reduces uh the identified community risks and promotes safe neighborhoods, and again, equipment our first responders with uh skills to better address mental health situations and safety training for enhanced incident safety.

Going to uh slide four.

This is going to be our expenditures uh by fund.

So fire is fully funded by general fund dollars.

The change from the current fiscal year uh 26 budget to fiscal year 27 proposed budget is a decrease of 13.2 million or two percent.

The decrease in overall expected spending levels are largely due to the decrease in classified overtime and increases in classified base and related French benefits and increases in restricted accounts.

We are still focusing on increasing the number of firefighters and paramedics, an effort that includes retention and new recruitment, including this budget are base pay for civilians and classified personnel, as well as continued funding for health and pension and special and other pays.

Next slide, please.

So now you'll see the expenditure by fund graph.

This slide is a graph depicting our changes in annual expenditures.

Uh pay increases for classified members, provisions for the holiday buyback provisions for special and other pays, and expended retirement options and budget for uh the prior clothing voucher allowances.

Next slide, please.

Personnel versus non-personnel.

This slide shows of the percentage of our personnel versus non-personnel expenditures, then further breaks down the non-personnel expenditures into supplies, services, and restricted accounts.

Of HFD's 718 million dollar fiscal year 27 proposed budget, 88% or it's $628 million is committed to personal expenditures with 98% of the budget dedicated to classified personnel expenditures and two percent to uh personnel expenditures.

The remaining of the 12% or 90.4 million of our budget is comprised of supplies, services, and restricted accounts.

Next slide, please.

Expenditure by program.

Fiscal year 27 has six programs in our outcome-based uh budgeting structure.

These programs are emergency response and rescue, community fire prevention and risk reduction, firefighter health and safety, executive services, administrative services, and debt service and interfund trust.

So the largest decrease that you're going to see is emergency response and rescue program, a decrease of 16.3.

This is our largest program, both in terms of budget and FTEs.

The 16.3 million dollar reduction is a net set of several figures that includes a 14.8 million increase in classified base pay and related French benefits, offset against a reduction of 28.1 million in overtime and related French benefits and decrease of 2.7 million.

Included in this program is funding for the drugs and medical chemical supplies carried on ambulances, firefighter equipment, and clear and gear cleaning, as well as tuition for paramedics.

But I want to emphasize in this decrease that it's the we're not going to impact firefighter safety.

That's going to be a huge priority for us, as well as more importantly, the citizens of the city of Houston.

So right now you'll be seeing in front of on coming slides what we've done our part to reduce the overtime based to what we're doing.

Our staff is doing in the back, along with all the the attrition rate that we've beaten.

So I'll be more explaining that at more at length.

Is approximately uh 1.8 million dollars or 5%.

The largest change in program is again uh classified overtime of 1.7 that we'll be utilizing.

The executive services is decreasing by uh 304,000 or 4%.

This program includes the salary French benefits uh of all HFD executive staff, personnel and per and uh in the professional standards office and the PIO office.

The the change in the program is attributed to reduction in classified overtime of 228,000 and along with benefits.

Firefighter health and safety.

The change in program is approximately 275,000 or 5%.

Uh, the majority of this is because of the clothing closing voucher expenditures, which we're taking care of the last two years.

So moving forward, that has already been taken care of.

The additional $300 that was for the five uh on the original $500 as per the contract.

So that's why you'll see a decrease in 2007 because now it's back on track.

What we're gonna see now is slides 18 through 16, H of D performance measures.

Um, you'll be seeing next slide, please.

Yes, you'll be seeing now the performance measures that we have in emergency response and rescue program, aligns with the mayor's public safety priority.

There are 10 performances measures of this program, most dealing with um turnout times, response times, and uh, along with the um the incident counts that we're monitoring at all times.

So, with that, we're gonna skip.

We're gonna go over now to the following slide, which is gonna be uh the HFD community risk, which is gonna be slide 10, please.

Um here we have the seven program measures.

We're on track to maintain what we've done uh in the past.

The key focus of this program is public education.

One of the things we are doing is uh partnering with other communities uh and other nonprofit organizations that cater to that population.

So that's a very good program, what we're doing there, and then of course the quality investigations to determine the cost of fires and if needed the apprehension of uh persons responsible with that.

