##VIDEO ID:QS1CDSa6RgQ## 701 on Wednesday February on the agenda [Music] Sarah it's scale I don't think all the mics are on it's not the mic scale hold on all right it's something hey guys guys hold on copy every at 5 oh sorry I sent a copy to DAR at 611 youy speak again hi Dale can you hear me yeah that's better thank you yes apologies for the 4:30 and uh email that was uh not intentional uh so thank you for having me in um kind of my plan if you will entertain me for a little bit is to kind of go an overview of the fire department the services we provide because I think sometimes some of the services we provide Get Lost in Translation and I've had some people come in look at the TR like oh we didn't know you did all this stuff so I thought it might be good to start with a quick overview um and then please you know I'm I'm your target for tonight so please shot away as we uh so talk about our overview uh talk a little bit about our receivables kind of some things that we're working on to increase those uh review our apparatus replacement plan about our current fy2 as well as FY 26 uh which includes a deputy chief and then kind of looking forward at the next five six seven years kind of what's in the telescope per se uh depending on what the climate is um so the fire department is not a fire department we are a multi-response agency very a small percentage of what we do is fight fires a large percentage is Emergency Medical Services and you know we protect a lot of things in town we have 5,500 residents the assessor database is 4 billion in assets my guess is the actual replacement cost is probably double or triple that that that number uh we talk about the boats in the harbor as well as our land and our water so uh we kind of do a little bit of everything and uh we'll kind of get into that the main goal regardless of what we do life safety is our priority number one stabilize the incident so it doesn't get any work and then the third thing is property conservation and those are kind it doesn't matter what kind of call we go to those are what our priorities are rolling out um so obviously firefighting a structural Wildland vehicle we've had all the above in the last few months it's been a busy past quarter uh for us on all of cords and you know with these you know we we talk about Personnel we talk about uh Manning and we'll kind of talk about what the differences are based upon in this patient well uh Emergency Medical Services I only had one picture with a patient in it that had to blur the face obviously for reasons but uh we provide Emergency Medical Services anywhere the one on the left is up uh at the top of uh the Manchester Essex Woods that we had to stabilize the patient give them pain medicine and then extricate him down the the mouth um so we do a little bit of everything and all the other pictures are just training on pediatric against Airways that were required Emergency Medical Services if you look at our percentages uh in a couple slides you'll see that it looks low um what we found during a kind of an audit is our new software system how people were entering calls there was some inconsistencies with that for instance if you hit your Lifeline button and you needed a lift assist you didn't really need Emergency Medical Services some of those are actually getting logged in as false calls not MediCal calls so the numbers in in reality are about 78 to 80% of what we do is has a medical component uh the graph doesn't depict that but that was picked up during an audit uh high angle low angle rescue water rescue ice rescue um Auto extrication and then uh Wilderness rescues which this year I'm not sure if it was an anomaly but I think we did six Woods rescues this year um from I say stos Time end of June when school gets out uh through the fall which I thought was an extraordinary number uh some were a little bit easier than others and some were a mile or so hike in and a mile and hike up uh has this materials uh fires we do we plan do oil spills gasaks carbon monoxide incidents those are uh you know those are seasonal especially when the heating systems kick on right now it's kind of our peak time for responding to those and we found uh quite a few in the last 60 to 90 days we had readings so everyone's like oh my detective's going off it's nothing and then you know they actually call us and our meters are going off and it is something um so we anybody listening we urge you if your detective goes off do not um ignore it uh we do public education Outreach car seat installations uh we do all the stuff with the playgrounds and we go into the schools do our safe programs uh a couple pictures that aren't on here at our community risk reductions where we'll go in and we'll talk to the seniors we recently did a Rock Box program uh combination with Essex trying to find ways uh to mitigate risk whether it's a you know trip and fall hazard in somebody's home cooking safety for the elderly uh things like that we're trying to find what our atrisk populations are and try to mitigate as many they have and then we have our specialized stuff we have a member as a haard materials uh technician we have somebody who's a confined space technician and then all of our uh firefighters and police officers have recently been uh coming up to speed on active shooter or active asant uh because that is unfortunately the world we live in now um so if we're not doing it here chances are we're going to be going somewhere Mutual Aid to help our neighbors uh if situation so those are Services we provide are the questions on our services I I I call us the Leatherman if you will when somebody doesn't know who to call they call us and sometimes you're like you call the fire department for that that but to them it's an emergency so that's you know that's how we act um the other thing you'll see our call volume I've um broken down our call volume to be more transparent so if you look at our call Volume last year that had a couple different um reporting softwares this is the first year that we actually have everything streamlined everything here is an emergency response a 911 response is the 1,67 calls that doesn't include um inspections um permits other types of public interactions going into the schools we don't uh trigger an incident where some of our neighboring departments literally every time the phone rings even if it's hey is a school today they're making out an incident our numbers are purely you call 911 that's going to trigger a number yeah does that is that provided to the county through their 911 or is that something we do independently of so both so uh if you call n one they create the call in their CAD system and then it gets dropped down into our fire reporting system and then we assigned what the end result is so for instance that fire number that you see there was an actual some type of fire if you looked at the numbers from Dispatch they dispatch us out to a much higher percentage of fires but when we got there it wasn't a fire it was a smoke scare or something like that so these numbers are what was actually found when crws gone on Cene not necessarily what they were just uh and then our heat map so everyone finds this interesting so this is our uh over the course of last year these are all of our incidents um where this technology really comes into play is you know God for we have another pandemic Etc we can actually hone in on a section of town that might have more I could do hey how many people had flu like symptoms during these calls it'll give me a heat M uh so we can look at some different techniques in order to keep our resid we try to track everything by address and flat on that is Zach coming 911 or is that just that well that comes into our software and then our software y That's that compatible software we had to get for the Y and then one of the things you'll see we'll get our line item is one of the uh bigger items is or you operating budget wise it says uh software dues and subscriptions uh that's up there because we to this first due software uh we just voted as the police and fire chiefs uh yesterday to the regional to basically put that out as an RFP and they'll take over that cost once we go through the the state's not quick about anything but uh I'm gonna say two years just to be realistic Chief do we possess any unique keep abilities compared to the communities around us and you were talking to me the other day about Tesla lithium battery fires of the blank is there anything unique that you guys do yeah so um for uh we've been very fortunate Grant wise compared to some of our neighbors so we've have electric vehicles shut off capabilities we have uh special blankets to put over if a lithium ion batteries are going uh on Fires we have specialized training that we've got a Regional training Grant with esset that we putting people through different types of uh training so on the electric vehicle side of things and kind of the called The New Age firefighting uh we actually have some good capabilities compared to it not that they don't have capabilities we've just been very fortunate and I grant writing and receiving get some of that can I ask about the lithium the battery fires are primarily Vehicles it sounds like but they're also like home solar systems yeah occurrences related to those so we we've only had a few um batteries that have lit off that they were actually a remote control car was uh one that was the most wasn't in recent history but in the last year or so that a couple cells we're seeing a lot more people putting those uh Tesla solar panels on the roof but then they also put the Tesla solar packs either in the garage or on the side of the garage so the pro there's a couple different problems with the solar panels is it limits our ability to actually put a hole in your roof uh which hurts us when we go into a fire we want to make the um environment more tenable and so heat rises so we put a little hole in your roof so the heat will go up and we can actually do our work in there but with the with solar panels even if we shut the power down there's really no way to shut solar panels uh one of the things we do have it looks like um rhino lining so we have a fire extinguisher that puts out Rhino Lining so a lot of times we'll have a single panel that will either a branch will fall on and'll catch on fire we can actually spray this Rhino Lining onto the solar panel it will disable that one panel so it won't basically cause a fire go panel to panel so this is all stuff you asked me 20 years ago i' say you crazy that we begin with uh but we have to figure out ways to mitigate it so it's not a specialized fire retirement it's a rhino lighting so it it basically comes off as a rhino it almost looks like an adhesive glue and then so it covers the panel so light can't get through the panel therefore it shuts the power down to the panel and then when the fire is over and out you actually peel it off it's almost um I'm trying to think of the guy that's in the boat and he has a hole in the boat that's what it kind of looks like but it's it's in a spray so that's what it kind of looks like um one of the things that's interesting to Manchester and this uh these statistics actually kind of Boggle my mind because we'll go we can go 24 hours without a call and then we'll do three calls in six minutes like there's no Rhyme or Reason to the call call volume so last calendar year we had 169 simultaneous calls so two calls going on at the same time um eight times we had three calls going on at the same time two calls we had five uh two times we had five calls going on um so that's that's where things get a little bit we have to think on the Fly of how we're going to best uh navigate some of those so more and more we're doing simultaneous calls I don't know the reason this no you know it's not you know some of them are couple of them sure are weather related but a majority of them are a fire alarm and a medical are coming in know 30 seconds apart and actually I didn't plan it this way but when I met with Tom Andy for coffee we actually they had three calls while we sting there for coffee I like I swear I didn't push this guy out of the wheel it just but it happened I was like at least is good time you know if it had to happen this is great time for it to happen and then you said no don't need to call me anymore didn't you notice it was all quiet after we left yeah um so those are statistics and kind of what we do any questions on that before we get into the nitty-gritty of per receivable Services we provide how we provide it yeah you'll tell us why we got the 45 page document from the attorney general I'm you're gonna you're gonna want that page after I read read these statistics all right so let me just minimize this so uh on the this is our ambulance billing and a little bit different um I did this for a calend new year which is took a little bit of working with the Andrea work at our billing company because typically we do everything on a fiscal year but I wanted to give you the last 12 months so the reason I gave you that extensive document if you ever bored to read is looking at Collectibles and if anybody had watched the news recently there's an article about ambulance billing um and it was quite interesting in so it's actually pretty timely to this discussion so we did 308 uh transports that we buildt for last year um there are calls now where we provide paramedic service that we go treat somebody and then they go oh I don't want to go anymore you fixed me we call the doctor at the hospital and say you don't have to go to the hospital we can't build for those in the current climates uh so 308 are actually people that were in the back of the truck on the way to the hospital um so if we look at what we total charges for uh last year was $ 76,2 what we actually got into the bank uh was 2 25,5 47 obviously there's a big discrepancy there um so we do not um we're not in network with any of the big healthcare providers so your Harvard pilgrims your Blue Cross things like that um so we're out of network uh and I don't know any fire department that is in network the reason being is we can charge a higher rate being out of network and for the most part most of our calls are emergency responses so they're covered by the insurance on occasion we get called for something that's really not an emergency somebody thinks