TranscriptDurham 2019 Budget BOS Fire

actually already in session we had our regular business meeting this clock we've been in recess but first business discussion it's been moved and seconded to tuck the motions from the January 15 and then you Ares 17 minutes all those in favor all right all right so tonight

we continue our presentations from department heads on their proposed budgets for 2019 tonight as the fire department but before we get started I want to really thank Ruth for a lot of homework that she did since our last meeting I sent her an email as you probably already working on this up anyway senator email and Sunday little list of stuff today she had emails out by like

late Sunday night I didn't intend for her work the weekend the extra work in getting information following the telecommunications budget considering that the telecommunications committee hasn't met who submitted that budget

after the fire tease presentation based on some of the new handouts throughout the information we provided if we want to back and ask some follow-up questions based on some of that information we could do that but I want to respect the Chiefs time and over to him and get started thank you for those I haven't introduced - my name is Joseph Warren the fire chief here in town since March of last year the numbers you have in front of you today are let's say significantly fairly different from what you may receive a week or so ago when we go through some of this some of the stuff that's presented historically for 2016-2017 is more to give an idea of

where the department's gone what the town has asked the Department for by and what those costs have meant in regards to some of the challenges that we face last year as a review the 2000 so let's see they had this in front of you already divided by my standing people that we'd be powerful on Steve the

biggest thing we did go over to the 2018 bunch of this year my 2.4 2% as a totally you need to overspend our labor on the operating labor not the per diem labor and there was an over spent item on the fire chief's line that was a predetermined issue the board has has dealt with that funding operations overage I did a media range adjustment I did my best to calculate wage adjustment that was appropriate before the department numbers that wasn't going to put us on budget we still did go over but the fact of the matter is the wages that were there for firefighters and EMS providers across the board we're not commensurate with what other departments of similar sizes we also did

have more fire calls a couple of very lengthy ones and with more people involved that just involves more money as well the premium line was underspending simply because we weren't able to fill all of the shifts and we didn't have a transition can you I

apologize my brain was trying to absorb everything sure the mid-year wage adjustment when you summarize that again for me please so that was so I looked at I looked at the wages that people were paid and it was and it looked at what their department qualifications were as far as their firefighter one the two certification or EMS licensure things of that nature and there's a there's a base pay for the department that's based on the minimum wage and then depending on the certifications they have whether they're an officer there are additional statements to that but the total value of those where they were looked at like I said we're not too mature with other other members of similar science department students same functions so was this a predetermined amount from the board ahead of time or I guess I'm kind of curious why the justments were made mid-year as opposed to planning it for 2008 that caused us to go over that that's a

decision I need to take responsibility for I did the calculations behind them I did not believe that the increases would take us over budget and I presented that to the board so just as the department heads have in terms of what we approved for a budget bottom line responsibilities so they may have leeway

within their what to do so cheap then cover the board with it and stated his case and and the position of the board is he's the chief it's his budget he's as long as the advantages that within the parameters and you know that's that would be tired to do so where we went over 2.4 percent do that does he have to come back to the board to get different funding moving around under I'm totally over it so the total is 2.4 2% but if it wasn't just the that it wasn't just the labor line we're also significant to go over long beautiful minutes yeah so what would have to happen in those when we even have an article that is more spent there has to be a question on this next town meetings warrant to basically ask for permission take the funds needed to cover the overages transfer from undesignated to that account to cover the operations

some of the some of the members mostly that most of the newer members but honestly what when you look at it the the minimum wage increase eats into some of that's spent years acquiring multiple certifications that maintains that maintains an EMS license that requires renewal and reeducation things like that it it makes it less valuable and kind of

less interesting for some people excuse me to continue to try to put the work into doing that because these are people that are hitting their this isn't this isn't their primary job this isn't no this isn't a full-time firefighter in Auburn or Portland where that's their career that's based on that this is something they're doing so minimum wage

has an effect on the psychology of the whole thing but it's not it's not a legal requirement correct but you're not gonna get you're not gonna get someone to go to paramedic school for the lunch support this is all of the health insurance fight that Medicare these are kind of hard and fast numbers we don't have a lot of control over his workers

determined by town or by Department departments are charged a different rate than Public Works Administration so like if you're sitting on a test and you don't have a huge liability you get hurt very often it's a much lower rate than somebody who's fighting fires or but a workman's