I gotta add that our uh Arson division has been doing an amazing job uh with what you know with the uh arrest times and investigations times and the professional standards.

The executive services, next slide, please, is now um, which aligns with the mayor's public again, the mayor's public safety priority uh performance measures and the administrative service cost programs, which is uh for all centralized uh department functions, along with the debt uh transfer program that we have, which includes funding for the Ethan program, which now as you see on apologies for the slides, you'll see that that's gonna be approximately 4.2 for the Ethan program that we have.

Uh let me just move over to that.

So if you look at slide 16, that is where we're at now, which will be the uh program is uh budgeted for the interfund transfers in support of the ethan health, which is now at uh 4.2 million.

Next slide, slide 17, which is now the revenue highlights.

Ambulance fees continue to be our largest source of resources uh or revenue, excuse me, approximately 62 percent of our uh of the fiscal year revenue budget is uh what we're predicting each year.

The fee is increased by inflation, and then again our special permits fire permits.

There are 67 special fire permits that help with that revenue intake, and again, each year uh the fee is increased by inflation.

Slide 18.

So here you can see um the revenue that we're bringing.

Uh this slide is depicting our changes in annual revenues, the decrease from the fiscal year to 25 to the actual fiscal year is directly decreases in amount expected to be received.

However, I gotta say that the projected versus what the actuals now we're averaging about an overage or going over by approximately 21 million, that's to our latest numbers.

So once again, uh, we're doing our part, uh, and and definitely our members are definitely doing their part as well.

Um, but the change from the uh fiscal year 27 to the fiscal year proposed budget is again the decrease in the uh ambulance supplemental program.

Now it's important to know that these numbers are what the trend that Digitech, who's our billing uh department or EMS uh services doing the MS billing, those are the projections they have, but I want to emphasize this projections that they're that they're doing.

Again, um so going on to page uh slide 19.

So as you can see again, our revenue by funds is 100 uh by the funds that we have are the same information as the prior slides that we have, and you see a slight decrease of negative four percent, but then again, as we mentioned earlier, that is to the ambulance fees that they're predicting uh through Digitech is predicting.

So I know that was uh what we're looking at is slide 20 now, and as you're seeing here uh with slide 20, this is a revenue by program that you start seeing on what we're actually doing out there with our members that are are doing their part.

Uh you start seeing the actuals that we have uh, for example, we're see we're looking out at fiscal year uh 26 the estimate, uh which is 137 million, and we're on queue, we were on Q to hit that uh above what the projected budget uh the budget was and the estimates that they were given.

So we we uh surpassed that number that was given to us.

So that was on the programs revenue, but I think what everybody wants to talk about is and thank you.

Now we'll be um I'll be opening up to questions.

But before we start, I do want to again capture what we've done.

I know there is obviously overtime is very very important to us, and we monitor that closely.

But I think uh the accomplishments that we've done.

To give you an example, council members, uh, between 2017 and 2023, approximately 900 people graduated from the academy.

With Mayor Whitmar's administration and all of you, thank you for your support.

Between 25 and 26 fiscal years, 600 cadets have come through.

And more expected, obviously, in 27.

We're now look on queue for 340.

So this is a major, major shift that we were told was gonna take approximately four to five years.

We've accomplished in less than two.

That again is for the support, Mayor Whitmeyer's support and yours as well.

So what does that do for us, right?

The attrition rate is what allows us to grow.

So the attrition rate between 2017 and 2023 was negative a net variance of negative 405, which at that rate we would never catch up.

Again, under this current administration, between 24 to 26, we're positive 250.

So what we're producing now is what we've been needing to continue the trend to shift over and to start turning the ship around.

But another thing that we're proud of is fiscal year 25, when we started all getting together, our attrition rate, as I just mentioned, was 250, but the units out of service.

Just to give you an idea in fiscal year 25, 983 units were out of service.

Why?

Because we did not have people to staff those properly.

But again, thanks to what everybody's done, Mayor Whitmeyer, the local, Marty Langton, we were able to shift that now.

And so from 983 units out of service now, fiscal year 26, 84 units out of service, which is a decrease of 91% in two years, which is a huge shift.

And the reason I'm we're really proud of that is why it allows us to take care of what we're have to.

