Good afternoon everyone. Um, today is the April 14th meeting of the finance committee as we continue to do budget reviews and the focus of the agenda is public safety. Um, just so all our guests know, my first order of business
is to make sure the members of the committee can hear and we can hear them. So, I will call out their names as I see them on my screen. Lynn, >> uh, present. >> Councelor Brebeck, >> present. >> Anna Deon Gothier,
>> present. >> Kathleen Mitchell, >> present. >> Tom Porter, >> here. >> And I think I got everyone. One counselor hasn't joined yet, and one of the resident members told me he would be
missing today. So, um, we are ready to start and we're going to do public comments at the end. And Sean, I don't know whether you had an order in mind of the three departments we're talking to today. >> Let me just do we definitely want to do
public comment at the end. Um, I know we did it last time because of >> We did. We can take Why don't I just um uh I can take it. We can take it at the beginning. I'm looking at the number of attendees. >> Yeah, I just want to check the agenda, too. But, um,
>> okay. So, um, of the attendees, we're going to open it up to public comment. And I think, as you know, we the comment should be no more than three minutes and we won't interact, but we will listen. Um, so if any of you would like to make a public comment, please do so at this
point. Raise your hand. >> And we did list at the end too, Kathy. So, if people want to do it again, they can. Um, we do have one Deb Ferrer allowing to talk. >> Okay. >> Hello. >> Hi, Deb. You've been brought in to the
and we can hear you. >> Okay, great. Hi. Uh, my name is Deborah Ferrer. I'm a resident in Ammerst. I'm also the co-chair of the community safety and social justice committee and also uh was a member of the community safety working group. Um but today these
are my own views. Um I want to communicate my uh full support of Crest. Uh the town should have never frozen Cres's two positions uh last year, this past fiscal year. Um, how do you freeze two positions from a department that
only had eight responders to begin with while the APD had the same number of position frozen, but now instead of six, which is what Crest has, they have 47 um, police. Crest needs more responders
beyond what they have in place um, to respond during the times in the evening where more incidents happen and on the weekends. The director also needs an assistant director. The the APD has several commands um staff and Crest
director only has herself. Crest is an alternative to policing. And why is it only getting 2.7% of calls dispatched to them? It was only through pressure from my group CSC when we met with the town council that protocols were put in place
to dispatch calls to Crest this past January. Even though crest has been in and in in um originated years ago, this is the active resistance and crippling of crest in order to underutilize it. Our residents need Crest. I commend
Camille for all that she is doing um given everything that has been put up against Crest. I feel the town is actively sabotaging Crest but not fully funding it. And don't be mistaken, the community, we're paying attention and we are monitoring and we are looking at
what is happening in our town. Our residents, all our residents, not just rich residents need to uh need to be taken care of. All our residents need to be taken care of. Thank you. >> Thank you, Deborah. And Sean, I think um I saw
[clears throat] another hand go up. Maybe not. Uh bring in Derbian. >> Anna Derby. >> Anna, you are have joined us and if you unmute, you can speak. >> Yeah. >> Welcome.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Um I also like Deb, I'm a member of the CSSJC, but I'm coming to today as a parent. Um I'm the parent of two black boys who live here in Ammerst. Um and Crest is incredibly important um for me personally. Uh, my
first child was born in 2016. Um, I just returned to work after, um, the or right after I returned to work, um, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were murdered by police officers. Um, and I'll really never forget the feeling of that emptiness looking at my little baby, thinking of these two men as
newborns, their whole lives ahead of them. And not every police officer is like those who took the lives of these men, um, or the many other people who lost their lives to police violence. But the institution of policing is associated with violence for many black Americans and other minoritized
Americans because of these kinds of incidents. Um, Crest exists so that these incidents that do not require an armed officer's presence don't see an armed officer arrive. Um, at the founding of of Crest, the recommendations from LEAP make it clear that the community responder model that
Crest is based on is one of building relationships, meeting needs of vulnerable people in our community. Um, and coming back to my own children, since moving here to Amoris, my kids have gotten to know Camille the Crest team. They see her at events, they run in for a hug. So, as a parent of a child
who's bordering on his pre-teens and is a member of one of those vulnerable populations, I feel an extreme amount of comfort knowing that he has a number that he can call that can be answered by people who are trained in community safety, but who know him and can keep him safe if he needs it. Um, I personally have never had an unpleasant
interaction with a police officer in Ammerst. However, any interaction with an officer in uniform includes the presence of a weapon and reminders of where each of us are located in systems of power. For those who have had negative interactions with police officers anywhere, it doesn't have to be Amoris. Those reminders can be much more
traumatic. U Crest offers an alternative that can keep them safe while also feeling safe. The original recommendations of the LEA report called for staffing levels and hours of operation that Crest has never been given. And yet, they come into hearings like this, they're expected to meet the metrics of a department with significantly more robust support. Um,
we need to fully fund their operations. As Deb said, they're supposed to have more officers, supposed to have more hours. We need to make good on the promise that was made in the wake of yet another murder of a black man at the hands of the police 6 years ago. Um, my family, we moved here from New Orleans, um, a city that has a tragically high
rate of incarceration and general system involvement for people who look like my kids. And I came to Ammeris because I want them to be as safe as possible. And Crest helps me and helps them feel they are more safe. And so it's just incredibly important that they maintain the funding that they have, that they
have increased funding, and that they have um that option for people who need it. Thank you. >> Thank you. And uh Sean, one more hand has gone up. >> Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm um taking time from work, so I'm going to keep this very brief, but just wanted to pop in and echo the thoughts of those who I've heard before me in supporting um Crest and continuing to fund Crest program.
Crest is something that I think really sets Ammerst aside. to have uh a model such as this is extremely important especially in this day and age when there are so many people um really under attack if we will in terms
of their own risk and safety in living in our community. So to have um a group of uh Crest employees present ready to respond in a safe supportive manner where the risk is kept very low is
extremely important. Um that aside, I was part of the original research initiative that made the recommendation and and um that to have a community response model in this town that was the
product of numerous people's efforts. It entailed a participatory action research model bringing in the very stakeholders who are most impacted by policing and who very much sought an alternative to
that. To defund Crest would be silencing those voices at a time when again given our larger societal issues, this is this is not the time. It's never
the time, but but certainly in um this the the state that we're in, in our own country, in our own nation, and the amount of black and brown people that we have in our community who are especially at risk given hostile discourse and
narratives from federal leadership, if we can call it that. Um combined with the fact that we are a a fantastic community full of of immigrants. Um, we need Crest more than ever. So, I would be very, very
disappointed in our town if we were to defund Crest. It really is an asset and it makes me proud, one of the things that makes me proud to live in this in this town. Thank you so much for all your work. >> Thank you, Katie.
>> So, um, Kathy, I'm just going to ask the the department heads real quick. Does anyone have a time restrain. I know one time we did. Um Chief Strong, do you have a time? >> Uh it's not super tight, but I am sitting at Reagan National Airport and I have to board in about an hour and 10
minutes. >> All right. Why don't we start with fire and then I was thinking go to dispatch and then um rest of police, but why don't we start with fire? >> Thank you. >> Just just one second, Sean, because I saw that Sam had joined us and I just want to make sure he can hear and we can hear him who's a member of the
committee. I think I saw Sam. Yeah, he did. >> Do I'm not >> um but he's not in here anymore. He did join for a second. >> I thought he was here. Okay. He floated in and out. Okay, go ahead and start. Thank you. Thank you for joining us.
>> Uh so, Chief Strogrren, do you want to just give an overview? I didn't know. Um you'd mentioned maybe sharing your screen. I don't know if you if you want us to I can give you that ability or if you just want to give a quick overview. >> I would like to, Sean. I just want to ask you if it's appropriate to just very quickly talk about our staffing proposal
and that's where you you made your budget proposal for the next three years. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. Okay. Uh hello everybody. Thank you for having us here today. Um certainly happy to answer any questions either the ones that were uh given to us previously which we have given back to
Sean in writing but if you uh wanted to expand on them today I'm happy to or any other questions. Um, honestly, the one thing I want to focus on today is our staffing initiative, um, which Sean I know has spoken to at the last two council finance committee
meetings. Um, as you know, we've been advocating for increased staffing for the fire department literally for decades at this point to meet our 3 to 4% increase in call volume every year. Um, you know, it's been a couple decades now. we've been saying we need more
staffing to put x number of ambulances and x number of firefighters on a firet truck. So over this winter um I tried to codify that and put it into numbers not just say we need more staffing but we need this many people to accomplish this
and this many people to accomplish this and I propo I presented that to Paul and to Shawn and Shawn has now done um I think a great um outcome of that. he's created a not a one but a three-year uh staffing plan to actually get us to our
first benchmark. So, I will share with you what I have if you give me one moment and let me go back to share. [snorts] Uh here we go.