comp claim by town hall employee effects to the fire department and discussion there have there have been any questions about that but the necessity and use of per diem here in the town and these are some numbers that are able to pull together so right now we currently do per diem staffing what's one person from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and then we have stipend and staffing at night and that's on a voluntary basis people can sign up for that stipend and those are two people covering that shift from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. the thing that was interesting is that the most the majority of the calls these are just EMS policies do not final intended cost limited that calls happen during the day in the 127 vs. 76 we did not miss a single request for EMS response in the

town during the per diem time and the average response time of from the time we were alerted with the radio tones to the truck going up the door who's about three twenty seven four minutes and that was still missing almost 9% of the total per diem shifts for this entire year 2016 there were no pretty every 2017 they had staff that for half the year I was voted on that the town media they went forward with and afterwards this year we did we did the entire year these are the numbers and we came up with but relying on the voluntary or the statement and staffing at night there were 76 calls we missed eight of those average response time for that is doubled because we're waiting for people to come from home to get the ambulance to get out the door the total stipended shifts without coverage it's kind of hard to track because we plan the per diem at the start of the month we have a schedule that's put out and there are very few

shifts that are left open the next time I'm statement coverage is a little bit different we have the calendar that people come in and sign up on excuse me and we have a spot for a drive where the spot for an EMS provider right now what happens is is a lot of times the driver slots get filled up pretty quickly but we have less less providers that we have people that can just drive the ambulance so those shifts don't always get filled right away so if I looked at that the healing of the month I'd be pretty concerned about my coverage but people come in at the end of the day little tonight so no one's on tonight so they sign up and they cover so it's really kind of heart to heart because when I look back at everything that's new so you might have

given two pretty good staffing and the money that's paid for it hit suddenly servant of town well that's not only that's not only remedy that's lost but it's it's a service that the town is really providing citizens especially the

fact that once again most people working full time jobs and could not make the town during the day it would be very difficult to melt that response and certainly not in that period of time see on that 3.7 four minutes yes on the stipend it's a tone to rescue Andrew so those people are in the building right correct for dm1 and so the tone comes you see and it takes them three almost four minutes just to leave the building usually there's no more than two people here at the time anyway there are days when there's a pretty impressive and Diane is here and I'm here that's usually much faster the issue comes with having to secure the building before leave because the doors are open the public comes in and out burn permits or anything else so it's getting gear on the truck being clear about where you're going and getting the buildings secure than that leaving so that's I mean for I

mean as an example where I worked before in Rockland we were 45 seconds we're out the door or I could have seven people of the receptionist in the station a lot of them so it's it's different okay I don't think that for any for any for

any department running per diem staffing the station set up like this I don't think that's possible and the tone was a tone to rescue that's from the first home yeah we referred the first time the first time for the first don't look bad so you said they were 76 calls understatement staffing yes and they were not responding to well it is so that wasn't some element of atad sorry excuse me no wonder the total call of see a total of 84 house but 78 of them were not responded 276 recovered correct then

depending on where the where the call is attend the dispatch center will respond the close community related bills and they weren't spontex nobody's here okay I don't understand the stipend coverage variable at hard to track so as

I was saying so so that so those are the per diem staffing so during the day that's that scheduled a month of the time the night time is it's a completely voluntary signed up we have a calendar in the kitchen people come in and like I said some people come in and sign up you know they know their schedule to them of other people don't necessarily know their availability and they may come into the last minute and sign that so when I get the calendar and I look at it at the end of the month all the shifts are filled in or there may be one or two blanks because I because people aren't

writing down that they signed you know what date and time they signed up they're just writing them that they signed up you did an online system for the per diem it is it is not that that that was an expenditure honestly that we cut this here simply because most people would come in and give their schedule today in any way it was just as easy to manage it so those are they're actually just being manually set correct why wouldn't we do the same at least I guess