When we go in rescue, when we when we show up, they're no worse day.

Part of that numbers that we have is the number of paramedics that we had.

25.

Now currently, we have 150 paramedics that due to the intake of cadets coming in and graduating, were able to put those more paramedics on the streets.

And why is that so important?

Morale was taking a hit.

Upon our arrival, we'd be lucky if we got one staffed out of the five, and now all five are being staffed.

That's because our members now are excited to come back to work.

Morale's high, and that's who we are, because of the support that's been given to us.

Um the minimum staffing, we're talking about overtime.

So if you look, we went from April to April.

This may still not completed from fiscal year 25, fiscal year 26.

We've seen a reduction of 140,000 hours of overtime.

So as you're seeing, we're starting to see that trend change.

So thank you for that.

But what's important to know how our trend contingency changes.

Right now, we have 1,941 people that are past that 20-year mark that could start the retirement process.

Out of that, we have 25% that are officially in the drop, right?

So at any time they can say, Yeah, you know, thank you, I'm done.

So you can see that the trend that we're going is much needed to maintain and to do that uplift that we hadn't seen in approximately nine to ten years.

You know, so again that's something that we're extremely proud of.

The cadet classes, as I mentioned, historically, they were graduating uh 50 55%, or the attrition was 55% of what was given.

So on the average, they were graduating approximately 140 per year, and those were full-time classes.

If you do the average cost on that, that's 2.5 per class.

At four, that's approximately 10 million dollars.

And the return on the investment was 140 to 180.

And as it's been said before, that was just graduation rate.

That didn't mean that once they graduated, thank you, shake hands, and move on to another department.

So now we're keeping those people.

As a result of that, we decided to restructure how we did the academy.

We decided to see what was happening.

So we realized that our success, which they hadn't had a fast track again in those eight to nine years.

A fast track is a fully certified firefighter that comes in with their EMT and fire certifications.

So what does that mean?

It means that now we could put that person on the streets.

It's eight weeks of training.

A full-time class, you're looking at nine months, where the return was not where we wanted it to be.

So if you look at the attrition rate of the fast track, we're at approximately 91% that start graduate.

So we're really, really making a difference in that.

The other half that we have is those that have one or two certificate, one certification, either fire or EMT.

Again, that's a cost savings to us because again, we shorten that time link up.

We of the full-time class.

So that allows us to graduate more.

Along with that, you start seeing that we have a one-year waiting list on civil service people wanted people taking the civil service exam to want to join Houston Fire, which is a good problem to have.

After three weeks, I don't, we just lost money on that.

So now what we're seeing is a higher quality person because now the list is longer.

We're starting to see more veterans.

We're starting to see this last class, we had some graduates from Baylor, AM that are coming over to us.

We've had in last class, the graduated Chicago, Jersey firefighters coming to work for us.

And the list goes on.

So now to restructure with the same amount of money, we're gradually graduating twice as much as it was given.

So to give you an example, in those years, in those 2017, 2023, 900, we graduated, and now between 24 and 25 and 26 under this administration and Merrill Whitmark and all of you, we've graduated 600.

And that's something that we're extremely proud of.

Again, with the same budget that had been given originally, and we're on track with that.

So for this year, we're gonna be having three non-certified classes, uh, and four fast tracks, and uh four that have one or two certs, or one cert, excuse me, but through the academy and chief round, they know how to stagger so you graduate those, you know, together instead of one officer, two officers, start the average class, about fifty-five of those that combine together.

So those are the things that we've done uh to restructure and make the dollar go further and hire quality people.

So those some of the highlights that we have.

Um, some other ones that we have is the again uh the consumer needs team.

They've done an amazing job.

What they do is they identify the highest uh call addresses, both private and and and public, and we're able to focus on what is the reason people are calling so much.

Case in point, we have one one home private home 33 times a year, which is a low equity uh acuity.

Then we're looking at the private industry that keep on calling a lot for lift assists and so forth.

So we see how we can work together with that decreases.

One that helps us target what is happening versus them calling 911 for what they might need.

So what I like to say it's paramedics and uh EMTs doing medic social work one-on-one.

Very, very proud of that group.

They developed this group, and I gotta say that it is uh a gemstone in what we do now.