So, I hope you can all see that now labeled uh staffing plan January 26. >> Yes, it just came up. >> Great. So, I'm not going to go through the whole thing. I just want to hit a couple real key terms and then I'll jump to the uh staffing plan. Um we can't
really talk about staffing without understanding these three terms here. Um it's not all about how many firefighters work for the fire department. It's about what our minimum staffing is. Minimum staffing is how many have to come to work every day uh show up in the morning
at 0700 hours to staff the two fire stations. Um that has been locked at 7 or 8 for uh literally a couple decades at this point. It's eight during the academic year and seven during summer and inter session. Um and I'll explain
in a moment what that means we can do from seven or eight for minimum staffing. Shift staffing is how many firefighters are assigned to each shift. Obviously, if we need seven or eight every day to come to work, we may have 9 10 11 assigned to a shift because, of course, we have vacation, sickness,
training, etc., that whittleles that number down. And then finally, that leads us to the total number of full-time firefighters, line firefighters that we need to staff four shifts. We have four shifts in the department. one of those shifts is working at any given time for a 24-hour
period. Line positions refers to firefighters and captains that run the ambulances and the fire trucks. That excludes the assistant chiefs, me and our fire inspector. So, understanding minimum staffing,
this is our current model right here where we've been for ages. Our minimum staffing is seven or eight. As I said, we have uh it says 11 or 12. It's more like 10 or 11 assigned each shift right now. We do have 46 FTEES [snorts]
for line firefighters right now. That does not include the assistant chiefs or the chief. What does that enable us to do? That enables us to staff three ambulances. Uh we're required obviously to put two paramedics or EMTs on every ambulance. So 246 that eats up your
seven or eight pretty quick and that leaves half a fire truck which means one or two depending on whether it's summer or school year firefighters to go out on a firetruck. National standard is four people for a response on a fire truck.
You honestly can't do much with one or two because one drives that leaves an officer and no one to actually do the rest of the work. So this is where we are right now. As soon as we send three ambulances out the door, we're down to one or two people left in the building. And you've seen numerous cases over the
last year or so of fires in town that have been responded to with only one or two firefighters. What we are proposing based on our call volume, and we do have statistics we can share with you about how many times we have two ambulances out at a time, three
ambulances out a time, etc. In an ideal world, not even ideal, it's still below minimum. If you were to ask me today as chief, chief, where should we be to staff the Ammeris Fire Department based on our call volume and looking at other communities around us, Northampton, Awam, other places, this is where we
should be today. We really should have a minimum staffing of 12. What is that based on? That is based on four ambulances being staffed. Our call volume of about 5,000 ambulance calls a year annually dictates we have four
ambulances staffed. And that's also bolstered by other stats we can show you like how many times we call for mutual aid ambulance during a year. It was about 220 during FY25. That means 225 times we didn't have enough ambulances with three and we had to call more. So
that minimum staffing of 12 enables us to staff four ambulances and have the appropriate four firefighters available on a firet truck. understanding that that's a big jump. Uh we put together this and I have some stats that I can
show you afterwards if you want. So based on that, I put together this chart here. The first uh line is the current model as we just talked about three ambulances and not a full fire truck. The goal we just
talked about is 12 minimum staffing. But understanding we need to work our way there, I laid out a couple of intermediary steps. The first the very bottom one you see there is to get our minimum staffing to 10. What 10 does is it enable us enables us to still staff
those full three ambulances all the time and have a full fourperson fire truck staff to meet national standards. And then one level above that would be a minimum staffing of 11. that would enable us to put a fourth ambulance on the road and have three people on the
fire truck. So, what Sean has done by virtue of this year's budget proposal in the next two years for FY27, he's proposing unfreezing the one position that was frozen last year and adding one position. That does not immediately
change anything here, but it's a stepping stone. He has three additional positions proposed for FY28 and two positions for FY29. FY29, of course, starting only two years from now. So in just over 24 months, we
would actually have our total number of line firefighters go from 46 to 52 like the bottom line here shows, which means we could actually take that step of going to 10 minimum on duty 24 hours a day. And I'll
be honest, we can talk about anything else you want about the budget, but this this is the most significant proposed change to the Amoris Fire Department in the last 30 years. For us to go to minimum staffing of 10, have three ambulances and a full engine someday
working up to the higher goal of 12. Um, there's really nothing else for me to talk about the budget. So happy to answer questions, but I certainly hope that this committee and the council supports the plan that Sean has put together. He can speak more to the funding, but he does have a, if you
will, dedicated funding source coming out of ambulance receipts. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. And Sean, a after we're finished, um, Chief, if you can send us that and we'll put it in the packet so we can draw on it. um it be
very useful for others to be able to see it. >> So I I think as people saw Sean sent us written responses to several of the other all the other questions actually and some were extensive. So I'm just going to rather than have you go through
what you've already told us open it to to questions either follow-up questions um and I'm looking for any hands. Sam is back too. Kathy, if you want to quickly check in with Sam. >> Sam, can you can you hear us and we hear you?
>> Yes, I can. I've been here. >> Okay, great. Thanks for joining us. So, I'm People just indicate with your hands. Um, I'm Jill. Uh, councelor Breick. >> Hi. Um, thank you so much and I was, you
know, happy to see the additional investment and I'm in support of working toward appropriate staffing for the fire department. So, I was happy to see this and I I'm going to ask I know you explained this in the Q&A document and we've discussed this at other meetings, but I wanted to just ask a question because I think it might be just of
general interest to other folks tuning in and others who might watch this. Um, if you could share a little more about the ambulance fund. Uh, in the Q&A, doc, you say the town is planning to ramp up use of the fund to support the addition of six firefighters, EMT EMTs, over the next
three years. Can you just describe a little bit more about what ramp up means, where this money comes from, how it becomes sustainable to use this fund for personnel, and what is the reason that we haven't done this in the past
despite, as I've heard, multiple or many, you know, appeals uh over prior years uh from the fire department to increase staffing. Just a little more context on that one would be great. Thank you. >> Yeah. So, um, I'll start and if I miss any pieces of that, councelor Breivik,
let me know. Um, so the ambulance fund is what we call a receipts reserved for appropriations fund. Uh, which is there's only a few allowable funds like that and this is one of them. And essentially it means that all of the billing ambulance billing receipts that
we receive in town when the uh fire EMT department transports somebody to the hospital, they bill, we all bill for insurance and that money comes in and it goes into this fund. Um and so that generates um the the primary revenue
source for the ambulance fund every year. And so it's sustainable, it's recurring, you know, unless folks stop using ambulances, it's going to continue. and if they stop using ambulances then we might have to revisit the staffing plan but I don't anticipate that's uh going to be the case. Um the
other revenues that have increased in recent years which has partially led to why we can think about this more um is our strategic partnership with agreement with a UMass increased pretty significantly. it about doubled in terms
of how much um uh reimbursement aid on it's you know it's it's a fixed amount so it's not necessarily tied directly to volumes but that went from about $400,000 a year to about $700,000 a year um and that started a couple years ago so that's a funding source for the
ambulance fund as well and then also the uh last strategic partnership agreement with Ammeris College which they had made payments in the past but they were sort of broad um non-specific payments that they reflected EMTT services but there
was no written agreement related to them. Now we have a written agreement that specifically designates those funds for ambulance and EMT services and so that is also now going into the ambulance fund. So there's a couple increases in revenue sources in the last couple years that have elevated how much
money we've received. Um and then on top of that we also control the billing rates. So we work with a third party comstar who does the billing around um ambulance runs and they also do the billing for lots of other communities in the state. They help us compare our
billing rates to other communities billing rates. Um and so when we proposed this plan, you know, part of that was based on us increasing rates each year uh to help support the increased draw. So, we look at this as there's money coming in and then we look at how much money is going out and we
want to make sure that, you know, however much money is going out, we're bringing that same amount in to make sure it's sustainable long term. Um, aside from supporting staffing, this fund also is the primary really the only way we replace ambulances. Uh, we have five ambulances. We basically need to
replace one every other year in order to keep them um from getting too old and their mileage getting uh too far up there. So, in addition to staffing, we also replace an ambulance every every other year. And then there's some smaller um EMT equipment that gets uh we
pull from the ambulance fund as well. >> And did I just >> Yeah. Can I just follow up on Jill's then? So, Sean, when you do the um draw then the first two then adding two more
then adding it. It looks as long as you it sounds like as long as you mass and Ammeris College continue to pay or or even better would be if they increase it, you can draw from the replenished funding every year and still have money
for an ambulance. That's >> Yeah. So, yeah, it's sort of it's like any other fund. We look at the money going in, the money going out. There's also a balance in there. So, we're not starting at zero. There's about a one-year reserve in there. So if there was a down year, it's not like we have to completely alter our plans. We would
have time to to make the necessary adjustments if that was the case. Um so yes, we uh the the we make sure that whatever we um let me put this way, the other unique thing about the receipts reserve fund again is we don't base it off of estimated receipts. We base it
off of money we have in the account at the time we do the appropriation, which is a little bit different than like how we do the general fund budget or some of our other budgets. So when we budget from uh this funding source, we know the money is there. Um and really if the following year the receipts came in