it's an emergency it's really not so the insurance company will say you know that's not an emerging response it's more of a transfer than a transport um and then you come down into your um the lower category where we have our self-pay insured and our self-paid uninsured uh you see a discrepancy there that's just you know trying to get money out of typically it's been the um my predecessors included if it's a town resident we typically don't like Hound Collections and go through a huge process um and then if it's out of town resident we look at it a case by case basis based upon demographics their situation and we kind of take you know a human approach to that scenario um I uh spoke with GRE today I think we haven't done it in a while I think it's worth putting our ambulance billing out to bid uh there's some different providers out there just to see what the appetite is because typically they're taking you between four and six% uh for doing the billing Ser uh see if we can get a better Bay for but if we will by putting that out to bid and uh so that whole document was basically to explain why you see a vast difference between what we Bill and what we collect that document kind of goes into go ahead how how did the um total Char the charges relate to our costs are they related or so they they are related um I look at Blue Cross Blue Shield the private insurance typically they're actually covering the cost of of the trip they're covering the cost of the crew that's a true um you know Apple to Apple uh we get into the Medicare Medicaid paying a very low percentage of what we're billing they're not covering our costs so pretty much we're covering the the ambulance cost based upon those private insurance the difference here versus I know you guys had a joint meeting with Essex not too long ago and they said their ambulance service is self- sustaining all of their revenue from the ambulance service goes into an Enterprise fund to pay for new ambulances Etc we don't have so that's why they say it's self- sustaining ours is just basically going into um we have increased our uh fees about every six months so over the they hadn't been done for a long time uh since last year uh we started increasing last year we saw an $80,000 increase over the last year from our just we're in the average we build whatever the average the area what's that amount uh what's the amount for ad run it is GL you ask okay uh so our current BLS emergency rate which is a BLS emergency rate which is basic life support you have a small laceration you don't need cardiac monitoring cardiac drugs your base rate uh is going to be $1,769 uh plus a mileage um and it's $41 uh $41 a mile and then our ALS rates are depending on what we do for for uh things so if you just have I want say basic chest B because it sounds like it's not important you have uh a minor higher here medical emergency um then that's going to be built at 2464 plus the mileage if we give you two or more medications then it bumps up to an als2 which is a more critical patient and then you're going to be at uh 3571 plus how does that compare with our cost um if we it's impossible to tell it is it's impossible tell I would say if we were getting private insurance for every run yeah we would be covering our costs the the problem is we're not getting we're not getting the Harvard pilgrims of Blue Cross ppos for every call we have the Medicare Medicaid non-insured what what when you say we would be covering our cost y of what so so so so the so so the crew the crew for the ambulance and our um uh consumables sure our supplies and things like like that um so that would cover the the base cost the problem when I say are we going to cover our cost is our firefighter paramedics are multi rolled so we're going to cover half the cost of half their job we're not going to cover the cost of the other half of their job I think it's the easiest way so what is the number what is the cost I mean maybe it's impossible to say it's yeah I I I I don't even want to pull one out of my backside no I'm not I can't back it up yeah if you give me a little bit I can do a little it's all right all right okay well for instance so I mean I can see not having to to figure the the uh salary in because they're working anyway whether they get a call or not they're there but does any do simultaneous calls trigger an overtime that otherwise wouldn't have or um yes like that and then the other component is I'm thinking to factor that out you'd look at what the total allowable is is closer to what that would be yes and the total charges including the labor yeah yeah I think I think that would be fair I think that right now we're in a position where those simultaneous calls we're not making money on because we don't have the ability to transport so for instance when we were having coffee our ambulance was already out of town somebody fell there on the ground on Pine Street and we didn't have another ambulance so we went provided care we had to wait for an ambulance to come from the Gloucester Rockport Line to do the transfer can Canen we not send an ambulance out of town well it was out of town as in transporting a resid to Beverly Hospital was already busy so we're not are we losing transport fees um due to our mutual Aid provided in the ambulance ride are we losing no because most of the we're billing for our mutual Aid fees as well so like if we go to uh wellam yeah and we provide care we we get paid for that so from a financial standpoint we're getting paid we get paid even if we don't transport no so like only free only free transport okay the individual's Insurance yes so like if we go over to Essex and we provide paramedic care and we go with their EMTs the hospital whatever ambulance the patient is in does the billing we get 60% of their Collectibles because we provided ALS care they keep 40 so there's a 6040 split uh if we Pro just provide them paramedical service if we do the transport we send our ambulance and we do everything get 100% so right now I mean I look at it from you know I don't look it as I should look at as a how do we make money I look at it from hey when that person was on Pine Street and it's four degrees outside we want to be able to take care of that person so that's where you know when that second ambulance comes in we would be able to take care of that I look at it from that stand I think my concern and I know really big on the mutual AGS but my concern is that so many of the area towns do not have ALS services and they use private services that may have become less reliable my concern is how much is it cost in Manchester because we have ALS to be bailing out the other towns that don't have it so I think we're I think we're actually we make money on that okay because we actually when we go there we're providing ALS service so we're getting that 60% of that call uh right now we're sending a uh the SUV because we don't have two ambulances so that allows us to leave our ambulance in town and still help out using uh we have to go if they call by law uh so it's not a oh we don't want to we don't want to do it if somebody calls we have an ambulance available we have to send it um there's no that's just state law unfortunately um you know right now there's you know there's other um correct there's other small towns not adjacent to us but nearby that are having some struggles and it's costing them a pretty penny because it's not mutual Aid it's you're basically subsidizing somebody else's service so uh there's there's a difference if they need help we help them and we we ask for help almost equally if not more than we give help for medical for medical because we need we need an ambulance because we only have one I mean that will change once we have a second one because we can do simultaneous calls but right now every time we have two medical at the same time we have to ask for help for for instance like Middleton must have had a terrible time with overtime this year because of the forest fires did did we send people to help them so yeah so we sent people um so they looked at FEMA for some reimbursement however I forget do remember the dollar figure it had to be per incident not per it was it could be was some breakdown but we didn't hit the threshold that it was going to be to get reimbursement uh but you know then we asked for help too so I mean it all comes in the wash yeah so the recent fire we were we were getting Mutual Aid on that recent fire yeah we have seven different towns so for instance Gloucester sent an engine in a ladder so they sent seven they sent five on an engine three on the ladder truck so they got eight people and they're back filling eight on overtime as well becoming so and then that's so in the scheme of things yes you see a big bump so you'll see a big bump in our overtime for the last month because we had a bunch of fires here and fires and Beverly and things but over if you look at all the communities it's all gonna eat out I was surprised at that that's your fire how many of the firefighters turned out for it we had it was a pretty good response so we from Manchester we had an awesome response it had a couple things it had to do with is time of day because it was like 10 o'clock at night so not everybody was sound asleep that if it was at 1:00 in the morning it would have been much different response um because I get yelled out for having my page on and I tell my wife well you don't we don't have a choice that's my job but uh some people don't listen but you know between midnight and 5: am it's a lot harder um to do it but we had we had a great response I was very pleased with that so in that situation did the qualif firefighters play into that yep um so we had I we want to say all together we have 23 people on staff I think 19 or 20 were involved in the incident somehow so uh they definitely played a role and you know we talk about Staffing and you know it's you know it's the K's heel right uh but that was perfect having four people because they had to hand lay hose through the woods to get water and if they didn't have the fourth person that house probably would have gone up so that was it made a huge difference having that that fourth person night and day operations that was kind of a slight of hand question to get at it looks as though the call firefighter team that we together the last is they are doing awesome um we just had a call uh I was driving here they had Summer Street had a fire alarm activation a commercial they had three come three call Firefighters come back out of six a win quick question so the there's a bport ambulance that's usually hanging out on Pine Street how does that fit into this whole mix or is it disconnected so it's not disc connected so bport is our primary backup for alss Essex is our primary backup for BLS so bport is contracted they provide the the primary ambulance for the town of Hamilton they do ALS for winam and they do ALS for essic primarily so what happens is they have a truck in Hamilton and they have a truck on the gler Rockport Line If the truck from Hamilton goes to do a transfer from let's say Beverly Hospital Boston that Rockport Gloster truck moves down now they're covering that entire area so that's just their central point of trying to hit all the towns uh because if they were sitting in Hamilton it would be hard to get back up to Rockport so that's basically what they said okay yeah they're they all like those guys I think they get you know 10 hours of sleep there because they're covering the line can't um so overall these are our numbers from Andrea pulled them just for calendar year so she had to kind of merge numbers so 270,000 was our receivables calendar year 202 um so for smoke alarm inspections um are the fees we charging sufficient to cover the costs or should we be increasing the fees we we should be increasing the fees and I say that with a cavea some of the fees are tied to mgl Mass General laws okay so you'll see I put a recommendation for some uh a lot of times adding an admin fee on top of the permit fee which is allowable okay um so I'll be submitting that as a idea to select to see if they'll proove those What's the magnitude of the admin fee were permitted uh that's not listed either for or against so most towns are doing a $25 admin oh it's a flat number flat number and we can do whatever we want we just has to be and so we can report on it um change it based upon too many parameters would hard to get are you still only charging $50 for smoke alarms or that yes it's going to be 50 plus 20 well if it's approved it's GNA be 50 plus 25 oh right here um was 52 years ago y so so a lot of the things haven't changed um for decades and decades and decades um and then we're just looking at adding some admin fees to some of these and you know like the blasting permit admin fees is a little bit significantly more because there's a lot more to it especially as of late so it kind of cover some of the the Personnel costs deal with some you can't increase the blasting fee over the 50 correct easy is I had a is there a way we could differentiate between like um resident cost and commercial cost because I mean in a way we're paying for this stuff already by funding the department so I mean that the the fees are good but I don't think they need to cover the whole cost because most of the people incurring them are already funding the department no I think the fee should cover the cost the whole cost yeah I mean I think that there's so many if you look at the fire department itself there's a lot of personnel time when they're not doing a fee related activity they're not responding to a medical call um so there's a large portion of their time that has no opportunity um for reimbursement from them anywhere I mean fires there's no reimbursement that's that's that's what we're paying for you know and it just seems to me that wherever we can charge fees and a lot of these for the most part are commercial I mean even if it's a commercial it's still getting passed on to the resident somehow right because the real estate agents charging for the 26f on their their how you're paying for it just not and the commercial people are trying but they're probably up they're doing an admin fee on top of admin fees on top okay I wonder though down at the bottom the commercial plan review for over 5,000 square feet and under 5,000 3600 I mean