The people are excited to do what's allowed, and they grow, and what they bring into the department is now a result of high morale, you know, the open door policy, what we can do better.

Having our members at the command staff and those that are boots underground, give us better ideas what we can do.

These are things without losing sight on two things the safety of firefighters and the response to our residents that uh of Houston.

So that's the highlights, but I think it's important to understand that we're we're always asked, you know, over time.

There is a minimum staffing requirement of 849 per shift.

Along with that is, well, the reason for that is NFPA does make that recommendation along with the contractual obligations, but the wrong reason is safety for our firefighters.

Four versus three makes a big difference when people are trapped, when people are needing extra manpower, woman power to take someone out of a burning building, increases safety.

And just this morning I did meet with the district 20, and as you all recall, Marcelo's district Garcias, and last week I met with the family.

And us, the responsibility we have is making sure that each member goes home, each member.

I think it's important to know I grew up in this department.

So what we've done is amazing work, and for us, what we do in those programs are why it makes a difference, and not only us, New York, Chicago, those are contractual obligations because time of need, you need that extra, you need your brother or sister to be there with you.

So those are things that we've done, uh, very proud of the training we've done.

We've we've adopted new technology, SDI, which is a tracking system for a firefighters state of the art, and again, we were the forefront with that.

People on their own time volunteered to do technology for the betterment of us, so much so now that companies are looking at what we're doing.

So these are the trends that now we're making a change.

We were told it was going to take four to six, because the staff behind me and the those men and women out in the field, we've been able to accomplish what was told it would take four to six years.

So we're doing that.

And again, you know, we look at the overtime, and I can assure you that that is a huge responsibility for us.

What we can do better.

Are we doing, but thanks to what we're bringing in, the graduates, we're starting to see that trend.

I gave you an example of between the fiscal year 25 April and this, we've already dropped 140,000 hours, which is a lot when I look at hour by hour.

So again, I don't know if you have any other questions for me.

So, thank you very much, Chief.

We are so grateful for your leadership and for all of the good work of the Houston Fire Department department.

We'll start with Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Chief.

Uh, there's some great things going on with the fire department, especially with regard to recruiting, and obviously we very much appreciate the sacrifices that our firefighters make in the dangers that they work with on a daily basis.

Um thank you for the presentation.

I I do have a few questions for you.

Obviously, um, you know, this current fiscal year, you're you're not where you want to be in terms of overtime, and you're projecting a significant decrease in in overtime.

Can you uh kind of boil it down for us?

So what uh operational changes uh or or other factors are gonna result in this uh well again the goal is always to help, right?

Um so we're looking into your account of what's coming in.

We'll be graduating more of the medics that we invested in a year and a half ago, and now are gonna start getting ready to be on the field, so that's gonna help the overtime quite a bit.

The other piece is how we look at things, not only from the operational side, but externally, right?

And we put policies in place that now we have a more controlled overtime environment, and I want to thank the staffing chiefs for that, where it is rank for rank.

There's no longer two ranks.

We put that policy in place.

But again, what you're seeing too, council member, is that men and women are coming to work.

You know, historically, as you know, you remember on our worst day before we got here, right when we got here, 36 apparatuses out of service.

But that tells me now that as the numbers that we've shown you, people are coming now doing because morale is high.

You know, we have you and we have Mary Whitmar that they know supports us, and we're looking at that.

What can we cut back, right?

What can we do to help?

And so for us, looking at the goals always gonna be that.

And you know, with the staff that I have, we see what we can do.

But again, not uh endangering safety of our firefighters and and um and citizens.

So we're looking at the attrition rate, we're looking at the fact that we're bringing in more people, the graduation rate, we're looking at that as well.

And we're also looking at the fact that now as we're bringing more people onto the streets, it is helping with that 849 number that we're having.

It was very common also the trends to have on an average right as we got here with this administration, have a hundred and thirty-four, 140 off per day.

That's what they would do.

Now that average is dropped immensely to half of that.

So we're seeing that trend, and that's our goal that we're looking at.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um I'm trying to understand a few of the numbers that I that I see in in the big book, and I'm referring to the big book.

To this this book, yeah.

And uh page three in uh the fire department section relating to staffing, so FY 2027, projecting full-time equivalent classified 3895.

Um FY26, so this current year that we're in, was higher, 3993.