lower, it would affect the following year's budget, not the the current year's budget. >> So I I think we we will write up that explanation in the report because it'll be useful for the rest of the council and the public to see as well. So thank
you very much. Any other uh questions? Um I had I had just one um based on when I saw the responses. I know there was a
study done in 2017 and you referenced it in terms of staffing. So do you have updated I mean that was you know Hadley for those who weren't Hadley used to be serviced by this department then they
left and then the question was you know and then what and so that report went into peak load staffing and when the calls come in you know what happens with the university in session versus it out has that internally been more or less
the same data has that all been kept up to the data that fed into that came from all of you. Um >> yeah, I mean a quick snapshot I think of what you're asking. Um yes, I mean we were obviously looking at
our call volume every year. when we lost Hadley um that represented 900 almost a thousand calls a year which seemed pretty significant at the time but we projected based on our annual call increase that we would make that up within a number of years and I don't
remember if it was last year or the year before we actually surpassed that number again. So in other words, today we're doing more calls than we did when we quote lost the Hadley contract just because our call volume is literally going up 3 to 4% every year on the EMS
side of the house and a little bit on 2% on the fire side. So taking Hadley out of the mix, we're back where we were plus some in terms of how many calls we're doing with the same amount of staffing as when we had Hadley. So, we in a way Hadley bought us
maybe a couple years of uh breathing room and we've now lost that and we're back to where we were again. >> And and I think I asked the question, but it was just because it was an eye openener to me when I was first on the council. There's a category of responses
when you go out with an ambulance that where you go out and it's a lift and assist. Um, have those gone up that and and just that's why don't you describe what it is? Um, because it's an interesting phenomenon. [laughter] >> Yeah, I'll let Steve Chandler take that
when he oversees our EMS. >> So, so the ambulance can go out for many reasons and not end up transporting the patient. Um, we can go because someone calls for a well-being check. We can go because someone falls and initially thinks they need an ambulance and then
ends up not needing to be transported to the hospital. Um, and then we can go for the the classic quote unquote lift assist where someone has fallen and needs help to get back up off the ground uh but doesn't actually need um medical transport to the to the hospital. You
know, that's the old uh that's the old commercial with the with the button, right? I've fallen and I can't get up. Uh we will show up, we will evaluate, we will take some vital signs. We still have to do the EMS report, the full PCR, you know, collect all of our information, go through all of their
medical history to make sure that we are um minimizing the risk of there being something wrong that we don't see. Uh but in the end, we help assist that person back to their feet, back into the into the bed, into their chair, wherever, and then and then we return in
in service. Um, as far as how often those those calls uh happen, uh, they are climbing at the, you know, a similar rate to our to our overall call volume that they the straight lift assist call
um, has increased a little faster than the two or 3% a year that the remainder of the call volume increases. Um, as far as one of the questions from your um from your breakdown was how those numbers break down, you know, by if I
look at by age, do I do more of those treated and released refusals for the college age population uh or for the elderly population. Uh so I did pull some of those numbers for for you. Uh if we look back at the last couple of fiscal years um in FY25 the 18 to 24
year old treated and released call volume was 376 in the year and the 65 plus treated and released call volume or refusal call volume was 547. The year before that it was 335 and 419. Uh this
year so far we're up to 335 for the college age population and 467. So yeah, as expected that lift assist refusal type call and again all refusals are not lift assists, but they do make up a large portion of that of that
section. But as anticipated, a larger percentage of those come from our our aging population as opposed to the the younger college age. And are still a lot of them in the Arbors and Applewood as opposed to people living alone
>> when you congregate uh individuals in that age group into one place. Yes, we definitely do more of those of those lift assists. We certainly see, you know, families evolve and pe things at at home change and, you know, we will see spikes in call volume where we'll go
to a specific address, you know, multiple times over the course of a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Uh, but that usually tapers out once whatever the change in that home situation is is addressed. um places like the Arbors, Applewood, those
places, you know, there is a constant um need for that additional assistance because it's not an assistance that's provided by the staff there. >> Lynn, thank you very much um for the answer. Lynn, >> this is really directly following up on
this question. When you do an assist like that or you just go to a home and there's not a transport to the hospital, does insurance pay for that? >> There's actually no bill for that at all. The um the way that um EMS billing
occurs, we're not allow we we don't bill through health insurance for that. So we you wouldn't get um get a bill. And there's, you know, multiple reasons for that. If we don't provide any direct care, if we just provide evaluation, it is hard to to put a bill on that. If
your neighbor called 911 for you and we showed up and helped you up and you didn't want us there, it would be tricky to, you know, I mean, there are there's sort of multiple layers to why that is. But if we don't transport you to the hospital, you do not receive a bill.
>> That's a significant time that we're out there. It it certainly makes up a large you know the refusals uh is a number that that varies nationally and if you look at the percentage of call volume you can find
you know areas in our over our year where it's up to 30% at a certain time or down to a lower percentage. Um it still has all the risk of missing something that's wrong with with a a person. there's all the risk of
responding to the call and and you know the dangers that are associated with traffic and emergency traffic. Um and then there's all the risk of the equipment coming in and the lifting and the moving to our staff. So it absolutely is a is a large percent you
know a percentage of our calls and there is just because we don't transport doesn't mean that there's no risk associated with that that there's no cost to the department associated with that. Oh no, there's definitely cost >> spend the same the same resources >> of what the outcome is.
>> So Sean, let I want to go back then to the fact that so UMass provides us with a an amount every year that helps offset that additional call and assist
but and so does Ammeris College. Am I correct? >> Okay. But in the other places where we have a congregation of people, we have no additional money coming from them
other than taxes. >> Yeah, I think that's the biggest difference between UMass and Ammerst College and um and like the arbors are is the those are non- taxpaying entities. >> Okay. And you would you would think the
arbors because it's assisted living was trained to take pick someone up, but they I actually went after we talked about this and looked at the requirements for that and they're not. A nursing home is, but not the arbors. Um, and I just thought that they they should
be it should be they're supposed to be >> a much higher level. >> I apologize. Yes, a nursing home is a skilled nursing facility that has a set of requirements and an assisted living has a different a different set of requirements. And this conversation is happening across the Commonwealth and
across the country for for similar challenges to to fire departments everywhere, >> right? Um okay. and and I and you know just to bring the full circle around that one some people would look at our agreement with UMass and with Ammeris
College as some level of payment in lie of taxes the places that are paying taxes and we're going to they're paying taxes so one would assume that service is covered so I I just but I wanted to make sure people understand that if we
just go for an assist we don't get any insurance Okay. Thank you. >> Any any other questions? Um >> Anna and Jill, you're you're writing up this section. So between the responses,
um Lynn, hand us back up. Lyn, >> and this this really goes uh to the chief and that is do you see a point in time as that we increase the volume for EMS versus fire that we may eventually
need a five um ambulances? I mean, never say never. you know, somewhere down the road. um based on where we are now staffing three um how many times we need four how many times we need five I feel fairly confident in
saying unless there's an unanticipated jump if we maintain the 3 to 4% increase each year that if we can get to the level of four ambulances as you just saw my proposal that that would carry us for
you know I think a fairly over the 5year mark you know into the five year 10 year range I would expect, you know, we we're never going to we're not trying to staff for those crazy times when, you know, we need seven ambulances all at once. You know, those happen here and there.
That's why we have mutual aid. What we shouldn't be doing is calling mutual aid for our day-to-day business 220 times a year, which is what we did in FY 25. And also a lot of those time a lot of those times also represents firet trucks running around with one two
people. So the models I've prop proposed the minimum the first one that we're going to reach in two fis two years three fiscal years and then ultimately the higher one I think set the stage for sort of the 10year range uh realistically
>> I I do have one other question but I can wait for Sam >> I'll assume it's okay for me to speak Kathy. >> Oh yeah go ahead. [clears throat] Uh so I just have a comment. It's not a question. Um and
hearing that there are you know over 200 various times where um we're not able to respond. Um, you know, from personal experience, having cared for my mom for many years and even once with my son,
uh, you know, I have great appreciation for all our public safety uh, staff and, uh, who serves our town well. And you don't really know how much you need uh, in
this case, we're talking about fire safety until you need them. And when you need them, you need them. And I recall driving from uh you know, I was not in Ammeris at the time in my car. I was driving to get to my mom's uh and I'm
calling the fire the 911 and calling my brothers and you know when there are certain issues uh time is of the essence. Uh similarly with asthma type situations. So, I just want to express appreciation and uh underscore that um
there are times when uh and I'm sure this is the case when there's not enough staff that uh it impacts outcomes. And uh I personally was very grateful for the professionalism and the uh
explanations of issues both with my mom and when I've had the call with my kids and uh we don't know what people don't know what they need until they really need it. And uh if you've been there you understand. Thank you. >> Thank you Sam. >> Thank you.