Wylie I'm not seeing why we wouldn't schedule and planned spike and staffing and track it the same way we do for you okay I guess I guess I'm not explaining clearly I'm sorry so when we put the calendar out at the beginning of the month so we put out the the shifts are available people come in come in and sign up whenever they're available they know we put it up the first a month they can come in and sign up but not everybody walks in here on the first of the month and signs up it's not every once again not everybody knows their availability not everybody knows their schedule and things change so at the last minute someone may have to come in across their name off someone else walks in 5 minutes later sees that the squads open who comes in and signs up if we were if we were going to try to it would become was

fun with it it would become annoying very quickly for our membership if we were literally calling every person that wasn't listed on there every day to find out if they were available that night I've been I've seen services that have

tried to do with that way trying to schedule some voluntary shifts like that and people just get tired of getting called on the phone and say I'm just not available whereas leaving it to our staff to sign up for themselves we do a good job of getting it covered because when I look back at the when I looked back at the calendar this afternoon to try to figure out that what how many shifts aren't covered I came up with like five for the year so I guess I'm still confused why can't you just say five shifts weren't covered that seems like you've tracked it okay so you can't track it ahead of time but you can track it in hindsight right

okay yeah I can I can see what you say that yes so roughly roughly probably five to ten shifts at the most I look back for about six months and realize so many of them were filming it's not sorry a shocking number to see

how many voluntary shifts weren't to cover maybe the issue that comes up with this is whether these calls land and we don't have people here so if somebody somebody has a stipend shift they've signed up for and a call comes in what

does that look like to make it called directly or do does the call just go out and they're the ones that are supposed to respond to the call the call goes out to everybody because they don't you know differentiate between the fire of the EMS tone the call goes out but people we

have people know that who signed up usually and when we started to do with our negative dispatch tone test we've announced who the crew is that's on so people generally know either if they heard you know portable tunes the only person on tonight you know the Ken Scrivener is the old one so you drive where we have known you best person so if someone may come down and sign up they may start to listen up it's just it's once again sometimes it's kind of the luck of the draw because it's a it's a voluntary system it's not no one's obligated to write so if nobody is says

it's saying no EMS person is signed up on a particular night and a call comes in what happened since the toll goes I don't think you said tone goes out no one responds they'll do a second tone is there the three minutes of no one responds to that and there's something neutral okay it's all across if somebody does respond it wasn't originally signed up for a statement established then they don't get paid the spike to do that no no there whatever the radiant content

all right houses usually work it's a just amount of that call yes so the dispatch center has our response plan set up for dependent whereas in the town it would be either Auburn or Lisbon and Freeport are typically are most commonly Chilean sometimes I honestly well

brother there's a whole town department Auburn is a program department Lisbon I'm not sure about their staffing levels and don't think Thompson is our Freeport has I think Freeport has one person on 24 hours a day so if we know we don't have

an es PMS person signed up can you inform dispatch so they don't wait for so many tones or is it just kind of standard this is what has to be done it's kind of its kind of standard this is what this is it's the way that it's done and the other piece of it is I'm here and I'm usually aware of when we don't have someone on and I'm listening up anyway that's paramedic to be able to cover any less cost just out of this bill what usually I can't think of it I can't they would call this year where we didn't get a driver it's getting to the EMS provider so that's that's where I look at it's my responsibility I know no one is around so I have a question on that I've had people expressed to me that it's unusual to have EMS response

service where both of the occupants in the vehicle not EMTs that this that one's a drive are not trained as an EMT that that is unusual agree disagree with that I would disagree with that for a town like this that's it's unusual for a for a career

department or a or a or a for-profit a little service because they're just don't hire those types of staff because they want to be able to plug and play people wherever a town like this that's very common to have the EMS provider so

could we could we outsource a lack of a better word 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. the EMS service if you want to see that average response time increase to at least probably fifteen minutes short if we all source that you totally outsourced the plate to another service like what we do now and when we're not here why would why would that increase the response time because even even if they get even if the same contract with Freeport even if they got even if they got to call right away there's still much farther away than we are much farther away than the people who very often times first respond to the scene from their home here and secondly we're not there we're not their primary response they may be busy with other things and there's no service around here than as an infinite number of staff or listeners that would absolutely increase response times a day so they didn't have but it's from the time they

leave their house it's everything note that town from the time the total goes off to the time they have gotten here who knew the ambulances were coming here and then correct possible response or four minutes they're here in less time well wouldn't be frequent will be whoever was closest right well if you're contracted with someone if you're contract you would let's say United and Auburn and the message caps will go to the Freeport Durham line it's going to take them a little while or if you're contracted with Freeport meaning it's only Freeport that's responding to us then it could take them a while to get to the Albert Durham line and if you do is tones I think last year we determine the time that the first term goes out to the time that they will go to another town is like nine minutes or something that's it six minutes now it's three three minutes three minutes to the second tone of the three minutes the