So projecting a decrease there, uh however we are projecting uh, you know, a large number of cadets that start training FY27 target 490.

Uh can you help me understand why we're projecting the classified uh number uh to go down while we're starting?

Oh, you're talking about the cadets are like the 490-340.

That was our our dream number, right?

However, with the 340 that we have, it's still maintaining what we've done in the past, right?

That was just the number that was too um a wish number.

And again, but if you look at the 340 to 370 is what we've done between 370, 340, and then sometimes 400 in the last two years.

So it really wasn't taken away, it was just that we wanted to see the options, and with that, the option that we have right now is still gonna be a model that is gonna be in our opinion successful.

So, yeah, that's why you're seeing that.

Okay, but in terms of the full-time equivalent classified, are we projecting fewer uh this this fiscal year?

That's what the number that's what the information on the page seems to indicate.

With the the fewer people that we're projecting as far as graduating, we're looking at about the same, probably off by about 40 70.

But however, with the buffers that we put, we feel that we'll be comfortable at the numbers that we've been maintaining right now or graduating right now.

All right, thank you.

I'll go back in the queue.

Councilmember Salinas.

Council Member Al area.

Good to see you, Chief, and glad to see us have Texan up there taking care of us at the fire department.

I just had a uh a quick question regarding the arbitration settlement, as I understand that was an additional 10 to 12 million dollars that we had to pay for back pay for last year.

Um is that 10 to 12 billion million dollars that we'll have to pay, presumably again in this budget cycle already accounted for in the budget?

And if not, why not?

And it's my understanding that the arbitration numbers have already been included with uh with the this fiscal year's budget.

That's my understanding.

But we could I could get those numbers for you, council member, and get back to you with that.

I just don't want to give you some wrong information.

Thank you.

Councilmember Fleckenter.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Chief.

Um slide eight on your uh KPIs, the FY25 actuals seem to be very round numbers.

Do we track that very closely, or is that to the next 30 seconds?

Or you're looking at slide eight, sir, on the slide eight measure.

FY25 actual, um you got three three minutes 30 seconds for call processing.

The uh heart problem chest pain is 13 minutes, 49 seconds, but then the EMS 300 series all incidents response is 15 minutes.

The other next one is 13 minutes.

Do we only track that to the minute or to the half minute or so we track that sir based on you know the the call, right?

Either as a round off, but we track that to the minute that we do.

But you gotta remember now that during that time, that's why the importance of having every unit fully staffed makes a big difference on that.

So there's a lot of variables that go into that number of the response time.

Number of stations, again, one of the things that we're looking at is how do we restructure that uh low acuity call, right?

Which makes a huge difference when you have either a public or a private resident that continues keeps on calling, so that adds to the number of runs or to the increase time.

So those are things that we look at, but that is kept, and I could get some more information.

Okay, and I wasn't even being critical of what the time was.

It struck me as odd that it was round numbers like that.

Yes, sir.

Um, and then uh on the next slide, I think it was uh you've got a reduction in incidence, um, total incidence you're targeting 320,000, and we're three is estimated to be three twenty-eight this year, three twenty-nine the year before.

Any specific reason that that's going down?

On the target that we're looking at, sir.

So what we see now is again, we've mentioned that we're gonna start doing more of the proactive consumer needs.

We're gonna go out and see what we can do better.

And again, we're identifying those addresses in private businesses you have talked about.

Say, in fact, I went out with your team to one of the residents out in Kingwood that was no, and I think that's a fantastic program.

And that's what obviously if you reduce your workload, it benefits you.

So I think us and the taxpayers, everybody, right?

Well, I think more importantly that it reduces the low acuity rate that we have to respond to, where it's really not a 9-1-1 or emergency call.

Okay, yeah, and the last thing I wanted to do is I want to talk about the overtime as well.

I mean, and I've expressed concerns about that before because it seems like you've had a number of tailwinds that it should have improved this year over the previous year.

Uh you've gotten graduates out.

I understand there's a time lag with some of them if they go to EMS school and all that, but also we had Hurricane Barrel the previous year.

Um, one of the other things, and uh this came up a number of years ago, and I found this out from Marty Langton is that you know the firefighters had the ability to sell their shifts, which I was completely unaware of before and Marty assured me that you know this actually reduces overtime well it went from being capped at 25% to a hundred percent.