>> And Sam we have all been there. Um, I want to go to another issue that is a little more in people's minds right now. I would I I want to just ask I would imagine that there are times when you may be called to an emergency what
appears to be an emergency health situation but when you get there it's apparent that there was an abuse situation and at that point I would can we assume that our fire and EMS people are trained
to spot that and that you then immediately bring in the police. >> Yeah. I'm sorry, Lyn. And then you said it's what type of situation >> that they re >> where they arrive with it's it's called in as a need for health or EMS. But in
fact, when they get there, it's readily recognized that it's because of an abuse situation, either child abuse, spousal abuse, or just abuse. >> And >> Steve, did you want to come? >> Yeah. the extent to which our EMS and
fire people are trained to know the signs >> and then how do they tear in the police at that point? >> So, so there's a couple of pieces to that. Um so the first thing to say is that everyone who is uh working for the
fire department or EMS is a mandated reporter. Um so we are required when we have any suspicion of you know of abuse or neglect whether that be children uh the elderly, disabled, spousal, domestic uh any any issue of that nature. Um we
are required to report that through um through the commonwealth. uh we take we do training in recognition of s of um things like human trafficking and and signs of child abuse or of of spousal abuse and things of that of that nature.
One of the ways that we um one of the ways that we're able to to make sure that we meet that ability is by sending the right and enough resources to calls. So there are certain calls where the police come with us. You know our safety
and the safety of the people on scene is is a part of that. It's not like you know we go in and then say oh gez I need the police as well and call them. Sometimes that happens but a lot of the time we're we're responding together because there are so many unknowns and
there's so many scenarios where you can't get all of that information over a 911 call from a panicked individual on the phone. And I'm sure uh dispatch will be happy to tell you how difficult it is to get to get that information. Um, by getting the the right number of
resources and um and trained individuals on scene, it gives us that ability to, you know, assess what's going on to look for the signs, look for things, you know, like people who aren't able to answer questions for themselves, people who don't have their own access to their
documents, and try to pick up and notice indications of those of those types of scenarios so that we can then make sure that all of the right actions are taken. taken. Um, if I only have the two people on the ambulance responding back from
the hospital and then they're immediately presented with a medical emergency, it is harder for them to notice some of the things that go on around them. It's the reason that certain call types get an engine that goes along with the ambulance automatically because
>> one of the the things that doesn't get mentioned in that in that graph that the fire chief made is that not every call requires only two two people. Some of them require more. You know, a a cardiac arrest is going to need at least two people in the back plus another person
to drive. So then I lose, you know, three providers either to the hospital or down to Bay State if it's a traumatic injury for multiple hours and the town is left with without that protection. Um, so sending the right number and the appropriate resources for the potential
problems is is what our our goal is and what gives us the ability to notice the the types of things that you're speaking of. So if we uh look at I see Sean's hand but if we look at both both the
combination of police uh crest and fire EMS how many what percentage of the say EMS calls are combined with police or crest
do we know that >> I don't have that number or that percentage off of the top of my head. Um I would I don't know if the fire she chief does. I I not >> No, I I don't have a hard number to give you. It's something we got to try to pull out of the data.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> And I see I just wanted to do a time check. Um >> yeah. No, I was going to say the same thing. Yep. because we're I I think um both you've given us more than we asked
for and thank you verbally and fantastic answers and all of us echo the appreciation for what you do for for us and the expanded the the town around us. I also saw um the number of times people
have been out with injuries, you know, and we're we're trying. You didn't mention that, you know, rushing or too few people could lead to an injury. But thank you very much. And I don't see any other questions. If anyone has a follow-up, we'll just send them to you.
But we can you can leave um and go on to your busy lives. [laughter] >> Thank you everybody. >> Or stay. But um uh we'll go on to the next. >> Thank you so much. >> So Kathy, I was going to ask uh do
communications next if you're comfortable with that. They're again relatively small, you know, the smallest piece of public safety. Um actually maybe not, but they're our fourth component of public safety. Um Jason answered the questions that were sent to
uh sent to him. Um and I guess to see if there's any additional questions for dispatch. >> Okay. So just so everyone knows Jason who is in the corner of my screen is dispatch and that's called communications.
So I again I'm looking you you gave us excellent answers u to the written questions. So, I'm looking for if there are any follow-ups or anything that um you want to say to us um in terms of the department stress, the staffing levels.
Um we are here to listen as well as uh to look at the data that's been given to us. >> Great. Thank you, Kathy. Thanks for having me. Um we're maintaining pretty good right now. Um, when we are fully staffed, we have 12 full-time staff, including myself, and then we have one
part-timer. Currently, we are staffed at 11. I have one current opening that we are pursuing, uh, filling in the next few weeks. Um, as far as 911 calls, um, they dipped by about 3% um, last year um, to the previous fiscal year. U,, we
do have a new recording system. I have found that if we hang up one call and immediately answer a second call, it kind of captures that as one call instead of the two, which might account for some of that fluctuation in in numbers. But aside from that, um we're maintaining a pretty steady pace here.
Um we have our highs and lows of call volume during the [clears throat] day-to-day operations. It'll dip a little bit lower with the colleg's commencement occurring soon in summertime, but the day-to-day activity is still going to remain remain about the same. Lynn,
you're muted, Lynn. >> Thank you. Uh, I know that you have had um now integrating the calls for Crest and the referral for Crest and could you just talk a little bit about how that's gone and uh the extent of additional
training necessary for that? [snorts] >> Sure. So, uh, as has been stated in previous meetings, the crest roll out is a slow roll out to make sure we get it right, discover any hiccups that we might have, any troubles that we need to get through. Um, there have been a few
um, a few times we have paused the dispatching of crests while we do some internal um, reassessment of how we handle certain calls. Um, we've gotten through most of those. um having to send crest um alone to calls
um is a little more more a little bit more of a struggle um to give them the appropriate calls um where a co-response would probably be more appropriate to go with uh the police department with certain calls. Um but we are trying to maintain what we can give them. Um I honestly don't get a lot of feedback of
people calling us directly requesting crest. Um we have a couple I try to keep track of. It's usually in the weekends people call asking if they're available. Um, but a lot of the call volume comes directly to Crest and they initiate their own calls to service that we capture and monitor. Um, but we do try
to give them what we can. Just not a lot of criteria that fits what they can handle their scope of work as of right now. >> Being 8 to four their hours. So, most of this falls on my dayshift staff. uh they are trying to find what calls to give them, but a lot of the calls are getting
just don't fit the criteria for what they're looking to do. Right now, as far as the call taking training, um that really hasn't changed. Our call taking is the same regardless of what resource that we send. Crest is just another resource that we can consider to send based on information that we have at
hand. So, we take the call, we triage the call and figure out where it's police, cso, crest, fire, EMS, DPW, animal control. We have to figure out what resource to send. So, we're still sending somebody. It's just a matter of what criteria that call for service
falls under and who we send. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions of Jason? >> Um Anna, >> it's not a question and I I know that this is an obnoxious or maybe it's not. I don't know. But I did want to make a comment. Um, a couple times this year
I've been able to listen to the dispatch calls just because I don't that's my particular brand of nerdiness. Um, and I just wanted to commend you all. You're incredibly professional and how you approach the calls and um, I can imagine that this is an incredibly hard job. So, I just wanted to thank you for
everything that you're doing. Uh, and and how you organize it all. I do I do not understand, but it is pretty pretty impeccable how you know exactly where everyone is and who to put where. Obviously, you're professionals for a reason, but I just wanted to thank you for that. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I have a
really strong staff right now. They are very well trained. Um the training component, um I touched on in my questions that were proposed to me a little bit. I have $1,500 a year I'm allowed to spend on vendor classes, how to pay for my classes. Classes are about
$300 to $400 a person. With $1,500, 12 people, I can't do that. The state only provides me money for the minimal training, which is only 16 hours. My goal is to mandate that training to 24 internally for our town. Um, so I've asked for $1,500 to try and boost me up to 3,000 total so I can
lease my staff to training. Um, that I feel the town deserves more than minimally trained dispatchers um for the call volume that we have. But no, I'm incredibly lucky. My staff is is very good at what they do. and yourself or anyone here can come up anytime, get a hold of me, and give you a tour and show you how we operate and how things
progress and and how we do things. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Anna. Um, and and just so people know in the written comments, you've als he's also mentioned the training. So, thank you very much for that.
I think we can move to the next topic. And Jason, again, uh we're happy that you've joined us. If you want to leave, you can, but you're welcome to stay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, Camille, would you like
to give a um brief overview of Crest and then we'll turn it over to questions. Uh, Camille answered there were a lot of questions for Crest. Camille did a great job with pretty robust responses. So, um, I don't think we'll rewer those, but if there's follow-ups or if any of those particular questions we want to go back
to, we can. Okay. Um, good afternoon. Um, I'm Camille Theak, Crest Director, uh, LCSW. And, um, I guess I wanted to just go over that, uh, Crest has relocated to the lower level of Bangs currently in
what was called the poll room, polling room, I guess. Um, and we are now all in one space. It is working out very well for the responders. Our team has become much more cohesive. um being that they
are all in the same space, we also hired um two additional responders this year. That brought us up to our fiscal year um 26 budget for six responders. We still
are at 8 to 4 for hours. Uh currently with six responders, we are unable to offer more hours with the same issues that other departments have that we run as uh twoerson teams. So there are always two responders that accompany
each other. And with uh people out sick or vacation, uh there's no way that I can split up a team to change the hours. Most of our calls occur during 8 to 4. Uh we have been working with people who
are being evicted with the sheriff's department from Hampshire County and those happen at 10 o'clock in the morning. We also work with folks who have trying to get their information set and need resources for going to court
which is also early in the morning. We have seen an increase on the number of people who are unhoused looking for support. We work closely with Craig Stores. We also work closely with the Ammer survival center and all of these
relationships have been um strengthened also within the building in bangs the senior center. We work with many of the seniors that are there who are unable to get resources or support through the senior center. We have a vast number of
resources that can be accessed through our resource book that is on the website uh the town of Ammeris website. We also put out uh monthly newsletter. We are very involved in the
um bimonthly veterans support breakfast. Uh there's a big one tomorrow which are we are celebrating two things which is the uh second year of having the vet breakfast and also um honoring one of
our veterans uh Steve Connor whose vet support services in the building and um I just want to say that we have worked very closely with public health and also inspections. So the partnerships that
that have been made since I came on two years ago have been strengthened and this department is moving forward um at a pace that it should be. Thank you >> Tom.