how much time do you spend doing that and and I mean I'm thinking of one thing on school streak which is probably not a 20 minute review correct so um and it's not just School Street so what I found and I I was assistant fire invention where I came from as well and uh unique to this town is people put very unique things in their houses like hair salons Bowling like it takes a lot of time to research what the fire you know requirements are for area of a bowling alley so it's it's it's hard to do apples to apples uh because there so many things that are unique um with this town so it was just trying to find a catchment area that was appe both but I mean if you just sort of took your hours or your team's hours for a year doing that and and just sort of said is $600 or $300 an hour reasonable you know I mean if you're off by 50 or 60% that's one thing if you're off by five or 10 x yeah so I mean I guess I don't have we don't have the numbers we just started tracking uh like act like literally every activity we do in the fire department so we can report on that so we'll have a little bit better of an idea um but you'll have some commercial properties that are pretty straightforward because they don't have any unique um features and things like that so that might take me an hour to go through and then you get some of these a residential might take me four hours to go through because we're going in and looking at all the different codes and sub over th000 Square F feet absolutely yeah right so you only get 50 bucks 10,000 foot house I'm looking at commercial now down at the bottom the commercial plan review oh you're proposing propos I'm proposing that because right now we it's just built into the building permit but nothing on the Fire end okay Y and these are basically these aren't arbit numbers I reached out to 10 communities that recently research it updated their numbers and these are the averages of of what you have pretty good data of what people have in their home and I don't want to be too big brother about this but you know if somebody's got a heated driveway that's running on a propane system that's 30 years old do you kind of know that and going forward we will because everything's I probably can back in the records in the basement and find a permit for a propane tank and and what use was for but you know to quickly reference it I I had a fireman fire person at my house not that long ago and he actually did an inspection yeah of the house just to kind of he said he was looking for and I happen to have solar system with a with a battery in the garage so yeah so he was looking around the property outside the property just to kind of see what was there so that yeah I mean so that's one of talk about Community risk reduction we do a lot of pre-planning especially when we show up um you look at some of these driveways for instance some you can't get any fire trucks in some the you can get an engine in but not a lad of truck so we go out and pre-plan these so when the address comes in we know hey this is you know the closest hydrant this is where we're going to park you know so we kind of have our game plan already set up just in case that particular house getes that's a big undertaking that you know we maybe get 20 houses a year done in between with our time are those just notes to the file on a given address that yep so if we get dispatched to 123 Main Street on the computer on the truck the officer just Taps it and it'll tell them everything about the property things like um all right any questions on fees permits receivables uh so kind of the big one for us is you know put that ambulance billing out to bid see if we can get a better rate on that um and and we've been really looking uh doing QA Qi quality improvement on our EMS reports making sure that everything is documented appropriately to increase the billables on those um well when you out to bid you mean like a collection AG yeah so so uh right now we use Comstar ambulance building out of they Rowley or Georgetown uh and there's probably half a dozen in the area that do a very good job it's just you know will somebody do it for a percent and a half less that just increases our collection the chief just take me back so on fees what's our conclusion from this conversation are there fees that need to be raised yes what's the process for that happening uh yeah recommendation from the chief and then select okay and that's onl yes that's going to be submitted in short order I was Wai there kind of busy with a this budget thing but uh once they slow down a little7 effect to July one but that would be the to between allowable and collected it wouldn't really charges no no oh so I'm talking the fees for like permits and stuff that's what I was asking about yeah so the ambulance fees pretty much they're they're set um there's some hope that you know they'll they'll Ren Medicare and Medicaid will renegotiate but they've been saying that for a better part of a decade they haven't gone they've gone up maybe 4% and our cost have gone up significantly more than 4% off the top the difference between allowable and collected is pretty good yeah yeah yeah on the uh private insurances yes it's like 80 something 81% yeah yeah um so apparatus replacement plan we are on target thankfully uh we are on good um so a couple things that um engine one which is our I'll say our lone pump truck uh it's 2011 starting to show its age it should be in reserve right now um we the guys are very good about maintaining the equipment doing as much uh preventative maintenance we can um so we're trying to use that a little bit less we're using the ladder truck more for two reasons one it gets them out driving it more and more comfortable it's a big truck more comfortable knowing where it'll fit more importantly where it doesn't fit because we don't want to figure that out when somebody's house is on fire um so uh that's why we're doing that uh engine two we're currently borrowing lindfields engine uh they've been very good and you know we've been good host we just had some PM done on it and things like that just uh being it was popped quite a bit the other night so wanted to take care of it um so the goal is we put in uh with Rosen the same manufacturer as the lad truck uh to purchase a new pump that would be delivered July first of 27 so FY 28 which aligns with this um reason we were able to do that was I won't say a loophole but it's a uh line item in the sourcewell contract which I'm sure will not be in there and then next revision uh it says that we can order the truck and uh pending uh appropriation of fund so that appropriation of funds allows us to back out of the contract who were able to order it today's dollars um but actually get delivery when to Aline with the thing uh which right off the bat saved us about $240,000 based upon the average 5% per year and then the new diesel engine which is so that worked out very very well um plat one is working out great ambulance one working out well the second ambulance or the new ambulance who should arrive at the end of uh calendar year 26 maybe mid the 27 um it's just a long delay and once we get it it will line up with our seven years so our new ambulance will be front line primary for seven years then it will go back to the back line for seven years um and I know there been a lot of discussion in years past we need two ambulances uh just the lead time alone to get an ambulance that we'll be going on almost three year wait time to get one if we blew an engine something like that we'd be uh in deep water so it's really important to have some type of mechanical backup by itself um what does it mean to blow an engine you know if a head gasket goes you know a major mechanical problem something that renders it not operational not operational we put that miles are I mean they're hard miles too I mean it's not most diesels are meant to like run and go from here to California and our start stop start stop you know things like so they're not easy mile um squad one going to beat diesel as well that is still better yeah Diesel and then the four-wheel drive which we need for and that's why we go with the Ford pickup truck chassis versus the band fronts because a four-wheel drive with some of our Hills that we have and the driveways and stuff weather really um impedes our ability to access plac um Squad is the pickup truck that we use for brush fires that's going uh that's uh working out well no issues there Car 2 which is the old fire Chev car is now uh used as the paramedic fly car if we go out of town it's also used if it's a three-man crew uh if we go on a medical two firefighters will take the ambulance the officer will take the car just to reduce the wear and tear on the bigger pieces and it's safer we used to always take a fire engine with one person in it I don't like that because I think that's very unsafe especially some of these places we're backing out of things like if we have to we will uh but I think it's much safer to have somebody in a SUV versus what happens to car so that is uh due to replace it it all kind of depends on where we're going um in the future okay yes so it's basically it has all the paramedic gear and it has everything an ambulance has in just in an SUV so for instance we'll go over to Essex jump on board their ambulance provide the advanced level care and just follow their ambulance to the hospital and our ambulance is still available to our citizens um then my car uh so the only um car black so because it was the last one available and it was going to be a six-month weight and a $155,000 increase to weight so um the uh the other and it was cheaper than I don't know why it was cheaper than a Ford Explorer that which I'm like pretty wide I'm like all right that works that works for my sting it so I wasn't going to complain uh the one uh so everything on the apparatus replacement plan is the exact same as you've seen for since I came uh so we're online with that um we put it for $300,000 Lo for this year I think it just to be uh transparent I think it would be good for the next so 27 and 28 to plan on 350 because just looking at what some of the trucks are coming in at I'd rather be ahead of the game than coming back and and begging so what's the current balance in the account uh so well after we just bought the ambulance so it'll be 300 after this year so uh we'll have if we do 300 then 350 350 the the engine will be paid for by the time we pay on delivery so questions after um so this is current year uh so our salary line item with 55.5 n% expended um and then our operating line item was 62.2 six% so a little bit above um but that's normal because um a lot of our expenses are frontload in the beginning of the fiscal year and then our ambulance inspection when the state comes in they Lally check expiration dates of Band-Aids and everything so a lot of that stuff our consumables uh get revamped uh in the fall so that's a typical bump that we see is not out of the realm of and one is on active duty we don't have any uh currently we have one that's going to be going out for a knee replacement I just found out yesterday um however with our where our shift Staffing is we have four assigned to our shift so we dropped to three yeah so unless one of those other three are on vacation um it it does not it doesn't affect how long I think it's six week oh eight week long yeah um and then they have the option too of maybe coming back light duty which is helpful because there's a ton of stuff that we overtime up next one up and I just ask on the salary how many employees how many salaried employees are there so we have 16 uh firefighters plus myself 17 uh over time our budget is $100,000 we're currently uh 61.9% expended um which is actually for a fireworks year is right on track because we see a bump during fireworks uh year generally um and we'll see another bump um typically July and August with vacations and then December with vacations are our biggest ones that normally tail off towards the end so does this include the overtime from the structure fire or is that not yet hit uh that has not yet um that is not yet if that would be on yeah that's that's not yet maybe I misread it but I looked at the report for the last six months that Andrea gave us yep showed a much larger percentage um so we had um one of our firefighters was deployed down to North Carolina uh as part of FEMA so he got oh he was gone two weeks he gets paid 24 hours a day seven days a week for two weeks but we just got reimbursement to that that funds which was 13,000 and change so I'm not sure when that was printed if that was added to that well it was a 1231 number like 86% or something then we spent as of 1231 but probably the reimbursement not there but that's a substantial percentage difference yeah Peter Peter this is on the overtime it was in overtime and it was in the quot report the end of the year that um I just noted that notable percentage and then she might uh there is this is shift over time there is just a moment um Andrew you have your hand raised yes I just want to say I didn't transfer that 13,000 until January when I got the confirmation of the number so that's why it's still included in the December amount and Andre that's probably what makes that percentage so substantially larger yeah is that correct Andrea yes that's correct okay thank you okay sorry go ahead oh don't worries um so the other thing kind of with the overtime too is looking at the forecast the next 10 days is we can't predict some of these snowstorms so typically when there's a snowstorm iure that there's at least four people working uh because trying to get the qualifier fighters in obviously coming from home is a deliv um so we typically if somebody is out we do back fill that fourth spot if you will on the storm and what size storm do you Pi that in on so it all depends on when the storm hits I look at traffic um yep so uh the one on I'm more worried about the one on Saturday overnight into Sunday because that seem like that's going to be a a Whopper as of right now I won't make it a termination on that till Saturday morning the forecasters make their best educated guess on what the uh Stone totals are going to be but those those are the ones I do up staff on because it's much harder to get or slower to get Mutual Aid here as well sure because of the road so and here's just