Welcome everyone to our uh February 24th uh Rochester City Council study session.

We have three items on our agenda this afternoon, and I'm looking for maybe 45 minutes per uh item.

So hopefully we'll get out of here by six o'clock, but no promises.

So with that I am I am going to turn it over to Administrator Zelms who will uh introduce us to our four first item, which is the fire service contract.

Uh thank you.

Uh my goodness, I'm totally having a blank.

Um thank you.

Randy Hubert.

I know, but I'm blanking on your title.

Council President Schuberg, sorry.

I was in a committee meeting earlier and I was saying that.

So that threw me off.

Um thank you, Randall.

Um, so I um here on behalf of a team of folks that have been um working to bring this back to the city council.

Um the fire service contract is something that um we have been um in partnership with our um township partners for quite some time.

Um obviously we've had a changeover in our fire chief.

So um Chief Pooler is here with his team, also Brian Anderson, finance director, myself, and then Ryan Yetzer, city uh assistant city administrator is joining us online.

So um excited to be able to bring this to you and be able to answer any questions that you have.

I just also want to acknowledge that we have some of our partners from the township in the audience um from uh Marion, Cascade, and Haverhill are some board members from there.

So welcome.

Um with that, I will um just get started.

Um what we're here to talk about is the renewal of the contract.

Um we are um gonna be at the end of a 10-year contract period at the end of 2025, and then going into um, I believe a new 10-year contract for 26 through 2036.

So with that, um, just a little bit of background um for um the current makeup of our city council.

Um it is an agreement to serve Rochester, Mary and Cascade, and then a portion um of Haverhill Township.

Um the agreements were established and have been ongoing since 2005, so quite some time.

And again, that current agreement um was 2016 through the end of 2025.

Um just a little bit of background on the timeline for when we started talking about this um with our partners and then to where we are today.

Um so there was a meeting in October of 2024 between um the townships, the fire department, and administration group, um, a couple of meetings in October, um, then in November.

Um we also um attended a the annual township board meeting, which is all of the townships in Olmsted County and had some discussion with a couple of council members and uh town board members at that uh meeting on November 26th.

Um there was uh uh a vote um not directly related to this um but related to planning um for Olmsted County and uh change to their approval of their general land use plan amendment process in December.

Obviously, we have a new council seated now in January of 2025.

Um there was approval of a contract that didn't reflect all of the conversations that was sent to the city council understanding of um why that happened with the townships, and then um obviously we have between now and the end of the year, but probably sooner than later, um, to talk through any um changes and proposals for a contract with the townships.

Um the changes that were previously discussed um our general uh cleanup of the language, the 10-year-old language for the service specific services that are provided to the townships, which differ from what happens within the city limits.

Um, a simplification of the compensation approach that reflects uh four and a half percent a year.

Um that's a change from the prior that had reflected uh um cost of valuation or four percent, whichever was lower, um, and better reflect some of the averages that we we've seen for the um operations uh costs for fire over the last 10 years.

Um updated the contract services.

That's also a cleanup of language, just making it very clear what services are provided, and then a section on growth coordination that's probably had the most discussion.

So I think through this process, one of the things that we would recommend as a team is that matter what we need to have better coordination and communication, have that be a priority so that we're remain aligned and there's clarity about what's happening with fire service in the city of Rochester and how that might impact our ability and what the expectations might be for our partners for fire service as either we continue to grow, they continue to grow, things change in the fire service.

We continue to make sure that we're providing services.

Obviously, it's no surprise that we are looking at expanding the fire service over a period of time.

That's something that we've been talking about, and there are implications to that for all of us.

So especially the operating budget, but also the capital budget.

So I think just knowing all of those things, it will be good to coordinate more, get together more on a you know semi-annual basis, talk with the fire chief and administration about what are some of the things that are happening, provide a monthly report on response data goals, just so that the boards can be better informed so that they can make sure that our township residents understand, you know, what are some of the expectations they could have for Rochester fire department service to them.

Um and they've already started working on a draft that's actually very detailed and provides a lot of clarity on what kinds of calls they're going to and what amount of time they're spending there, just so that there can be some clarity on the services.

So obviously, growth does impact service, it impacts services in the city of Rochester, it also impacts services for our partners.

Um, these are the types of things that that occur that the fire chief is thinking about when we're talking about you know, 10, 20, 30 year planning for a city like Rochester and our region.

Um, so it increase the larger your service area is and the more that's in there, the longer it takes to respond.

Obviously, if you're further away from the fire station, it's going to take us longer to get there.

Um, there can be increased drawdown times.

That depends on where you're going, but also the type of call.

So if there's a call that's gonna be a fully engulfed uh apartment complex, that's a long call for service.

And while you have a number of people responding and then relieving those responders, you have less service available to your entire service area when that's happening.

Um, as you have a higher call volume, that changes the demand on all of your resources, obviously, and it changes the decision making matrix for which call do you go to first, which is a higher priority, and how do you change your system dynamically to be able to provide proper response across the system for higher priority call that might come in?

Um, infrastructure development and design changes, how you can get in and out of developments, um, what kind of firefighting techniques or other rescue techniques you can use, um, changes potentially the number of traffic accidents that we're going to.

Obviously, staffing and training costs are related to that, the capital and operating budget pressures that's created when you want to maintain low call call response times, and then the general impact, and we're fortunate here to have been able to reduce the ISO rating for Rochester, the fire department, and some of their efforts two years ago actually would it increase it it improved our rating, which makes it go from a three to a two, which is positive for our region.

So just a little bit of nuts and bolts.

Um, the contracts with the townships is related to the operations component of the fire budget, not the capital component.

Um so if you look back to 2015 and take the average, um obviously there's some lower years and some higher years on average, the operating costs have changed by about 4.7% a year.

So that kind of correlates with that 4.5% conversation.