I Camille thank you for your presentation. Um you mentioned about the the uh uh staffing level and and the paired assignments and the hours uh the constriction on the hours at 8 to 4. Do
you have any information about when uh if you were to be able to expand hours when is the demand that we're not able to address that is occurring outside of 8 to 4? Do you have a sense of that? No, at current time I do not because the
um the metrics of it are not anything that we've been able to ascertain through the emergency communication system and the number of calls that I get um on the phone lines afterwards for
direct um calls are very few during the week. Um maybe I'll get one every couple of weeks over the weekend that somebody has called and requested. Crest, >> thank you. >> So I will just say this with six people,
we cannot extend our hours or go into the weekends. We would need a minimum of 10 uh most likely 12 to be effective and to be able to have night hours and consistent weekend hours. >> Thank you.
Kathleen and then councelor Brevik. >> Yeah, thank you so much for all of this um really helpful information. My question is related. I think I noted in your written answers that you had said similar to what you've just I think said now that when you looked at potential
calls after hours, maybe it wasn't a lot. And I'm wondering if if you think that's because folks don't really expect you to be available after those hours um versus an actual need, you know, if if there's folks who understand that you're
what your limitations are and so perhaps are not seeking you in those after hours. I would agree with you. Uh, I find a lot of times that people will come in during the day or call and say that they were thinking about calling or needed some
services and that knew that we were closed at 4:00 and have either left a message um, like I said or have called back the next day during regular hours um, to get some services and uh,
resources. So, I do believe that if our hours were increased and we had the increased staffing that yes, we would be definitely taking on more calls. >> Elsa Breick, >> I had a similar question and but thank you for answering and thank you for all
this information. Um and I am also taking notes but I had a question about um just the the transition and it was my understanding that there was when Caress initially formed that there was some
support possibly through a strategic planner or a consultant who was sort of looking at the types of services that Crest was to provide and how it could alleviate other departments and I'm wondering if kind of in line with one of
the questions that you did answer in the Q&A um that whether strategic planning or consulting support as I believe we initially had um has that been considered as maybe a JCPC request in the past or is this something
that might be considered in the future? Um JCP >> uh capital it's capital request Camille some some departments >> some de department >> have used consulting services called it capital because it's a one-time
expenditure for a clear uh analysis. Um so it's it's it's another potential it's not an operating budget in quite the same way. So that's what that uh it you wouldn't wouldn't think these were capital but we do on occasion fund them
that way >> that I was going to say that's not something that I had seen before. So currently we are in the process of doing an assessment of crest. I know that town council had requested this and it is in the final stages with the town manager.
We do have a group that is going to do um an assessment of Crest and how we're working so far and how we can grow and um be more effective in the community. So that will be should be signed um no
later than next week and started you know within days after that. Um, I'm seeing Lynn's hand is up >> and then Sam. >> So, Camille, uh, first of all, congratulations on two years and I
really, um, appreciate the many services you provide. One of the things that you cannot help but notice is that many of those services are not the kinds of services the police or fire or any would ever be contacted for. In many ways,
they're what most of us would put in the category as human services. And the debate that actually took place in this town before the town council uh even existed in town meeting, I hate to be the historian in the group, but I'm
going to be uh was whether or not the town should support human services. And I I don't want to get into that debate, but one of the things that I just want to note, and that is that my observation about Crest is that in many instances,
they fulfilled a need that the town didn't recognize we had. And whether it was being fulfilled by other human services is not it's it's only [snorts] a question mark. For instance, we you already partner with places like the
survival center, which is a huge provider of human services, but yet limited in some ways. So, I just it I make that observation only because we keep some people keep saying, well, it
over time we won't need as many police, but the reality is a lot of the services you're providing are services never done by police. So my response to that is is that before
when Crest was created, it was re it was created as an alternative to police. >> And what is ended up happening in Ammerst and in many other areas that are doing alternatives to police that we are finding that that gray area of operation
has expanded. So that a lot of the work that is being done by crest responders is actually diversion. So being able to help somebody who is unhoused and has um a scarcity of food or is unable in the
winter time to be in um shelter is it is in itself diversion. So there is no need to call a police officer to move someone from a sidewalk where they've slept. There's no need to call a police officer for someone who is
shoplifting because they are hungry. Um there's no need to call a police officer for someone who's having a mental health crisis because of things that are happening in their life. We are able to go and take the time to sit with that person and find out what the root cause
is. It is not um we are not approaching this from a criminal standpoint. we are approaching it from an alternative. So what is there that is actually needed? So this is what the difference is and
while the original thought for many of these alternatives um was just not to have the police involved, we're finding out that what we're fulfilling is a much wider role in society. >> Yep. Yep. Thank you. And that's that
would be my observation. Uh just quickly before we go to Sam and and um councelor Bravik, uh are you still involved with the Kennedy School and that program? >> Yes. Um we do have monthly meetings to talk about what's going on within um
alternatives um response and also about one of the things that they're reaching out now is how are the metrics shaping up of what is the difference? How are these comm community communities operating now? what is the the amount of
calls that are being made to 911? And in our case, you know, because we were not on the 911 system right from the beginning, our relationships with people are such that people will call us directly or people will talk to other
departments and they will call us directly. So Sam, and then back to Jill, and let's be as succinct as we can with questions. >> Uh, thank you, Kathy, and thank you,
Camille. I uh I don't have a question. I have another comment. Um, I it may not be Crest's standard mission, but I did see uh some activity. I was at the global village festival which was quite an event and Crest was uh there in
a booth and also uh outside uh there were a couple of staff members with a vehicle kind of on scene and I saw firsthand there was a there were a bunch of kids out front and one of them right
in front of me had a really nasty bicycle accident. Knocked her head really hard. Uh, and I immediately uh looked around for, you know, what to do with this person. I wasn't there. And
the two guys, it was two guys by the car right at the intersection of uh the road to the middle school and the high school parking lot. they came right over and you know it was an incident where I just firsthand saw some of the professionalism and uh style of
interaction of the staff and I was impressed. I checked in a little bit later to see how uh the youth a girl was doing and uh I I believe it was you Camila and perhaps one of your folks were were communicating with her and uh
she really racked her head hard. I could she was accelerating on this uh electric bike and uh I was glad to see Chris on scene and even though it may not have been the standard uh objective of the
presence but uh it certainly made a difference in this instance that's just an observation. Thank you. Thank you. So brav. >> Yeah, I'll just ask very briefly. I wonder if you could share a little bit about your
perspective on what your biggest obstacle to success is and or if there are ways that you think the council can better support the work of Chris. >> Um the biggest obstacle right now is um
personnel. we because there has been such a the need has increased um and as always you know uh at least having the two frozen positions unfrozen would help. The other
thing is that I am a supervisor of one. I have administrative staff and that is it. So, I am the person, you know, I have right now a program manager who is grant funded and as I put in the notes,
the grant funding for the equitable approaches to safety, the EES, is ending June 30th. So, I will lose a staff member who has been actively looking for grants and also is very active in the community. So that will leave it to me
to be able to look for grants, to be in the community and also to be there to supervise um my responders and also to work to grow this department. And that's a lot of uh work to be put on one person and those are the types I really would
need um an assistant director and more personnel. We have a very lean budget as you all are aware of. Thank you. >> Um just a quick followup on the loss of
the grant. Has the state money that has been supporting this has it just dried up that they're not it's not there? Sean is >> the grant program is over. I think we had it for four or five years. One of the reasons why Camille doesn't know about JCPC is because we bought our
vehicles through the grant. Uh we were able to so she hasn't had to come back to JCPC for uh replacement vehicles. Eventually um she will. Um but yeah, that grant was really instrumental at getting press started, getting offices
equipped to help uh furnish some of the office space. Um it also, you know, and this is something that will be a loss because we really just can't do it from the general fund budget. It's helped fund a lot of community partners over the last several years. The survival center, Craig Stores, those are things that were explicitly allowed in that
grant that we couldn't fund um through our operating budget. Um so that will also uh be going away. Um and then we'll have to work Camille and I will have to work closely together to kind of see how what other gray areas there are when that grant goes away that we can support
her budget. And and I will say that um Sean has been phenomenal with helping with um using the funds that we have now. A lot of those funds now also have been channeled into training for the staff, the more
expensive training. Um we are looking at also we were funding for the uh UYU breakfast, the university universalist unitarian breakfast which is more than just a breakfast. It is for
um a lot of the unhoused community. We also um on certain uh Wednesday nights go to the church next to the police station to support the unhoused people that are there. So we have done a lot of support in the community um financially
through the EES grant. So with that going, it really is going to hinder a lot of our outreach. We're still going to be out there, but it's going to hinder the amount of money that we're able to do, which actually it's just going to take it all away.