kind of our graph on our overtime over uh the last four years versus this fiscal year um so you know we're kind of right on track on you know where we should be and obviously we had some jumps I think Co year was in there and you know some of the other ones that you know make those that four year pretty high but um we're doing quite well with are overtime one of the other thing that has helped is having the full shift Staffing allows uh firefighters to take some cop time in Le of overtime if they're doing training and things like that so we drop down Staffing but we don't have to pay the overtime so that that helps us as well so we try to be calculated in that because the trend is still Rising so uh so January that is the hours here do include that fire um so that I mean we were there for the better part of 14 hours by the time we had the hose out of the woods and stuff like that so you will see bumps and and and jogs based upon our call line yeah do you do you feel like we're in a good The Sweet Spot with a staffing as far as the I mean our overtime is down but our overall labor costs are up but we're a little bit so I was a happy medium right because you have overtime which is I don't say good because no one likes the word overtime but but then you add an FTE then you get benefit so what you know there's a good balance on you know where's the happy medium financially um I think we're in a good spot because we have a lot of flexibility with we do a ton of training on duty they train they use my name in Bane all the time every day that doing some um uh they have to and so we have a good ability to train because we have you know they when we're at four people we can do do that um you know talking about Staffing a little bit um um you know we talk about three three firefighters on duty versus four uh and you know we always chuckle about the two and two out roll historically um the one thing I do want to hit home about is a lot of people don't realize what that means um so you look at the average um house in Manchester we're very fortunate most of them have fire detection systems so the fires that we have they're you know single room fires kitchen fires that were alerted too early uh but if we pull up to your house and you're outside you say everyone's out there's no life hazard in there but the guys would have to go on air to go deal with it they can't go in if they don't have two outside and two inside um so that small little fire that we got alerted to early we still have to wait for on that that's where that that difference comes in if it's an unknown Hazard you know we don't know if anybody's in there then we always go in but if you come out and say yep you know everyone's out all the humans are out then that's where our hands are tied legally that be um so Capital um Mobile Radio upgrades was trying to Chief before you go by looking at the budget print out I was confused about where we don't have Appropriations for some positions last year that apply a new position I would this is the question I was yeah so the um there are four of these yeah so the so the old way if you will of accounting was firefighter Joe Smith here's his salary yeah um and then if Joe Smith got promoted that line item's now empty so now instead of you once clear GS back up and running and you look at it you'll just see four officer positions and uh firefighter positions below it it won't be tied to a name for instance you see a firefighter like Bob C Lieutenant caver became a captain so his Lieutenant spots open so there's a positive and a negative if if you look at Andrea's spreadsheet which I sent you okay way over to the right it has the names and you'll see like Cavender's on there twice once say captain once say Lieutenant so the lieutenant went to zero and the captain went way up um so because we only had 11,000 in for Captain last year double County and then there's another one who left so he SAR it out and somebody so there's no additional okay well people they're just different people yeah it's a it's a format that I find deeply confusing but yes but if you further over to the right they're actual names I will I'm G I looked at that this afternoon I said okay that makes sense and and it's a lot I say clear it's a lot clearer and clear go when it was up in operation because you actually just saw it was tied to a position not a person which makes it a little bit clear um good on last year's operating so uh capital budget request for this coming year uh Mobile Radio upgrades uh just basically some of our radios are decades old so we're just slowly plugging away at upgrading our radios uh year two of three of our cardiac monitors uh our Advanced life support monitors year one of three for fire engine and then the other two is SCBA and Bill station so I uh spoke with our contact at FEMA and uh in reference to the grants because I think we're in a pretty good spot for a FEMA grant for the scbas um obviously there was a halt on all rant activity um they just have to take out some particular wording Dei wording and things like that so um they're in peer review right now in Maryland and we should actually start hearing about uh Grant Awards uh within the next month or so um but those scbas that's if we don't get a grant over the next year and a half that's something that we're going to have to address because they're going to time themselves out um I was 90% sure we're going to get it last fiscal year uh but a lot of small departments in the midwestern part of the country put in for they had packs that were 40 years old so we got boun so um I I'm relatively certain that we're going to be in a good good place for a grant do we already have a fill station and is this a replacement or are we is this our first fill station so we have a fill station um and basically those time out as well so there air quality measurements that they have to measure the air that's going into the bottle make sure it's safe so those time out as and what's the typical life of fill station so a pack a pack or apparat oh both yeah each oh so the uh the breathing apparatus is uh three Hydro so 15 years typically 15 to 20 years on a pack the fill station depending on the model and what packs you have you can get 15 to 20 years out of that as well and we have one f one F uh you know there's some question do we need a fill station uh the answer is yes because we train every day and that's on air so it's not just filling when it's a fire it's filling when the're training and doing those types you know I was just we we had discussed whether we should have have one or not for years and I wasn't sure whether we had one so my question is is this the first one or is this a replac no this this has been on the uh Capital list for last we knew it's it's coming it's just coming down the line that we really hope we get the grant it's basically what it com the issue with the existing one so the fill station is when the uh technology in the breathing bottles has changed so the fill station won't work with the new style bottles damn Innovation um so FY 25 any uh any questions on Capital just um hypothetical with the um sea level ride and the the use of the garage if we had to seal that and say yeah waterproof make sure you lose the the use of it what would you need like uh with a separate building would you have enough so in the short term we could probably the stuff that's in there in the lower garage where I park but that I can park anywhere uh the brush truck and the boat which I guess the boat would float down there uh but the other problem is just inside of that is all of our uh heating equipment right so that's that's the it's not so much the I'm worried about the garage it's more of the building utilities that's the problem not so much garage yeah cuz that oil is been working pretty hard this week uh they're they're they're uh they were there working on it today we sprag a leak yesterday so they're working on it today uh so fy2 operating uh was 2950 um so the two different for that in a little bit so I went through the operating budget with a fine tooth comb and said where can we do stuff in house if we had this extra consistent person that was there Monday through BR um so I really and you know I don't want to cut off my face despite it but I went through and really redlined everything in order to save every penny I could to make it fiscally um feasable to get a deputy uh so that's in the FY 26 the FY 26 with no Deputy see a increase of 16,250 because some of the things that we would have been able to do inhouse now we still can't but there's also an increase in cost by not being able to do them in house some of the training training equipment um so that's kind of why there's a difference and I have all the line items here to go one by one uh just so you can see it if you have any questions but the budget we have shows the 198 the 198 bud and it doesn't have a deputy you're in trouble we took the lower number oh you okay so so we we so so I am going to Greg and I did not have a chance to meet over this um so that seemed too good to be true so uh that was yes uh um so the salary line item um currently um FY 26 with a deputy would be an increase of 82,8 uh without a deputy obviously this the increas is based on contractual obligations there no there's an increase but there's not a get negotiated now exactly um so kind of just going through and if you don't want to go through all these line items let me know um some of these are pretty boring uh but no changes natural gas fire station utilities electricity heating oil um you know and some of these very based upon the season how cold it is things like that but so far we're on track for I was amazed electricity didn't yeah we've been uh I also go through and turn off every light when I walk in every room to so do we have actuals for 24 are they in the ballp partk yeah we do they're on the sheet yeah electricity was Grand yeah just ask a question about vehicle maintenance up there a moment ago 30,000 is that enough and I just I mean you've got probably a couple million dollars worth of assets on wheels that's where your firefighters during the downtime are very good the $330,000 is used when they don't either have the technological tool to diagnose or fix it um or we have to have a company come in do pump testing things like that um that number is good now if we didn't have a new pump coming and we were going to try to make engine one last longer that number would would Skyrocket you know most departments their apparatus P budget in the $800,000 range uh we're very fortunate that the guys take good care of the equipment and they're willing to do you know preventive me uh Building Maintenance most of the building maintenance is in with um DPW uh this is just you know fixing stuff that we can run down to the hardware store and fix ourselves without bothering anybody uh training and Equipment uh so this is just basically a cost increase increase based upon percentage uh of what things cost as in uh training equipment that we use would be props U different types of EMS equipment consumables that we use for um you know some of our Fidelity labs and training but there's there's a note and maybe it's an incorrect note there's a note on our sheet that says Education costs College added yep so uh part of that too is if somebody if they take a college course their books will come out of that line item uh for the book yeah and then some of those books bring a college expense with a training equipment yeah so so the they'll do the books and then our hope is those books can be reused by the next person who goes to that so they come into a Library without not having a reoccurring expense same do that college course have to bear some relation to their work yep yeah so usually either it's bioscience Administration uh public administration um there you know half a dozen different things or um paramedicine something along those lines is tied to do we pay for the tuition just uh yes okay yeah and that's uh contractual and they just they do that based upon now it changed that it's by degree um we have a couple people still grandfather tuition wise new contract is just based by degree at the end yeah uh custo gas diesel uh call firefighter supplies decrease U just because we're not hopefully on boarding anybody we have our six they're working out really well so I don't think there's any um you know we have some ongoing cost but we're not buying people new new gear uh everyone has one has anybody left in the last year uh computer expenses uh meals that's for uh we go to conferences things like that and that dues and subscription is the one that um covers that first du program that hopefully U Regional dispatch will be picking up at some point in time once the state uh all the fire departments that are in Regional dispatch have agreed to go to it uh 80% of us are already on it they're going to absorb uh majority of that cost starting in FY 27 or you I I've been amazed at how slow the procurement process in the state um it ceases to amaze me um so I think Chief F Gerald's on but I can talk um I think he is um on the Emergency Management so under the fire department but Chief Fitzgerald's the emergency manager um the one thing I'll say is we've been very we work cohesively for instance we added our the play side by side uh we able to find it on a Facebook Marketplace for 7500 bucks uh so that was one of the things that the Emergency Management uh account um purchased so yes we're not paying for the reverse 911 because Regional dispatch has picked up that um cost um so that's why uh the budget you have has that zeroed out uh but I believe and I'll let him chime in but I think it's really important there some other needs uh our C team and and drones uh which are vitally important all of Chief Cheryl would you like to speak to this emergency budget thanks Sarah just um you got my memo uh which outlines some of the things that uh Jake and I would like to do uh next year um obviously one of them is is the replacement of our current drone and the expansion of a uh Community Emergency Response Team which uh I have had some uh residents reach out and are interested in it however um I don't think we have enough to have our own team so we're looking to to combine our people with uh the team in in uh ipswitch so the numbers I gave you as just a a rough estimate