So that's if it reduced overtime then it should have reduced it more.

So you've had a number of tailwinds yet so I know people keep on referring to Burr right but what was important that moving forward the following July we had curve the curve flood right that was um we sent a team there so what's important is I go back to the uh the eight hundred the eight hundred and forty nine in minimum staffing for every member we send out we have to backfill that member right that's one the other one that we're looking at as I said before we were only able to send 25 people at a time now paramedic school is 14 months and that's the thing that once they graduate you know we go straight to paramedic school or maybe a a uh a downbreak about maybe a month or two and they go to paramedic school but that person that we started graduating was to to handle and correct and fix what wasn't happening in the last eight years which was more medics you know we weren't able to train people I mean it was a lot of fixing that we had to do to be able to get where we are now right it was that investment in the beginning that it takes time to build to that number and we're starting to see the attrition rate right along with that attrition is what we were getting was again we went from 25 medics to 150 that we're training so those medics do require a backfill and so someone to take over as I mentioned the magic number for each shift is eight 849 right now as we grow and we grow we're at about 812 of a shift right magic number we want is 930 but as we look at the continued trends we feel confident we'll be getting there and those are things that it's not just we graduate go back there now they do help uh when we start seeing the firefighter rank that's coming in but again to grow and to maintain the the demands of the city just to give you an example since 2018 to now our number of runs have increased by 1400 right so that's a lot that we do but going back to the question we see the graduates but it has allowed us to do what hadn't been done which is graduate more medics you know have more training for them and again start filling those gaps because it was uh there was times when we first got here that those numbers were below you know 815 or 800 really so we're starting to see that increase in shift that we hadn't seen in a while okay and you know you bring up the curve and I had not thought about that and even though we would have gotten reimbursed for that it still would have showed up in your overtime numbers so that is a good point.

I didn't think about that.

It goes to general fund but again when we send that and uh we had members there that were their specialized uh base learning base that they have you know I will tell you that our our our rescue teams and and task force are well sought around the state and the country but then again we have that and you got to remember that during July we is what we call the peak times July through August vacations and so the obligations that we have to meet as well.

Vice Chair Castillo thank you chair good to see you chief to see you for the ambulance fee every year it is increased by inflation is that the only time that fee increases or does it have an increase outside of inflation so the inflation makes a big point but I know there's there was House Bill 916 if I'm not mistaken was that correct so with that sort of you know there's also the regulations of what insurance companies can do and but for us we maintain that that that fee and again with the inflation rate you know we try to adjust but not uh major major because we are we are aware of the fact that the resident is the most important thing for that.

And how does our fee compare to other it's on the average sir on the average?

Actually, when you look at other cities are uh a lot more than than we are.

So we we do that, we maintain that because again we look at so many factors, and again the big one is socioeconomics and you know, social economics, the age population, what that makes.

So when we do all this, we take all that into account as what's going to happen, right?

Now there are other areas that we're looking at uh as far as again when we have these um, and I'll say private industry, it calls continuously, those are the ones that we're looking at because one it takes away from the uh the public for the true emergencies, and two it is a way of um sometimes overutilizing our 911 system for benefits, which we'll be talking about later.

Uh, in the months to come.

I hope that helps.

Yep, thank you.

Councilmember Salinas.

Sorry, Chief, just one follow-up question.

Um, and I see on that slide that you're planning for a three percent um base pay raise increase.

And I assume that's what you meant by the increase accounting for the arbitration.

Has the union agreed that three percent will be sufficient this year?

Well, I mean, that's per the contract that that was there, so yes, and and I you know I can't answer for Marty, but that was per the three percent pay raise, right?

Not part of the arbitration.

Are you talking about the escalator?

Is that what you're talking about?

Well, yes.

She's talking about the escalator, and then what what's just the what did the con what's the contractual increase this year?

Well, we're looking at three percent right now, the three percent.

And again, the escalator, that's one thing that that uh myself and and the union work together on meeting those.

You know, our main objective is always our firefighters.

So um I'm fortunate that we have a good relationship when we look at that, right?

But again, following what the contract says.

So as I understand and it sounds great that the union has agreed that a three percent escalator this year will be sufficient.