>> Eth and then Lynn, >> this may be more of a question for Sean. In the in that se in the crest section of the budget book, um it like the the FTE chart, it it shows eight eight staff, right? and and it sounds like it
sounds like um it's really nine going down to eight if I'm understanding it correctly with the loss of the program um manager >> the grant position was just filled recently um it was vacant for a while um
but now we've got it staffed but in terms of what's funded in the operating budget there's eight six responders um Camille and her assistant >> okay so for FY27 you you you you don't have the the program man I'm just
>> unless unless we're able to find another grant that's the hope um is that we are able to find another grant that can support that position um there's not general fund support for that position >> okay thank you >> very quick Sean
would crest be eligible for CDBG money >> um I would have to talk to our planning department about that. I I don't know offhand um if you know what what the specific criteria are for that, but we can look into it. I think some of the some of the services that are currently
funded through um funded through the EES grant that we will no longer have funding for. Some of those could certainly be eligible through CDBG. The the work we do at Craig and we have in the past the work we do at Craig Stores and Survival Center. So that might be, you know,
there might be a a demand there. But uh specifically funding crests directly I'd have to look into um with Camille and planning. >> Thank you. >> And Camille, just so you know, CDBG has a pocket for social services, you know, um for vulnerable populations. So, it is
one of the pockets of money if the federal government doesn't if we if we keep getting it that uh places like the survival center, Craig stores, um some places that help people navigate getting extra subsidy for rent and avoiding
ridic but that some so it the types of service that that glue you've described is is I think it's definitely eligible Sean and then it's what the pie gets divided up uh uh each year. So, and you
have to put a proposal in. So, >> you know, we we don't directly control it. There's a an advisory group that looks at all the things that have been proposed and then makes a recommendation on how to divide it.
So, >> thank you. That was a good question, Lynn, because I think it is is abs it fits what it can be funded with that whether there's money for it or not. Um,
so any other crest questions? I think not. And again, we all thank you for the time you took to give detailed answers and examples. Those those are extremely helpful um to describe on your calls
list what what exactly these are. Um that that was extremely useful and we appreciate it. It will help us it will help us write this up in a way that others who were part of this meeting can be seeing that information as well as
this all goes in the packet so it'll be available. So thank you for the time. >> Thank you. >> All right. at the final leg of public safety. Um, the police department's here and Chief Ting, do you want to give a quick overview and then we'll go to questions?
>> Sure. Uh, good evening everyone. Thank you for having me. Gabriel Ting. I'm the chief of police for the town of Ammerst. And, [snorts] uh, just want to give you, uh, folks kind of a status update in terms of, um, the Ammerst Police Department. right now. Um we in the last
this past fiscal year we saw an uptick in calls for service by about 2,000. Um we are just under 20,000 calls for service. The year before again it was uh 2,000 less. So a little bit of an increase. Um so in terms of our staffing
we currently have within two weeks we have a retirement coming up. We will have uh 40 officers. Uh we are allowed 45 officers. Currently we have three frozen positions. Um and we have two officers in the academy and we will have
three openings. So um you know in the past the the largest number that we've ever had for our staffing was 52 at one point um that I've seen throughout my career. Uh and that had dipped down to about 48. Um and again most recently
it's now at 45. So, we're doing a lot more with a lot less. Um, in terms of the budget, we've been level funded for the past 20 years with, uh, notwithstanding um, uh, salaries for our officers, which are, uh, there's there's
an increase every single year, and that's due to collective bargaining and contracts. But in terms of operations, we've been level funded for a long time. Uh so we're doing a lot more with a lot less and how that affects us is uh quite tremendously simply because of
inflation. The cost for training, cost for equipment uh has risen. So that means we have less trainings to send our officers and we're trying to find alternative ways to try and recycle uh our equipment. Um I mean even to the
point, for example, we uh we have an equipment line and a uniform budget. Um, and our our our pants pockets, for example, we have we've traditionally always had 10 pockets and those are customized pants. We've eliminated that
simply because of the cost of that. That goes from $120 pair of pants to $70. So, we're looking at any single possible way that we can kind of be fiscally responsible. You know, uh, we're in the same boat as every other agency. You
know, certainly the town is having difficulties and if you look across western Mass in the state, you know, uh it's it's similar in in reality, we're probably in pretty good shape in comparison. Uh with that being said, certainly um you know, there was a
question that was asked in terms of how many officers uh if there's a state requirement. There really isn't. Um however, the national level is 2.4 four officers per capita per 10,00 uh people within a population. So I if we were to
go by that standard, we really should have about 96 officers. And I think I've sent some information relative to uh our neighboring agencies uh especially ones that are very similar to us. And we are extremely grossly lower than many of our
partners uh across Western Mass if not the state. Um so again we are doing a lot more with less. Um one of the biggest issues that we're having uh within the Ammerst Police Department I think again this is uh also synonymous
across the state and on the national level is recruitment and retention. Um there's a lot more opportunities out there these days in comparison than when I first got hired back in 1997. Um we put out a test and we will get maybe a
dozen applicants. uh whereas back in 1997 we would have a thousand eat every single time. Uh so it's been really a challenge to find people that want to come into this profession and retain them simply because it's it's simple economics of supply and demand. There's
a lot more opportunities out there uh for this particular line of work and it's become a lot more competitive. Um so we are doing a great job. Um, you know, our police department is trying to refocus our efforts in community
policing. So, we have really restructured much of our police department to reflect that. And we're really trying to change our model from a law enforcement model to more of a community caretaking. And in the police world, that terminology is having a
going from a warrior mentality to a guardian mentality. And that's something that uh you know we're trying to we're trying to focus on within the culture of the Amoris Police Department. Um and I think we're making great strides in terms of developing strong relationships
with a lot of partners across our community. >> Thank you. And I want to also thank you uh for the extensive uh uh write up you gave back to us and let you know that we got your piece of it about an hour before the meeting started. So I'm
opening it up for questions, but it meant that we didn't all get a chance to think about everything you did, but you and your staff certainly took time and effort uh to respond. So I am looking again for hands. And Lynn's hand is up.
Yeah. I'd like the chief to um straight out of the answers you've given us, but this is really for everybody to make sure we hear it. How many people are on duty on a standard shift at any time and the relationship between the Ammerst
Police and the UMass Ammeris Police? >> So, um we have very similar to the fire department, we have a minimum requirement, um and that's contractually based. So we have three officers on the road per shift along with one supervisor. So that's four officers on
the road and we require one officer inhouse. So a total of five is our minimum. Uh with our current staffing levels and with our three different shifts, that's all that we're allotted for. So it it is a very impactful when we have people that have time off or
people calling out sick and especially on weekends or busy times when we need additional officers. Uh we just don't have as many officers to uh utilize. So therefore there's a lot of overtime being expended. Uh and that results in a lot of burnout. It results in morale
issues. Um our relationship with the university, we have again we have 45 officers when we're at uh full staff. The university has I believe uh 60 officers. Um in the past there's always been that argument in terms of uh why
can't we share officers? Uh certainly in the town of Ammeris we have 40,000 residents. UMass has 30,000 students with approximately 10,000 uh employees. So they double they double the size of our town when school is in session. Um
they do have their own police department but they are confined uh jurisdictionally within their confines. So they do not patrol the town of Ammerson. We do not patrol the University of Massachusetts. However, to try and uh we've years ago we tried to
uh kind of coordinate with each other to try and answer that question. Can we patrol the same streets together? And there was a program where we put that together be well before uh I was the chief of police and that kind of fell apart simply because the unions got
involved, the university administration got involved and certainly the courts got involved. Uh so a lot of obstacles were put into place. The courts basically said you cannot share jurisdictions like that. Uh the university basically said you know we're not paying for our employees to patrol
the town of Ammerst. and the university um unions they fought it as well saying it's a change in working condition. So uh that project came to a halt. Um and lastly a lot of our issues a lot of the issues in town are really off-campus.
You know when you take a look at quality of life issues that we have a lot of them surround the student population and that's all off campus. So even though there's 60 60 or so officers with the university uh on the weekends and the night time when all the problems occur,
it's all on us and it's not them. >> Thank you, >> Jill. >> Um so I have two questions. My first one is just on this about the numbers because it was my understanding that our 40,000ish residents also includes
students. So, can you talk about those two numbers? If we're if we're using those numbers to look at the officer ratio, are they duplicative of one another? >> Gabe, can I speak to that one? Are you okay? >> Yeah, sure. Sure. Go ahead. >> It's a good question, Councelor Breick.