of some of the costs that uh I think uh would be resulting as uh you know bringing that team up to speed so U that's pretty much all I have so Chief what is the team now I'm a little confused about what is our emergency management team now so it's basically myself and chief McNeil uh yeah two of us so if we had to open a shelter we'll you know rely on our first current First Responders but you know if we're in a serious crisis then our current First Responders are going to be tied up doing other you know things around town so these people would be able to uh arrive and do the initial setup and get things rolling when if we ever had to like open a shelter plus they be you know be helpful in other events you know around town like the Fourth of July um if we have a fire you know thing things like that there's there's there's special training that that they can do and uh that's part of the reason I think we need to like regionalize with the switch crew because they have a pretty good team uh uh you know like I said up and running do they get paid no they don't get paid they're all volunteers so this is train this is this is just this is just funds funds to help us train these people initially so the proposal would be to level fund this account rather than drop it by the 6,000 right yeah the original budget show so the preliminary budget shows why do we need to replace the Drone um I would like to get one with the infrared uh for search and rescue at at night like the heat seeking uh infrared the the current one we we have is a non-commercial one um and I just like to bring it up to uh you know law enforcement standards or Public Safety standards I should say yeah we used it for the brush fires we had uh in the Beverly Manchester woods and Lieutenant uh excuse me sorry machine was out and he was able to save us probably four hours of trying to find it um and it would have been even quicker to find the heat signature on where that fire would have been having that technology lost lost people Etc so across both police fire it has drastic impact in our operations even a building fire um we could use it put it up top kind of see what's going on from that Sky View when we had the recent kidnapping issue uh we had the Drone uh on scene looking as well you suggest level fund you mean it's 6,000 or 7 what's level fund from current year would be 7500 7500 so we're adding be adding 6,000 so uh chief you on the on the operating y you know you what you ran through was what's in the budget in the budget book in the budget that you gave to them and then so what what is the what line items I don't have that in right uh so right here these three sorry were the ones that would show an increase so those are the okay that's what those represent yes yeah yeah Man U all right so now on uh the deputy chief so the reason I am um I think this has been on the docket I assume for the last probably decade as well um there's a lot on uh my plate and I've done a you know not patting myself in the back but I came out of the gate strong uh the steam is starting to wean a little bit and now that we have the major things um accompl Lish now it's really how do we optimize each of these individual areas uh and they have you know lot of detail uh fire prevention is the biggest one that's the biggest hurdle because we always have building in town like I said there's some unique buildings in town and you should see some of the drawings that are still pending that are coming forward uh so that is a heavy lift and uh it takes a lot of uh time to do those and it's very hard being pulled in different directions and do those efficiently we're only probably doing 10% of what we should be doing fire prevention wise we're doing the stuff that literally you need to sell your home I need my smoke certificate we're getting those things done or I need the building permit but actually going out and looking at tank removals oil burner uh installs things like that we do them occasionally but we are not doing a very good job of um we we prioritize our fire prevention um the incident safety officer is a huge one um just another set of eyes you know for instance this fire up here um I was in inant command so I am basically organizing the orchestra but somebody has to be looking out for their safety from an outside perspective I was lucky enough that I was able to T A Essex Deputy with that um assignment once they got there um so we were able to uh do that citizen representative I spent a lot of time and maybe it's just the last eight months or so but has been a significant uptick in the amount of time um spending talking with which I don't mind talking to Citizens but it's a lot of time um and other things are going by the wayside uh doing know budgets at two in o'clock in the morning at home not to sayable um you're up anyway I'm up anyway now you got on that's true um inspection investigations kind of go along with uh fire prevention the ocean emergency response rule that is I'm not sure where that's going to be headed uh with a new Administration um if that goes into uh effect it is going to have a significant impact on fire Services throughout the company um I think we'd be better off than most especially if we add this position because we can do a lot of pre planning before that goes into play um the difference with this emergency response rules it's based upon ocean safety standards from 1980 and instead of doing a small increment Al increase that basically bring it up to uh 2,000 standards in one fell School uh 28 stand R what's a couple examples um so the response rule by itself and I think I had shared pretty much everyone uh is they incorporate by reference a lot of NFPA standards which NFPA standards by themselves don't mean ital because they just recommendations but because now they're incorporated into the stand there's a there's a big headache in coming into compliance the biggest one is Traina and National Fire Protection Administration Association rather uh so they do like a lot of the you know best practices this is what you should do if you can it's not law so a lot of that is adopted into the building so some of that is but not when we talk about fire department administration training standards all this tracking that now is incorporate or will be incorporated by reference um which is I think it's going to change a little bit because there's a ton of push back these small departments in you know Midwest they have six firefighters total there's no way they'd be able to accommodate a lot of these standards um so that is a big one continuity of operations I should be able to drop dead today and the fire station should not miss a beat they should just peel my name off the door put somebody else's name on the door and that's not the case um and we're the only Department in town that doesn't have a second person in the a leadership or a continuity of operations when you say don't have do would you is there somebody there who you kind of figure well they could probably figure it out we have wonderful smart but and this is nothing against the crew that we have because they're great the problem is they're all on shift work too so they work 24 hours 24 on 24 off 24 they have five days off so to have any continuity of some of these administrative tasks doesn't happen this is an outside hire this either an outside hire or if somebody want to come off of shift work and then back fill them um you know it's a big lift because a lot of people have you know they have a second job because they have five days off um so this is hey this is going to be your primary gig now do this and from a from a human standpoint I need help uh I I'm trying my hardest to keep all the balls in the air it's getting significantly harder to do that um so so what does it what type of salary is a deputy so I put in I put in 115,000 um what I when I looked at the other area departments I I look at Hamilton WAM and Ipswich I think they're the closest comparables um they're anywhere between 115 and 125 so you I think is that just a salary just a salary um and that that person would have the ability to if they come back they get that they wouldn't be overtime they'd be salar so they do comp time you know we can work on things to optimize uh the way U we do them so nearby towns that have them pretty much everybody and then I also went a little bit further in all the different reports that have been done on the fire department from a management standpoint over the years I took the comparable towns they all have them as well so it's not uh unique to we wouldn't be doing something unprecedented e so Chief when I look at the presentation we have uh in the budget presentation we were given on page 50 I see two new firefighter positions um I find this a confusing present I I would I wouldn't use this all be so there's 16 fulltime firefighters so I heard current in the current budget and in the new budget as well so there's no change in biof Fighters so and then there are one captain and four lieutenants also no so that's part includes the 16 who's the 16 that's part of yeah okay part of the 16 yeah so if you look down at that those firefighters they said one new floater position was from fiscal year 22 one 23 so that's old that's old so we haven't added anybody recently okay I don't seem to have I do have we have a different number see the names total salaries right you showed what in your presentation you said what 1.7 wish only one 1.71 spret I sent you to spreadsheet today no no a while ago is this what your a week ago okay so this is with the this is this is with the 115 if I said if I take yes yeah then you'll get the number you have you you showed in your presentation 1788 17 right there 1788 uh that would I think that's would be you have 1745 so while he's looking at that let discuss a little bit about this deputy chief so thoughts are the other thing we're not going to be able to vote on this budget tonight because it's going to need to be final but one of the things that the chief was talking about Contin business continuation get by the truck so there's somebody to step in is there any perceived value on session planning with this Deputy as well well it needs to be more than just that in my opinion primary I mean I certainly think Improvement in fire prevention are beneficial um I certainly feel and this might not even be contemplated but I feel somehow the fire department should be keeping records of the both detector the things back and know when they're I mean I had SM detectors installed in 2018 they're good for 10 years but 10 years is a long time for somebody to remember just unless they're going to stop start beating I don't 20 fet up high in the ceiling I hope they start beating um so I don't know if a deputy chief would help in that type of area when you talk about fire prevention so I mean I think the followup on things like that would be a lot better and there's no follow up on things like that now because we just don't have the bandwidth to do uh the other thing is going back datawise nothing was that stuff wasn't computerized right now we're starting to put stuff in so we have a better um you know recordkeeping system to get to um so those and um know fire prevention is the big one um and again I continuity of operations is another one and you know for like a fire like the other the that we had granted you know you look at probabilities right because numbers and probabilities you look at it that way I look at it you know thankfully my wife's a forgiving person but I had a newborn two days that was a second day home and if I didn't go in there was going to be no chief officer going in um so that you know I don't want to say it's not fair but you know there's got to be there's got to be a little bit of break somewhere a big and a lot of people ask you know what's the difference between our fire department and somebody else's fire department you know we hear the the word um you know Cadillac versus aord and I look at it what do our residents expect from the fire department versus somebody else so I look at our our fire department as when somebody call us 901 they expect somebody to be there in a quick time our response time are very good and do that consistently all the time they don't care if they're the second person to call 911 in a row they want the same care as the first person to call 91 um and if you go to some of the other departments that don't look at those things or they don't have the ability to address those things those are the people that it's a 15 16 17 minute response time which sometimes it's doesn't matter sometimes it takes a you know it's a lifechanging 16 or 17 and I think these all these things kind of play into it um you know a day depy also allows us to adjust our shift strength during the day and potentially bring down those overtime costs or adjust those so we can say hey you know what we can fill the night more and keep the FL things like that I think it gives us you know flexibility so so could you drop a firefighter during the day and just have them on the night so can I drop a fire figh oh just have them assigned to a night shift fre on during the day and right because You' have you'd have you and the so I don't know contractually that that would all we'd have to figure that out I don't want to say yes I so anything's a possibility um there's a lot of different hurdles so I don't want to give a false sense of but on the other side those guys are all doing something during the day this person is supposed to help the stuff that's not getting done so we're kind of we're not fixing anything we Just sh yes but I I think you know there are some there opportunities there that you know for storm coverage maybe the dep doesn't work Thursday Friday they work Saturday Sunday because it's an average storm things like that I think you you can be creative that way thinking outside the box know yeah that's that's an E I think that's easier and the other thing too is the fire service is just like any other no one everyone's looking to help so if you make the if you make a job like if we went back to let's say a floater system no one wants that job because there's 20 other fire departments in the area hiring they're going to pick one where they can have a consistent schedule that they can plan out so we have to make it um comp yes we have we have to be comp and I