The three percent escalator is that we're talking the three percent, that's already allowed in the contract.

One's the ones just the raise they get through the contract, three percent, and then the the escalator.

Is above that with with some um with some requirements for that added revenue, uh, you know, recognize, and that's between obviously administration and the union, but again, all of us doing our part to help with that.

Have we negotiated or discussed what that escalator will be for the budget, the budget fiscal year that we're about to vote on?

We started already talking about that what that what that's gonna look like, and there's some conversations that we're gonna continue to have.

Is that accounted for in this current budget then?

Not that I'm aware of, but no.

Okay, do we have any sense of how much more it's going to be on top of what the budget is proposing and where those funds will come from if they're not set forth in the budget?

So as we started discussions now, we're looking at what impact or what's the magic number that we have to meet for that.

So, do you just plan to pull it out of some other funding source in H FDI?

I'm just curious where this money will come from.

It's self-funding the added revenue that we have to get, so yeah, so it's not coming from within.

It's so as per the contract, the added revenue and agreed revenue, but added revenue, uh, that's gonna have to come in to justify that three percent escalator.

Do you have a sense of when those negotiations with the union may um come to a close and we'll get a sense of what the escalator will be for the upcoming year?

I can't speak on behalf of Marty, but I know that internally we're starting to look at areas together to work together, right?

And that's the thing that we want to do, and we always do work together on what is how do we come to that objective and goal?

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh Chief, again, a question out of out of the big book, the fire department section page seven.

I think it's got seven hundred and twenty-seven pages.

Well, yours is smaller, fortunately.

Um yeah, page seven, administrative services.

So for um FY27, the expenditures are projected to increase by uh about five million, while FTEs are projected to actually decrease by about uh eight.

Um, so I was wondering why uh what explains that?

It would seem that uh if revenue if expenditures are going to be.

So these are the restricted accounts or that if I'm not mistaken, uh they've increased by 4.7 million that they put into the restricted accounts, which is my understanding of the intra funds that we have, which is for chargebacks and so forth.

Okay, uh chargebacks such as fleet uh management, GSD, we have that, uh, IT.

So those are the other uh departments that we pay for the services, that's a good way to say it.

All right, and that just far exceeds the the savings you would get from the decreasing FTEs, is that right?

Yeah, yes, okay.

All right, thank you.

Thank you for that question.

Thank you, Chief.

I don't see anyone else in the queue.

I submitted some written questions, so I look forward to getting those answers, and we will move to our public speakers.

Again, thank you to the Houston Fire Department.

All the great work that you do.

Really grateful for your service.

Thank you.

And we have Doug Smith.

Uh rating of uh the from insurance organization ISO and is the world's largest fire department to be awarded accreditation from the commission.

If I were public and I don't think a lot of people know that, but if I were public relations for the fire department, I would buy billboards all over the city saying that and indicating that because of that our fire insurance rates go down.

I think it's really critical uh that people know that.

Uh on page 12.

Uh they talk about performance measures.

They talk about fire hoses tested for safety, and that dawned on me.

They don't have anything in here, and I think it's really critical.

How many hydrants have the can they can they set up a criteria for testing their hydrants?

Because I've seen several times where they go to a fire and the hydrant isn't working, where the fire is, and they have to extend hoses way down the street to get it.

And there's nothing in here about the hydrants, and I think it would be really important to do that.

Yeah, Chief, we can get some information on hydrants, that'd be great.

Okay.

Then we heard in a meeting, I don't know what committee it was that uh fire department personnel hand write their time cards, and then their time cards are hand entered by somebody into the payroll system.

Why is that and what can be done to correct that?

Yes, we we did hear about that, um chief.

I don't know if you heard about that discussion um during one of our uh it was during one of our meetings.

I know council member Castillo was on it at some about the some of the hand manual timekeeping procedures that still exist at at HFD.

So, but we'll we'll get you we'll get you an answer.

That needs to change.

I mean, in this day and as uh Councilman Frickinger said in this day and age that doesn't make sense at all.

Uh question on ambulance fees.

I'm just curious uh how much is collected versus how much is billed.

Uh I'd be curious about that.

There is a metric somewhere about that.

I'm sure there is some uh just a question.