So, I actually was talking with the town clerk about this recently, unrelated to this, just we always are trying to get a sense of exactly how many people are in town. And the truth is, no one really knows um at any at any time exactly how many people are in town. Um
there are of the 30,000 UMass residents, some of them do claim Ammerst as their residence. Um the exact number is hard to put a to at least through what our the data our town clerk has and through census data it is hard to pin down.
Years ago the census used to track congregate housing and they you when they would gather um the do the census population they would they would also record what type of housing those residents were in. and Ammerst had it was somewhere between 15 to 20,000 that
were listed as congregate housing which not every single one but many of them that would mean they were in some sort of dormatory. Um so you know again we don't have exact numbers but of the 30,000 or so you know plus staff um you know there is some percentage somewhere
around half of them that are probably also in that 40,000 resident number and then there's another percentage above and beyond that. Um but we are looking for better ways to get ex a better handle on exactly how many people um are residents and then how many people live
here outside of that number >> and that goes Jill you were doing it because of the ratio should the ratio be based on a smaller number correct um in part yeah >> yes that was my question and do you have a sense Sean of year I've always heard
the year- round resident number to be around 13,000 13 >> yeah I I you know what I was using previously was somewhere closer like 15 to 20,000 year round. Um but again I don't have exact numbers. I I would say
when school's in session you know we're somewhere between 40 and 60 and I can't tell you exactly where we are between 40 and 60. Um but we are working on ways to better capture that information. The census used to help us with that. It
doesn't anymore. >> Jill, did you have another question, too? Or was that just be I see Sam's hand is I think >> I do. I saw Sam put his hand up, so I wanted to >> Okay, >> you can come. >> Go ahead, Sam.
>> Uh, thank you, Kathy, and uh, thank you, Chief Ting, and uh, your staff for what you do and for being here. Um could you talk a little bit about the 20,000 service calls? Um just describe
what for those listening what constitutes service. I I believe that's calls for service. Excuse me. Calls for service. Is that all the times that someone goes and deals with things or is it literally calls coming in? just if
you could describe that it might be helpful. >> Yeah. So these are literally um uh calls that are coming in uh basically that 20,000 number kind of encapsulates um encapsules, excuse me, all of uh the calls that come in and where our
officers will respond. Um to be honest with you, that number could be reported differently. I know other communities and other police departments do report it differently. Um, if I was to be honest, I believe that that number is probably pretty low uh relative to calls
for service simply because that doesn't it doesn't capture a lot of the follow-up um uh data that that we conduct and uh a lot of that is uh is just not captured unfortunately and that's something that we probably should
do a better job on. But for the sake of consistency, you know, certainly within the missions, it it asks for certain service levels and we want to answer that consistently. So then uh you have the ability to kind of gauge from fiscal year to fiscal year where the different
trends and changes are. Uh so really that that is uh basically all the all of the calls that will come in within one fiscal year. >> Uh thank you. I I find it interesting that you say that it's probably higher because to me when I see that number I
think that's quite a lot. Uh >> agreed >> and uh I think it's in and that's simply the incoming uh aside from other uh activities. >> That's correct sir. >> Thank you. >> And Sam it's on 125 page 125 of the
budget. It itemizes them. So it does include motor vehicle violations. So people out on patrol, it's a big chunk of them. Jill, Council Breick. Um, so I just wanted to ask a couple
questions about related to overtime and detail work. And I'm going to ask Sean this question first because I we did get the packet with all the answers just a couple hours before this meeting. So I just want to make sure this isn't in there. I I've asked a couple times um
and maybe it is in there the amount of revenue that we get in from like third party entities who are hiring our officers to do detail work and I'm just wondering if there's any progress on getting a number
or some transparency around that. >> So we yeah I put that information in the packet. Okay. So, when you say revenue, and you correct me if I'm if I'm misinterpreting this, how much money does the town get to then we can support our operating budget with the the money we collect? Is that how Okay. So, yes.
Right. As of right now in FY26, we've received about uh our um police detail admin fees re that's essentially what is revenue to the town. Um is it was like $57,000. Um and that includes vehicle charges. So
if a a detail requires a vehicle, there's an additional charge on top of that. Um and that is a revenue source for the general fund. So it comes in and supports the overall budget. It's not doesn't it's not specific to anyone department in terms of the uh how it supports the budget. It's a just a
general revenue. >> What is the other part? So the de the detail admin fees is part of it. Is there another part of it? Well, there's so the there's the there's a 10% admin fee um on the sort of the the labor the cost of the detail and then if a vehicle
is required, there's an additional vehicle charge or the two pieces. >> And Jill, that doesn't that doesn't include the payment that went to the officer. This is just the money the town can use. >> This is this is what's revenue to the town. The the money that we collect just gets paid to the comes in and goes out
to the officers. comes in to who? >> So, the town collects it and then pays the officers. Um, and so the admin fee is about 10% more or less. So, if you if you look at that admin fee, that means in terms of payments out for details
throughout the year, we're somewhere around $500,000 for the year. >> So, that amount that's coming in and going out, that's around $500,000. >> Yeah. again. So there's a when a private entity requests a detail, they pay us.
That money goes to the officer and then in addition they have to pay a 10% admin fee and that 10% admin fee is the revenue really to the town. >> No, I understand. I I guess I'm just trying to get at the that amount that's coming in and out. >> Yeah. In terms of the total amount that
comes in, again, that's not that's not town money, but the total amount that comes in is Yeah. It's in that $500,000 range this year. Okay. And then just a follow-up question on this. Um because there's been I've you know thinking about comments about
burnout and long hours and thinking about detail work if detail work is not you know a need necessarily. Is this an area that could be reduced to reduce overtime? Um,
if we're if if if I'm not phrasing this exactly in the most clear way, but if if if we're paying for if the third party third parties who are hiring our officers are paying for their labor and that causes
>> the town to then have to pay overtime, we're kind of also footing the bill for that, too. Yeah, I'll let Chief Tang speak to that >> if I can respond to that. Yeah, Jill. So, that's a great question. So, certainly um you know uh outside work details are paid uh from outside
vendors, hence uh the terminology. Uh so, Sean's correct that's not uh that's not funded by the town. And certainly when it comes to burnout, um you know, it's state law for a police officer to be present for any road job. So that's a
mandated uh thing from the state. So therefore we have to comply with that. Um so that's not something that and it's on a voluntary basis as well. And certainly through our uh collective bargaining there is language to ensure
that officers are maintaining the correct levels of sleep and rest um when they volunteer their time. Uh so certainly there's adherence to that. Um and it is what it is. It's it's it's amount of uh people are different. You
know, some officers can work uh several hours, several different jobs and function fine and some can't. I'm one of those people that I can't stand out there for more than two hours. And uh I so I never worked the contractually I can't anyways, but when I was an
officer, a young officer, I didn't like it. I didn't do it. Uh so really it's on a individual basis in that sense. Is there a way to see the list of entities that we do detail work for in addition to
>> I don't know good we don't have that information in finance there are some that I can see like Verizon uh Comcast uh >> you name it though I mean you name it every company uh when it comes to construction companies to telephone
companies to even private entities um you know a a resident can hire a traffic officer, for example, if they have a moving truck coming and it's going it's going to block the road. They're going because it's in a public way, there is a
requirement for them to have a police officer there. So to have an actual list, it would be huge. >> Kathleen, >> yeah, my thank you. My questions are related to this um just when I know that
in the past other residents have asked about the the gross wages report and there's been questions about like the number of hours worked and the total number of amount of pay and can you just explain like the detail it sounds like
the detail work outside detail work is included in those hours and maybe some of those hours are time and a half or that that's I'm I'm just trying to get to get an understanding of how that relates to the budget that we see
because it seems like in that report these two types of work are not parsed out but there there must you know you must have another another system in which they are separated out >> well so I'll explain the breakdown in terms of salaries for an officer uh you
have your your regular salary that an officer will be will get paid and again that's contractual and then on top of that there's an educ educational incentive if they have a degree and certainly there's other stipens that are contractually bound that add to that
salary and then from that point on there's overtime. >> So overtime is anything that's worked in in addition to your uh particular shift and then there's the outside work detail and those outside work details are those road jobs or security details hired from
outside vendors and that's another portion. So, you put that all together and that's somebody's overall salary. >> And I'll just add to that real quick, Kathleen. So, um, you're right. Sometimes when you get those gross wage reports, you're like, "Oh, $200,000,
that's so high." That very well could include the detail payments as well, which is why we always say a portion of that may not actually be from town sources and doesn't tie directly to the budget. Um, we do have different pay types, so we track it. you know, we can say if there was ever a request like how
much did this person make from town funds, we can provide that report. >> Thank you, Sam. You're muted, Sam. >> Thank you, Kathy. Just to follow up on
that, uh, Chief, um, Council Bre had inquired about does the, uh, traffic work, uh, count towards overtime. I believe from your response the answer is it's not because it's separate it's a
separate category there may be fatigue elements but I just want to cl have that clarified for those who are listening >> that's correct >> thank you >> are there any other hands up with questions
Jill councel Greick sorry >> I just wanted to quickly acknowledge some of the folks who came out for public comment I really appreciated um some of the comments we heard in the beginning and I'm just wondering if there are you know I think [clears throat] I think