would be shocked you know I I I'd be shocked if the operational audit when it comes back if it doesn't recommend having a depy I would I'd literally be shocked if that's um I had one concern is to hire Newman your workload is probably going to be increased through to training him versus if you could look at maybe um mooting from within and then we can back F that position well you could that's my hope my My Hope Is we keep it in because that helps morale because they see that forward they see that upward motion and because a lot of the that's why I left Manchester 20 years ago is I wasn't going anywhere for the better part of 15 years so I went to a city and then came back but that's why but if you if they see that hey you know what there are some steps of this ladder that are attainable you're G to keep people and that's going to save us a ton of money from on boarding and overtime cost in those times I think that the Challenge from hiring within is you're taking a person who works two days a week and has a second job to be working fulltime and the pay difference is does not equate to giving up a second job that's but it may I think I think there may be some interest okay I don't want to speak for anybody but I think there may be internal interest and I think there are other you know it's nice being home at night you know right you know benefits to having a quote unquote I noral job a regular job so you know depending on what people's you know work life B Chief at one point we were talking about the safer Grant Y and buying a couple of years using that strategy not permanent doesn't replace a position yeah is that still in place so it is again with the the uh Changing of the Guard in Washington I'm not sure what the grant situation is going to look like um I think the safer Grant is a great option especially we know just based upon age we're going to have two retirements in the next five years um and if we are able to get that safer Grant the one thing that's nice about the grants is there's no match and there's no you don't have to keep them past the grant so we could bring on four people and then we lose some through attrition things like that so it's a great onboarding opportunity I also look at it is go through as the safer gr already up there um I also look at it as we need to start really looking at shared services um and I think us this do the first Domino has to drop somewhere and I think Shar services are important one because call of firefighters we're extremely lucky right now but that's I don't think that's going to be sustainable a decade you know just with the changing of I see how my kids are and you know what what what the generations coming up are like and I think with the cost of fire trucks I mean the an ambulance a Ford pickup truck with a tin body on the back is half a million dollars like it's absolutely insane so you know we should be looking in the future at how we could you know do some shared services with some of the smaller towns and I think you know if we had that that safer grant that would give us the ability to do a little bit more with some of our neighbors as a trial because it's not costing us anything and we actually have solid numbers instead of us giving you know instead giving you my best guess of what those numbers would be hey we had three years that we actually had four people in the station all the time you know here are the results and we had conversations with other smaller towns about shared fire service we exploratory convers think that's we heard last year yeah it's it's going to be a slow process yeah so so one of the we're looking at maybe doing some uh EMS sharing potentially you know there some other things that we can do slowly uh to start that first Domino uh because we want it to be a cohesive um Union if you will versus we do anything this year in one of those dominoes there's a potential yeah what are the what is the what are the couple of the barrier to um level of level of service that we have versus level service that some we had to share that we might have a little less service little less service and then the other the whatever other Town might have to come up a little bit so it's finding a happy medium um anything else that's that's the biggest struggle is is you have communities that are still relying on a call Force they've got a great gig going they they're doing really well so they're low change financially they're doing really well um the problem is when they run out of when that runs dry they're going to be hurt so and the and the qu quality of service responsiveness what have you that they're getting with the call method is apparently it's it's fine it's okay it's it's more or less yeah yeah yeah I mean it's I call roll in the dice it's you know you look at the storms and they're very they're proactive where even the people with the call departments are hiring they're putting two people on during the day they on the weekends they have people that are on a stip in to do so that they're having some stop gaps measures uh but they're also all of them are looking at adding FTE in the near future because they see the writing FD what is that a fulltime thank you so the addition of this Deputy would that come into play say with the town in essics in terms of administration or um potentially I don't want to uh speak out of turn but it gives us the ability to um offer something up because right now I don't have the bandwidth to offer anything I'm the the duck is you know the feet of the duck are going like crazy I'm just reluctant to add a person to Manchester in order to provide services to another that not our current reason right yeah and that's the reason for this position if anything that would be if we had that safer Grant we would have the ability to do it for free and then see we have real data to look at is it beneficial yeah I wasn't suggesting that that's the reason to do the hire it was just looking for additional yeah um so I I think you know overall those are the main um two two things the deput is just to so we can keep and keep the forward progress we've made a lot of progress in the year and a half to keep that and actually get down into the weeds and really optimize the services that we that we offer and some of the ones that we should be offering that we don't and that if we are lucky enough to get that saf at Grant it's like hitting the lottery uh that gives us the opportunity to actually explore these um shared services for no cost for four years I I think the ster Grant is useful in that regard but I don't hear enough action really on sharing services is to take a step with another position it's not that I'm against the position but I just don't I think that the saf is the thing that maybe put us over the hurdle to really share some significant Services yeah I I agree so the the deputy I'm not tying the deputy to Shar service I know you're not but I I am me in my mind that I it's adding more to a big department already uh and I I don't know what that shared services would look like I don't know where conversations are really I hear hesitance is what I hear um I think the deputy should be looked at unrelated to any shared services agreed I don't share that view okay I'm I'm I would be unwilling to vote for a deputy if it was for the purpose of enabling us to do shared services that's where I come from well I I share that I share that view go ahead I'd like to uh add the deputy I see the need um I don't like adding another 115 to this 44 that we're already increasing so I would like look to try to instead of uh adding one making one of these um firefighter the 768 make that the 115 and make back fill that next year and and maybe bump up the overtime a little to make it work just so that we don't get the full one5 this year next year that we spread it out a little bit more down the road I think that's all well it's just it really hurts the Staffing right you don't yeah we made that you would you would you would put yourself where you're going to have two on well well contractually we can't so we'd have so we'd have we'd have to backfill so whatever group you say group one somebody moves up anytime so anytime somebody takes a vacation or out sick or a personal on that group it's automatically going to trigger overtime right now we have a buffer that one person's out we go from four to three right and that's why we're on I guess we I guess we could do the math on that what that was cost yeah just do I have a question on this we say contractually we can and for a number of years we've talked about three people on floaters bringing it to four are we in a situation now where we are four contractually and we can't back can't change from that we're four and we Dro okay but if we were at three and somebody if we did that you know that example one group would be at three all the time so every vacation day would trigger whatever yeah got it what are your thoughts Andy well I I like I I I also see the need for a position just to kind of support uh some of the load that uh Chief is currently carrying um I that flexibility is good um I always get a little frustrated when I bump this kind of contractual kind ofation because we're all just people trying to do a job right um but no that's what it is um what your thought uh I think that um we are saddled with the responsibility to make sure Town govern government is is as efficient and cost effective as it can be I don't think any I'm you know I don't think anybody has told us try to improve services in town we're not satisfied and maybe it's because you're up at the 2 o'clock of the morning doing the budget but you know so be it I'm sorry but um I don't think we're in the business of of uh improving Services I think we're in the business of trying to make sure that we're cost effective and that we limit our costs and figure out ways to maybe improve the service without having our costs Drive upward so I would say that um we need to look again and and uh maybe maybe there is a more complicated U application of our existing labor force that could allow for a deputy um and maybe for some reduced coverage During certain periods I I so I guess if it were if it were simply we're going to leave things as they are and add 115,000 to the costs I would not be supportive of that idea um if there were a further permutation of what we're doing that would a lot maybe it's a portion of the 115 um to to uh assure continuity and I'm I'm the most uh dramatic statement I've heard is that our chief may be uh running out of steam a little bit that's that grabs me more than you know the juggling of hours so that was that was a long answer for not much so if I can so the5 currently if you look at so we've had some um stepping increases and new people coming in so so there is a little bit of U I want to say fluff there about 35,000 in there subtract that out so it'd be about 80 something thousand uh increase in the salary line item if if you have a deputy chief do you still need a captain so there is yeah the answer is yes um and the reason being is having this chain of command go down there's a lot of things that the captain can deal with from a line firefighter standpoint stuff I don't even want to hear about I don't want I say you know you never want to go to the principal's office if your guidance counselor can take care of so there's a lot of things that Captain caver deals with that I don't even see hear or frankly want to know about uh so yes there's a there's a real need for that but what is the relation between the deputy and the captain I I don't so the captain a little lost in what say so the captain so every grou there four working groups uh one group has a captain and three firefighters the other groups have a lieutenant three firefighters okay I got it so those lieutenants it gives a if there's a firefighter has a problem they go to their officer if it can't be resolved then they go to the captain whatever it gets so they're on shift work the deputy it would be out of the Union number one so it gives me a little bit of hey let's bounce some ideas off of one another and you know how do we think outside the box and it also they're on day shift so you get the continuity of dealing with the public and we can actually start a project and finish it without a fay break all the time and so the captain deals with Union issues I'm assume union isues he helps he's been helping with fire prevention stuff as much as he can but again he's limited based upon the work site um which is not his I mean he he devotes a lot of time and you know he's up until we hours doing stuff as well he's a union member yeah so I'm the only non besides the callif fire fighters I'm the only non and the deputy chief that's created that would be not that really is one of the real important pieces in this equation did the captain does $4,000 difference yeah I mean it's not not huge money yeah I think step two might be like 10 nine or 10 maybe at the what step yes yeah but it's not it's not exor so I I Echo what Dar was saying about concern about Chief I think's been doing a great job I question there are additional things like fire prevention you were saying there's nobody asking for additional services but I don't think anybody knows that that's not being done right so I think we have to add that conversation this debate as well I I don't know whether frankly whether this group is authorized to do level of service judgments um maybe we need a little more input not that we're not getting great input from the chief but uh you know for us to decide in our budgetary uh conversations that we think the the level of service that the fire department has been providing should be upgraded you know maybe maybe that's not our job our job is regarding the budget okay so if we feel from a financial standpoint it would make sense to add a deputy okay then it's up to the select board to ultimately decide whether that's added or not right ours is just recommend ours is just a recommendation but it is but it is specific to you know understanding those levels of service and and kind of making then the financial judgment yeah bank for and I think there's another looking at a wider range I mean it's not just the fire department thinking about where are other priorities relative to absolutely tax capabilities and all the rest so um those conversations also deeply