There is an executive services department and an administrative services department.

I would like to understand what each one of them does and what the difference is between the two of them.

Uh and then uh peak time ambulance units is only five.

And I can't believe in a city this large there are only five ambulances that are working uh at the peak time that just does.

Well, those are additional ambulances, right?

As in addition, that's additional ambulances.

There's still all the ambulances that we have at the stations servicing, but during peak times, we've got five more out on the roads.

Okay.

That's what that is.

Okay, and then finally on page three of the big book, uh, there's a line item uh 27 budget provides funding of nine million dollar increase compared to the adopted budget and classified overtime.

And yet the classified overtime full-time equivalents dropped uh from 695 to 423.

I don't understand how the uh right that doesn't match up.

We can ask about that.

And that's a council member Ramirez.

Yes, uh, thank you for the question about time sheets, Doug.

But while we're having that discussion, I noticed uh some of the some of our fire department personnel in the audience were shaking their heads no is uh to indicate that's not the practice.

So uh if we could get some clarification, that'd be great.

No, no, sir.

That's not in practice.

What we do is we have why don't you come on and they can't so the actual writing of time cards, that's not the practice.

We do have our timekeeper system that our staffing office looks maintains, and that's all done.

Obviously, computer everything's captured because it's got a the pay codes have to be put in, gotta go into ARA.

So a handwritten time card is not uh that's I haven't seen that.

Maybe what you might see is somebody doing the schedule on paper, but just for the roster, but not actual time for a regular captain or chief.

Is that hopefully?

Okay, I don't know.

I don't remember where we heard that.

We heard it with respect to HPD.

With what?

That's right.

It was the part of the controller's office audit report.

I remember them saying it about HPD specifically.

HFD, HPD.

Oh, HPD, okay.

No one knows.

That was the other guys.

We're gonna get to the bottom of those handwritten time cards.

Um, thank you, Doug, for coming.

Anybody else?

Oh, Laura Gallier, come on up.

Hi, everybody.

I was here when the auditor said that it was uh fire department and police department with the manual time cards.

I don't know if she said handwritten, but she did say manual.

Um, the health department was making their presentation, uh they talked about um supplying all of the ambulances with all the things the ambulance needs.

And I heard today that the fire department is uh supplying the ambulances with what they need.

So I was a little confused.

I remember the health director saying that they um through the opioid abatement uh division, they supplied all the NARCAN and all of that to fire to the to the ambulances, so all of our first responders can have Narcan for opioid overdoses, but I don't think beyond that that that I'm assuming beyond that is is uh is all from fire department.

She talked about how complicated it is to get all of the complex things in one ambulance, so because you never know what call you're gonna get at any particular time.

So she did go into some detail about how complex.

Yeah, we'll get some more detail on what's paid for by health and what's paid for by fire.

Okay.

Um I did um okay, I got the time card.

Um my other question.

Uh I have two more questions.

Um as far as paramedic training, um, are they on fire department payroll while they're going to get trained as medics?

Yes.

I mean, I don't even know for sure, but I'm saying yes, because that would make sense to me.

The answer is yes.

Everybody's getting paid.

And they do that after they graduate from the academy.

So it's 14 months that the city is paying for them to go to med school.

Believe me, money well spent on paramedics.

And are those is the paramedic school that's through community college, Lone Star, and HCC?

Yes.

Okay.

Um, and my other question is since you know all of the um departments are being asked to uh have an austerity budget.

I've asked about this before, but I never was um comfortable with the answer, and that is that when I go do my shopping at HEB, I see a fire truck there, and the the team is inside shopping, and then they're loading up their truck.

And my question is uh that sounds really expensive to me, and couldn't they get those things delivered or have somebody without a fire truck go pick them up and bring them to them?

That's a question we can get answered for you.

Okay, because I see it almost every time I go shopping.

So if it was just once, I wouldn't bring it up.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Anyone else want to address?

Okay, you guys, it has been a marathon day.

Really appreciate everyone for sticking with me.

And tomorrow's our last day of budget workshops.

We'll start at 9 a.m.

with the controller trends report and his departmental workshop, 10 a.m.

libraries, and 11 a.m.

or somewhere in that range, um HPD.

And then we will be done.

With that, this meeting's adjourned.

Thank you.