we all know there are larger things that are h that happen in our uh across the country that make members of our community feel unsafe um in a variety of different ways. I'm wondering Chief Ting if you can just talk a little
bit about the community. I I don't have the terminology right in front of me, but that's the the community outreach positions that you have uh in the budget and how those positions might be uh used to help restore community trust in our
officers. >> Sure. And you know, first and foremost, you know, I did appreciate the public comments that were uh put forth at the beginning. Um I I certainly appreciate that. I wouldn't want anybody to have to sit through this whole um presentation
just to wait to be able to give a public comment. And and I've heard those sentiments very much so um through certainly throughout my tenure as the chief of police. And I'm very sensitive to that. You know, certainly because I you know, I've been I grew up in this
town uh as many people know. So I I was schooled here um and I've been here since I was uh 5 years old. So I'm also an immigrant. So I'm one of the residents that grew up here. I understand their point of view. Um also
I'm as you can tell I'm also a minority. So certainly I take their views in in consideration. What I would offer is [snorts] certainly first and foremost is that I understand the national narrative. I understand the arguments and certainly the things that go on in
different places. And I also understand unfortunately that that our agency as well as policing across the country gets painted with the same broad brush. Unfortunately, when there's bad deeds that happen in LA, in Minneapolis, that automatically gets applied to us as
well. And certainly something that I've been trying to promote, you know, throughout our community is take a look at the Ammerst Police Department, what we're all about on a local level, not on a national level. We pride ourselves on being very different. Um, you know, we
have different training standards. We've been an accredited agency since 2001. We have probably the highest standards in Western Mass um in terms of training, in terms of personnel. 98% of our officers are educated uh with at least a
bachelor's degree. We have 60% of our officers that have master's degrees. So, we're very well educated. We're very well trained. And I'm extremely proud of that. So I invite anybody to come and take a look at what it is that the Ammerst Police Department does and not
on a national level, not even on a state level, but on that local level, come and learn about what it is that we do and what we have to offer. And we have a ton of um collaborations. So my particular uh stance on being the chief of police
is to again create change create change in the terms of the culture of the police department and how our community and ourselves uh collaborate together. You know in the past it's always been well it's the police department and there's a divide with the community. I'm
trying to kind of collaborate that together. Our officers are here for a betterment of their day and they are truly a part of this community as well. So we have made great strides with our schools through morning movement. Um one
philosophy that I have is that I believe that the foundation of our community is our kids. Um I know there's a lot of parents in here and you can tell how quickly a child grows in a flash. you know, especially when they become from
teenagers to adults, it's within a couple years and those are the formative years when they really need to cultivate um be educated and have a collaborative community effort in terms of the police department, the fire department, the
crest department, and all of our community members to help our kids succeed because in a flash, and I have two kids as well. My son just recently turned 18 and he has literally changed from a a young boy to an adult in a
flash and so his attitudes and things that he's grown up with have shaped that the way that he has become. So for me the foundation is our kids and so we have really put in a strong effort in terms of communicating with uh the kids in Ammerst to try and be that positive
role model. Um other than morning movement we have the rise program. We collaborate with our recreation department and we are continuing to try and partner with anybody who wants to partner with us. Um really for the betterment of the community.
>> Thank you very much. Um Kathleen. >> Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to take a minute to appreciate all of the extensive information that you provided in your answers specifically about the history between your department and UMass and your department and the
students um of UMass just because I think that in the community there's I think a lot of people are interested in the relationship between the town and UMass and and um and I don't think that a lot of people understand the the details that you provided there and I
just think they're very they're very helpful in understanding the relationships and also why like why we don't share certain things, why we aren't able to, right, and why your department is constrained in certain
ways and and and it was just very it was just very helpful to to read and I I wish that more people could could hear a lot of that information. >> Yeah, if I could just add to that, thank you. I appreciate that. And again, I've heard a couple times that, yeah, you know, you folks just got the document. I apologize. There's a lot of questions
there and I only had a couple days to be able to compile it. So, I'm sorry that you weren't able to really fully immerse yourselves into the answers. Um, as thoroughly as you would want to, but certainly I appreciate that sentiment. Um, you know, but it goes beyond the
relationship of the police department. Um, I think this is really this is a townwide type of scenario. You know, if you take a look at the history of Ammerst, that's been a constant issue um between the residents and certainly the university in terms of how the town
grows and how they can mesh together. Um those town gown issues is has been a constant and I think it's still there. Uh the relationship has grown, has gotten a lot more better. Uh but there's still a lot of work to be done. So I appreciate that. Thank you,
>> Anna. I was just going to say I I I don't think it's anyone's fault that the timelines are condensed here. So, I no need to apologize on any end for for the us reading the answers now, but I um wanted to confirm Kathy that if there's a followup if there are follow-up questions after we do get to really
digest the responses from um from Chief Cheng and and his team, are we able to uh ask some follow-up questions at a later date? >> Yes. And just as as soon as you get them together, the better on it. So because we won't be going back with everyone in
the room. Um so it'll go in to inform what we're writing up. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> So I want to I I we're nearing the end of our time. Um, but I just want to make one comment on on the level of detail
that you provided that if when people get to read it is the uh you gave terrific examples of the police is also part of our medical response um that you often get there first because you're out in the pro patrol cars and I have to
tell you the December event I know the person whose life you cha you saved Um and you know it really was everyone thought he was dead until the CPR team came and he didn't die which and so we're very grateful for that. But um the
the officer came but during JCPC we heard that the police are carrying various um medical types of medical equipment with them to enable that. And those two examples were excellent on one with breathing and one with heart. um
that that training expands the um what the police can do before the ambulance gets there basically that that team. So So thank you for taking the time to provide us very vivid examples of what it means why why you're both there and that you can often get there
and that you can get there faster. So it it's a it was a good example of what it means to have people on staff in a car where they can race to a scene. So, thank you, Lynn. >> You're m muted, Lynn.
>> Yes. But I do it. Uh, chief, there's one other statistic I always think is useful to for the town to known. How many times have Ammerst police drawn a gun in the last 10 years? >> Drawn a gun? Very few. Very few off. Uh, I I can I can draw from my own
experience. Um, I've been here uh I'm going into my 30th year and I think I can count maybe three times that I've drawn a a weapon. That's just uh my personal account. >> Thank you.
>> So, I'm looking at hands. Um, and if there are no other comments or questions right now, I want to thank you all. um again for both the effort that you put into before you came and uh giving us
the kinds of answers you've given us today. Um uh it's it's it's an odd thing that we have to wait for this kind of budget review before we can hear what's happening in a major department. But it it certainly is to b the benefit of all
of us and chief go ahead and and >> yeah if I could just say say something in in conclusion you know certainly um there's a presentation from the crest department as well and I think there's a lot of misperception out there that um that there's a division and there really
isn't um you know we support the crest department. You know I'll be 100% honest with you and you've seen it from the documents from the answers that I've provided. I I don't agree with uh the format in terms of how it was created. I truly believe it should be a
co-response. Again, I've kind of outlined my reasons for that and and that's specifically for my two-prong approach of safety and liability to be able to cover both and I think that can be a collaboration. Um but certainly you know there were demands for it to be uh
an alternative and to be a separated unit and it does pose a lot of challenges but I certainly don't want people to think and believe that the Ammeris Police Department is not supportive of Crest and we very much so are um and we are very willing to work
together to make sure that our community gets what they want. You know, certainly we have to listen to our community members in terms of what type of public safety that they want and certainly Crest has a huge role and a huge part in the town of Ammeris and we're very
supportive of each other and I support Crest. I just don't want our agency to be defunded. So that's what I'm fighting for. Thank you. >> So thank you for that. And I'm again I'm not seeing anybody's hand go up because
so then I think we can thank Thank you again and um if there are follow-up questions we'll again we'll get them to you through Sean. Um >> certainly thank you >> and thank you Sean and your team for the work behind the scenes. I know you've
supplied some of the answers that we have in our documents. So so that's been very helpful. Thank I I'm proud of the length of the question and answer document. I at first I was like, man, it's getting up there. But now I actually want to see it keep growing because it's at that point [laughter] where it's a it's a good good resource
for future years as well. So [laughter] >> I just Yeah, I just want to say as someone who has gone through old packets to try to find answers to questions in the past, I so appreciate it being in one document that we can just move forward. So thank you. Yeah. No, no,
thank you. I agree. At first it's like where is it? And he really just keep going and you're going to find it. So I am going to make a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? >> Second got there. >> All right. So >> take take her.
>> Okay. So we're we're we're going to take a quick vote on a journey. Lynn >> I >> Kathy say yes. Kathleen >> yes. >> Tom >> yes. Councelor Breick, >> yes. >> Anna, >> I >> and Sam
>> I. >> It's unanimous. We are adjourned. And again, a big thank you to all of you with us. >> Thank you everyone.