influence my view we've added a couple of people to this department within the year uh and I think we've been adding to the department quite a bit over the last few years to order to build the four four team um so they all play in my judgment about where this fits it's a hard judgment but I I don't think we're there yet last so I'm struggling with this one I'm um I will say as a manager and somebody run a company when I hear somebody say they're steaming out burning out I get worried and I will say I think you've done an absolutely amazing job I mean I pull up your monthly reports and look at them and you have transformed this department is key um but I I am worried about the burnout Factor on the other hand I've been long enough in the tooth on this committee that we have struggled with trying to find um comparable metrics of other communities that that do this and to G's point the level of service in Manchester is is high I would say it is exquisite we have found a really hard time finding other like communities that are even comparing and when people look at fire departments as career fire departments those tend to be big cities municipalities whatever Manchester's in that crowd and you know seeing Newbery up there we used to live in newbur you know it's a very family oriented sit around the campfire you know but it's different than where we are and 115k on top of 1.7 million and benefits I just I just think that's a hard cell with other things going on so my recommendation would be we try to grow this from within and I'm always talking about the denominator problem you know we have four on but what do we always need four on could we do three on a little more and if we could figure out how to do this with somebody inh house and and work around the edges and maybe we have to eat a little more overtime I think that would be a a better Financial solution going forward than trying to absorb a 115 to 125k with um benefits on top of that um you know that's that's why we get the big bucks to sit up here and deal with this I mean you know it's we're looking at the whole the whole town and and the numbers are quite frankly staggering when you look at this budget so that that's what we're you know through that lens um but I will finish by saying I think you've done an absolutely amazing job your reports your focus on the important things consistency of capital recommendations is we have not had that in a long time we appreciate that so I I'd like to ask one more question do you think the people that are in your department like their jobs or not Su much I think we've had a vast Improvement of job satisfaction as a right does that mean somebody's not going to go on to a no Department I'm a lot less worried now than I was when I walked in the door okay thank you thank you congratulations so what my suggestion is is that to get this fire department budget two scenarios the detail one with the deputy one without and also understand what the impact will be on the tax rate with and without the deputy and had the fire chief look at the budget to see if there's any other place that we could save money if we brought on the deuty and I'd like to add to that please I'd like to hear a little bit more about Mor's comment a moment ago uh that being grow it from in the department this is I think is picking up from something across the room but I is there something we creative we can do here which is not 115 plus 30% benefits or whatever it is um that can help us in transition uh I I just I think Mor's add an important piece to the equation here and how to think about this no I mean I think there there is a a plausible way of going about that um you know we can go in and just give our best estimate of what our um overtime would look like give it worst I would say like worst case scenario if you know everyone use their vacation and you know the average amount of sick days that they Ed in a calendar year what that would add to the uh overtime budget um and kind of give that scenario as well um you know I I think I think it's plausible um you know is that my best does that give me a warm and F you know because you know I'm trying to the best we can is make sure that we have the four people there so we can go in on all these fires and all these anytime we have to put air on because that's when we the department runs seamlessly with four like if we got to that point that there four there all the time we're not getting any I mean yeah we get the csds and you know the other things that have potentials down the road but that gives Manchester we we can do everything we need to do for a century going forward unless all of a sudden there's highrises going up all over the place but uh that would that would give us our um stability and the department you can ask anyone within the department three on duty versus four it's night and day with the services we can do especially with those simultaneous calls so that's my little worry about doing kind of going on the outside is those simultaneous calls then get harder to deal with because now we're sending a single person to those uh we're now you know just shy as 60% of the time we have four people on duty we can handle some two calls in town no problem we don't have to wait somebody coming from the Rockport lost to um that's my only hesitance on that I I'll certainly you know get the numbers and and and certainly you know analyze that but that was my worry in that kind of idea how are we this year with um like are we about 50,000 the overtime budget yeah was uh um he gave us that uh so we are right there we spent 61 got a balance of 30 so 61% 61.9 five% but that's also the bump that we see with the Fourth of July so if you took the Fourth of July like next year we had the same overtime expend we'd be right on the mark That's a realistic yeah yeah what you going to say Grant well don't expect you to answer this tonight but as an alternative um it's not first choice but are there alternatives to reducing your work other words can we contract out for something making this up um inspectional Services is there any way to do that to get that off your plate I never heard of it being done it doesn't mean it can't I would have to yeah I don't know my I don't know either I'm just I'm I'm spit falling a little bit here thought yeah it is um just you know speaking about the cost the problem with at the end of the day the liability still falls on me as Authority having jurisdiction for anything that those outsourced people do so I still have to monitor their activities because I'm still on the hook for their decision so that would be my only yeah it might take away the having to go out to do the inspection but I still making sure they're doing their job correctly so just it's moving one from one bucket to another um but I've never heard of it being done or there's even a company that does it don't know okay maybe that was a bad example yeah I mean I don't know if there when you look through your long list of things that you're trying to keep those plates spinning yeah um is there something that someone else could do well you said for instance uh you get a lot of calls from you know somebody on X Street hey chief I want to talk to you about you know maybe uh maybe there's somebody in town hall who can kind of uh be the first stop for those calls my Christmas card list is going to get shorter and shorter I do that but you know if uh you know I mean we have some I'm thinking about a person I'm not going to mention a name but uh we have some very capable communicators in town hall yep and and uh you know you know maybe there's a lezon or I don't know what you call it or something that could take you know a couple hours out of your week I mean that would help at least I mean I guess some of those that would help on some of them other ones are more you have somebody with that subject matter expertise toal expertise right that would work so some of them you might be able to do some but still a wise variety that you the Fire Marshal's Office this so sort of on that same vein um police we Farm out a person part-time that sounds really mechanical it's a safety res resource officer in the school do you ever do that with firefighters in other communities and where I'm going with this is if you have somebody in the department right now who could graduate to being deputy chief M could we fill that missing slot by sharing that responsibility with another town and I know this gets probably really complicated to complicated but and I hate to say you know to and point it it come back to a contractual thing that um we we be that would create another another huge yeah but it moves us towards the ball game of this sharing that I think is so very important and youve had emphasized also get that momentum towards getting over those hurdles there are a few things that I'm working on that aren't um you know good for public release as of yet but there there are some small little snowballs that think we should be continuing conversations in this long in this meing this point in time I guess I just want to support the fact that I think we're all trying to look for a solution including Greg's thoughts we're trying to support your your position I appreciate you know and I think I've heard of ideas that on well I'd like to thank you very much and you know as always come by have a cup of coffee and you know that take more of your time you know he sees that as an invest exactly give us a checklist you know I think that you know the sharing of narrative on a bunch of different topics helps us move forward you know there's things here I picked up hey you know good idea to to look at and to kind of research um you know this positive and negatives could you weigh in on the uh status of the fire hydrants um the like I know the one the other night was frozen and there's a percentage that freeze or that leak um is that do we have enough uh in one area like a different ones that don't freeze that they're all right so it's kind of it's kind of a luck of the draw if you will uh we're very fortunate especially with some of the most recent upgrades that have occurred throughout town uh that we have a pretty good uh water source especially in the downtown area and moving out there's still a couple areas that they're working on um I want to give kudos to the water department because when we we Regional dispatch called them said hey there's a fire they get on their computers they turn valves and they move water pressure from one area to another and made a significant difference so you know I think I said the letter to you and and the select board but the cooperation between all the town departments on that was you know awesome it was like clockwork I didn't even have to ask it was already done and um Police Department DPW water department I mean everything was just done in cin who pays for new fire Hydra depart because when I think you weren't at the meeting when DPW was here talked a little bit about the Frozen and he said that there was one type of hydrant peer point or something I could be wrong that was known for freezing um because it it goes down here and it gets stuck in the little p and then it works it way up but it freezes no more importantly because it's leaking right it's leaking draining just wondering if there's some type of plan to replace whatever those High hydrants name of those fire hydrants are that are prone to yeah I haven't heard that Chuck has that as a plan he does typically replace them when he's replacing the water line right and they do prevented and stuff they go by like that hydrant was actually I think it was the following day was due for its normal they pop it out test and so there's a normal routine process I mean New York City assigns two engine companies to every burrow and their only job is to go around the city during cold weather and far hydrant they have a big torch and they put a basically a tent over the hydrant heat up and move on to the next one so I'll take six extra guys if you want our hydrants which is a lot of towns don't do that but you know our flushing is pretty good thing aren't fire hydrants the job of a deputy yeah I like how you think but that is sort of a good question Greg is my recollection was we changed out about six hydrants a year in town but that's beta point from way way back and and if you're doing like Pleasant Street you're probably replacing many more because you've got everything open but you know what is kind of the long-term hydrant replacement plan around town and you know that's probably something to think about here don't have the answer to that one yeah anybody have any questions of the chief thanks for coming thank you very much for enduring our is it you go to bed ear tonight I don't know that we'll see maybe for a couple hours it's your turn to feed the baby yeah we also have to have a good night thank you and struggle is is when we're making of changes in the budget I inside yeah we'll make sure you get picture on tax R is the is the number in the budget the number we should be thinking about I know you've got some corrections to make or is that a different number are you talking about the salary budget for fire that's correct 1713 1713 I think is correct cor except forever now he did mention that there may be some additional cushion there because of some new hires versus old could be adjusted out we we'll double5 he indicated that 35 I have heard that before so um you're not sure where it comes from we can we can we can rerun those numbers to see okay yeah that would be helpful is the L running go no yeah Andre do you have an update on on CL G we haven't talked about that because that's where it's being updated right yes um fortunately it's it's taken way longer than expected because it started off as a um upgrade or like a an enhancement to like a total migration um so I actually had a meeting with them today and like we're getting very close I set up meetings for the next two Wednesdays just so we can um finish this up soon so you get access to it shortly does that have any relationship to the fact that the permit software's been down for close to a week no so the per permit software is open gov and our budget software is clear gov c yeah that's been down it's been down since the middle of the last week I the only reason I know Greg is because I have construction going on next