mutually so you got six minutes before they contacted the other piece of that is there there's no service that's going to do that for free long term break them right now if we if we wind up with a mutual aid evidence that covers a call that we can't at night they they build patient because that's that's their that's their right within the health care law has to do that but they don't they don't charge us for that if we if we ask for a paramedic intercept they do charge for that but if we just

started saying from 7 p.m. cest at 7 a.m. if we know there's someone sign them just automatically call mutual aid and another town finds out about that they're gonna say well we're not doing that without a contract we've asked some

other questions in the past and the response we get is like mutual aid needs to be mutual somewhat of a two-way street it's not expected for it to be equal both ways necessarily but the understanding is that that you you contribute what you have the resources to contribute because that that with that company mutual aid calls that we we

responded to 70 trillion calls last year yes I am sy7 I do not have fire so there was boy it was more than that a lot of the times when you turned around into the fire side of things but you you like these problems as far as what they are oh yeah there's a reporting system then so we EMS calls there's a there's a requirement patient care report that we have to file with the state but there are there's a turn of the system that we have for all all incidents that were report whether it's Fire EMS and that it was the fire marshal's office so you know

you like what format isn't it I need to be here to be a PDF and a lot of that information have to be redacted as far as as far as the the EMS calls because I patient information but I could pull I can pull more specific response times I can pull anything that you might say chief you said that you had electronic scheduling at one point where you kind of this year's budget there's so much did that cause I'm trying to run I'm trying to remember that was that was later in the subpoenas I think the subscription for that was about four hundred dollars in here I mean it's it's it's not much but it's just not something that it it wasn't being utilized by the members and by members moment like I said most people when they when they came in to do a shift would just think to hand off their their schedule today and it's just as easy just as easy for us to track it that way with a little rather than once again

last minute getting out for people to you know you login and you put in your availability of those types of things it's like I said it's a line that you walk and I've seen than other services then I've been a part of when people are giving they they have a passion for what they're doing there with aptitude for what they're doing as far as providing the service to the town but when it's not your career and that's one more thing on top of taking the kids to the basketball or taking wipeout or just having the day off to yourself last thing you wanted to phone ring every day asking what's your real ability excuse me can you cover tonight it's a it's a it's a fine line - why are you soft

the software works you'd have to put you in veil to it yet everybody would have to win it yes okay so they go to stop using the song they were going to put in their availability and then we still had to go in to approve it anyway that said that they wanted because people would be less if you won't give us a list of you know seven or eight days of they're available but one making shifts equitable there anybody to make sure we have the proper license recovered as best as possible spread around we wouldn't not everybody that every day they put a veil so the software really wasn't matching okay was it's for a much larger service than as a the the gist has a has a more policy a

standardized maybe then is the one scheduling system or more Pro totalized scheduling system it works well what we're doing right now $35 in them and that's it paint whether they have to respond to a call or not correct but that is but you met even

green to take that statement they also they also have to make sure that they are available they call comes in there suddenly you know they haven't shown up on achieve seven notes at dinner and I had a drink and now I can't respond then that becomes the problem I have to be able it because they have they have committed to they have committed to providing that service for the town and then then also paid an additional rate if they do going on call yes well the oil when they go on a call when they get there really early and that's that's a that's a standard for anywhere that does that shifts things and each person's

rate on the department is a different their licenses or whatever correct yes you know on the ranges for the hourly rates you know from 11 to $23 $23 is one of our deputy chiefs who is also a parent that could use a deputy chief through the fire inspector he has multiple certifications that paper so

they would get paid so let's say they're called they happen to run somebody the hospital they contain from the time they show up here the time they get back in the hospital their hourly rate correct because there's also paperwork that has to be filled out has to be filled up within within 24 hours that's not like they can take the people aren't home and do it because some of the patient the sense of the patient of the formation that whole access a heater to be done yourself and the per diem rate is that just been an hourly rate current and you know how much money you spent on your 7:00 p.m. 7:00 a.m. I honestly do not

have that specifically broken up thing we are noticing that does add to our add to our call times and our response times is the time that we do spend in the hospital it's not it's not as simple as wanting handed operation and leaving once we get there the patient gets screeched our biggest our biggest problem right now is the patience the request or need to be transported to me in the center because that's often a wait and then we get into the room and we can't just drop the patient off we can actually give a report to a nurse there the other day I did that I do the trick transport where I spend a half hour we get the nurse into the it's just it's it's a problem

of the healthcare system where the ers every time you the screen clinic do you know the 76 calls do you know what the end the average time was spent on each call I do not know the average but I can tell you from experience that that for transport here there's no less than two hours get into a call stabilizing patient transporting them

transporting with this you said patients can request what hospital their Center they kept that to ascertain know we we we treated we wear our standard areas to transport to it's what it's worth it a reason that they can request but we can also we can also we can also choose a

different hospital based on their condition if they want to go to the Midcoast hospital and it's obvious to our provider that they're having significant cardiac event we're going to say you need to choose central may intervene that and we often get notifications that either central vein or main that are under version because of their because of how busy they are so if someone has a has a minimal problem and that's that's from our assessment and they ask to go to hospitals on conversion of all tell them no if the hospital is under version then there's still the closest hospital that's a significant patient we buy lock and that so patient patient request is legally supposed to be the first choice but then there are other factors to make it charge for the ambulance depends on how

far the ride is what we provide for care whether it's basic types with what's termed BLS one or two or ALS one or two there's there's different paid pay schedules based on that I don't know I mean that that changes on a regular basis we never Dylan done through the Freeport rescue so if I look at per diem

staffing but you also need to remember that this is their son there there are points where we go these sometimes pass the week without without calls that's that's I think that line says per diem but that also includes the slight memory that does that does at this point include the nighttime statements that was the the

budget the budget that I inherited had but that covered all nighttime or basically all fire calls EMS calls that were outside pretty in trainings meetings all of that and per diem had the per diem in the nighttime statements lumped into it the budget I've put

together for you this year and brought in to know a little bit more has it more specified as to exactly where that money is broken out to not include any transports that's just emergency calls scheduled so it is the capital budget the same discussion that we had with of course as far as how that can be used right now yeah I forget was

it voted on that the per diem would go to the capital budget that ambulance oh it's actually just gonna ask her with that I know operational budget overages was voted to go I don't it could be something town voted on years past or it could just be a convention that we've just thought the best way we have to research it and find out depending upon the answer would determine whether it would require tell me

last year we brought in on that so it is possible to use that for operating expenses that we want to we don't know if it wasn't a town meeting vote to put the ambulance revenue in capital that we could but it was a tell me if you want to do that we need to change the money

from the ambulance I'm sure he's good I would assume that would go towards next year's budget would probably be the easiest way to calculate or I just goes or just goes you know just go into general that it's there to be used for any any purpose these lot differently I think I

don't remember exactly I seem to recall their thinking was that they wanted to revenues from the ambulance to go into capital because they wanted to see the offset against expensive things for that I can't a little bet my house on it but that's kind of what I have with my head

and on some of you can't you know we can't find the answer then won't we probably have to default to well we're gonna need a timely vote to make the change because if we're not sure we can't permit them we would have to do that again coming based on what we get

or a recommendation from the capital improvements program we may look at some of those things those areas much like a lot of things in public work which is its it's tough to quantify like cost-benefit analysis here and I think anything we can do to make that is clear to people as possible is

just how we alter the rest of this 2018 operating expenses electricity it's news everybody in town one over there with their budget once again this was a budget of the night inherited with with no prior experience so I really can't say much about it other than the fact that I operated as best I could within it looking to move forward into this

year's plan though they maintenance and equipment they that's equipment me that's really I'm not sure everyone paid attention to my multiple sessions of crying sled board meetings about how much problems we have with some of the trucks the biggest issue is that the

trucks were designed to be used and if they sit for a little while when they voted exercises that they hadn't had the staff here to do it prior to the last year or so they just need to be exercising some work we do have the new image of the new rescue coming this year which will decrease a significant piece of the maintenance simply because the engine will come up with a pump test that will be inspected we have the warranty the rescue as well tested warranty that ready for at least a year after that so there's there's things that won't have to pay for that Express this year but but some of the some of the things were just just nothing you could the trucks will run or not some of their their machines machines break unfortunately some offense broke this year and and it cost us over significantly so building maintenance

there was a prior to my arrival apparently there was a boiler failure and that was for playing stubs the significant chunk push the building to me that somewhere equipment maintenance once again totally under anticipated issues with with a couple of the apparatus that just became issues that we hadn't spent the money to fix it was

all but a thousand dollars and that was covered by insurance the ambulance intercept line that went down one with with my arrival as a paramedic in town and to coordinating a more regular rotation of the of the other pair of X and we have on the service on or about from 2013 budget do you mind explain what that means