to me and the last time I checked the building permit had not yet been issued you've been saying that for years I know this the other side the personal side um I'm assuming they got permissioned to do the foundation but I'm just kind of yeah um waiting to see when I make a call as a concerned citizen as a concerned citizen to ask for a check on the project been approved or could be approved and it's not all I don't okay um discussion of Revenue projections I don't have much um and you did give me all the historical Revenue things and I was she had done a five-year average I did a two-year average and I did a percentage and it looks to me like rather than using 95% we might want to use a higher percent there's very little um y change in it so I I need to look at that a little more um I think the other thing that I did receive copy of the Investments which I forgot to send to you I was just going to ask that yes and where have we gotten to on that on Tom's effort there that okay you have something yeah um Jennifer just sent me the value of the assets um as of 1231 um but I had a brief conversation with Andrea and Jennifer and I'm still a little bit confused um so there's a large portion of the Town assets in Money Market funds which are a general operating revenues and the earnings on those vary greatly from year to year based on how much cash we keep on P and she was indicating that recently our cash has been on the low side because of large projects that have come through me to be paid um but I remember a conversation last year on the fringes of my memory um that and I'm hoping Andrew you might be able to help me on this explain it to people um that line item for investment earning does that include a strange number from the reserve account assets that we don't really have to spend you're talking about the general fund in investment income and the local estimated receipts correct yeah I'm talking about the investment income line in the um yeah in the local receipts section what is included in that that is just interest income so it really should say interest income not investment income because it does not it does not include anything from the stabilization fund or um anything like that okay but the investment income different from year to year strikes me a bit money market changes to Big well what what Jennifer the treasurer said is we have significant discrepancies from year to year in the amount of cash we might have in a given account so it's the Corpus of the account that's earning the interest change not the interest correct that's what I believe yeah right okay and then apparent because I'm recalling when Mike and I were talking about this last year before I recall seeing a pie chart that included something other than just strictly money market and that's the stabilization but she's saying that's not in that line we're looking at which is what I thought the pool that's earning the asset I mean the interest that's changing causing that difference not the interest rate itself is that right Andrea I believe the interest rate has changed um slightly but we do have four different bank accounts um that handle the our money markets so technically we have four Banks four accounts with money markets that have um slightly different rates um like our I was just looking at this fiscal year so far we have about 10 million um and we've gotten 200,000 so if at like 2% on average um so I have to look into like what exactly the interest rates have been um which I'll have to work with Jen on is is is there a way you can look at a history of the average accounts we carry or some is there any way to tell um why it might be such a discrepancy from year to year yes actually just started compiling what the U Bank balances were um for the past i' I've done like the last like two years or so um and I just need to match it up with the interest rates just to see why it's up and down okay great the other the other question that came up I'm recalling as well was the use of the Massachusetts Municipal depository trusts which I also recall we weren't utilizing it was something other these separate bank accounts that we utilizing but that's for the stabilization account that's not in this investment income line okay so in the investment income line that we're not using that mmdt no we are not no but that is something that's available to it it is is there is there a greater rate earned on that trust um no we've actually been doing a little bit better than that and also with mmdt it's um harder to get our um cash out of that um than it is for some of the local BS that we have so and we also have you know it covered with insurance um like s uh D siif um things like that or mass Municipal I don't believe I have to look at that um has it covered okay thank you Andrew thank you Andrew so what's the next step on this conversation Andre is working on looking at the Historical balances and she's going to work with Jen to get the updated interest rate to rify yep that line yep that's included in the revenues so to go I think if we want to have a discussion on the investments in the stabilization account that's something we can do some other time in the year outside of the budget process that would be yeah yeah I think your efforts to create a factor that we apply is a very worthwhile thing to do right it might just not apply to this investment account that's all right that's why I was asking what was the next step yeah and I think once Andrea has her information maybe we can come up with some guideline on that line item too useful I think because that's a big number that that vacillates we don't want to overestimate not going to keep much money on a um um do you have any updates for us Greg um health insurance is not looking good okay um at the conference at the conference last week uh they announced the range we will get our number in another week or so the end of next week don't think I'll have it for next meeting but probably the one after that um so I we had plugged in a 10% increase um I expecting it to be closer to 15% okay the range is 10 to 15 with the average being 15 I'm sorry 10 to 20 with the average being 15 we should be a little below average our utilization rate has been pretty good so far this year um so I'm hoping we come in a little below that 15% but it's certainly going to be higher than 10 so you're expecting we would have that available on 219 yes okay y the um operational audit was hoping to get it today um so it didn't come but hopefully tomorrow um I've seen a rough draft and and the um the overall conclusions is that he feels that we're too lean in many of our operations we we're very efficient um but he feels we're hurting our Effectiveness because of being so lean in in some departments from a Personnel standpoint Personnel standpoint yeah yeah for example not having more HR professional hours um having um you know just having basically one principal person in so many departments counting treasur collector assessors there there's no there's no Ben Town Hall Town Hall he he would be he's he is expressing a fair amount of concern about not having a bench that if if something were to happen to amref for example we would be in a in a bad spot we would be pressed very hard to find someone quickly um would be very difficult so is your thought to once you receive that to book together some type of a plan yes where you might we're not going to do everything at once things yeah over time it's going to be a fiveyear plan okay to to correct some of these deficiencies um and we need to talk about what we think are the highest priorities right and yes he the chief is correct he will say that having a deputy is is is is one of those areas um but we also have Public Safety as one area we as boy commented we are Head and Shoulders above our comparable towns so that's that's the tension that we have thank you that it sounds like you know with a town this size the way to get a better bench would be to have people um having wearing more hats than to get more people I think that would be a big focus on how to solve that well I I view part of the issue as being that we have a person heading a department and then we have an administrative person and it's too big a gap exactly so so that administrative person you could you could beef up right so they become an assistant rather than an assistant to so that's one yeah that's that's an area that we that would not be that difficult to correct um I think that's probably the lower hanging fruit that we probably address sooner in the in the order of things to to to improve bench it's just we're at that awkward size right we're right we're small so it's hard to justify but we have all the challenges that a town of Double our size has you know it's uh having having 5,000 versus 10,000 doesn't really change the workload that much um but it's harded to justify it when you're 5,000 and not 10,000 and it's tough to merge with blust yes yes yeah we're we're a ward for Gloucester right yeah know but but we have all the challenges many of the similar challenges not quite the same but but yeah you get my point yeah we get you You' probably thought about this but you know who are our nearest trading partners and how far would you reach to do that and and I'm thinking more things like like building inspector Animal Control you know start at one level and then you graduate to the more demanding roles but how far would you and I don't the answering to this but you know Hamilton wam you know would you reach out to Topsfield would you reach out to Rand would you reach out to Newport are those is that too far away or is a lot of this remote enough that some of it you could do um thought about it that way I really think of neighboring communities so basically touching communities you know maybe a nip switch but probably wouldn't go any further than that terms of sharing Personnel yeah I just think you have to be careful how much person abolutely you know it's you lose control I mean animal control has worked right my understanding working pretty well responsive veteran service is certainly working fine that's a pretty yeah minimal lift in in town um we we have the conservation agent that we're sharing with Hamilton uh jur as we'll see hopefully this new person will be able to do it it's a it's a stretch inspection or somebody like inspector we have part-time it's fulltime in Rockport for a technical role U such as Andre as that was mentioned was there is there an option where instead of know hiring a second kind of assistant person that you would actually have a consultant familiar enough with your books on a quarterly basis so that something happened they sort of spell us um I mean there are those Services you you you pay a premium for it um we could we could we could do that comparison um there are there are a few firms out there that that provide that sort of inum work or but they they they don't give it away I think the challenge too is the difference in the rule for Municipal Employee or industry just kind of makes it bigger goal yeah Private Industry is much easier because everyone's private important no I got you but but that specialize in yeah exactly Consultants that are with public but but I think we need people in town hall with more expertise so if the head of the Department's not available you have somebody who can help you um yeah we we we we struggle yeah you know even if you know someone has a family emergency and they're out for two three weeks it's we really struggle when that happen yeah like um Jennifer had to couldn't take vacation one summer because she was alone in the office oh and you know there was nobody who could fill in yeah you know and that's too bad right and that was quite a period of time as I recall then she was by herself it wasn't just a week or two yeah it was a few months yeah yeah so it is it is a struggle okay so uh stay tuned we'll hopefully get you that report by the end of the week if not the first of the week and that'll be U the direction of this report the report doesn't sound surprising that is your comment about the direction of what the report's likely to say doesn't sound surprising at least to me well okay you know I I think well okay I'm actually happy to hear that because I was fearful that people were really hoping for some uh recommendation for dollar savings and it's it's going in the other direction it's going in the other direction I have a question in Private Industry you don't have staff you don't have everyone gets the same raise each year you have annual reviews and you pay people based on how well they do so if somebody exerts a lot more effort than another person they get paid more depending on the responsibility is there any opportunity for that anything towards that type of system in town government there is okay um there are certainly models out there that have Merit based pay it's it's a it's more challenging in with with Union employees but certainly certainly your department heads you you can do that okay and we explored it six or seven years ago pretty seriously and it it it didn't it didn't move forward but it could have okay U so the short answer is yes um we have minutes from January 23rd and January 29th people had an opportunity to look at them I know Gail made amendments to the 23rd um does anybody a motion to adopt them I would I move that we adopt both has a motion do I have a second second Andy second any discussion do I get to vote even though I wasn't here if I watched yeah you don't have to actually be at a meeting to vote on the you don't um in favor okay thank you our next meeting is Wednesday February 12th with the library yes in town budgets I've had a couple of conversations on my walk with David lumon driving by in his car and it sounds to me like they're gonna put another item on the capital budget which is design work for the a bathroom yeah 15,000 I feel like we've done it a couple times that's what it do okay oh good then that's not new yeah I think the uh that's the number he gave me on the street today but I think that other number can come down my understand what number the painting of and window work yeah that can come out that's that's yeah TPC is doing it right yeah okay so we'll have to check on that yeah yeah CPC there there couple of meetings I yeah they are the meeting after that and do you you have a sense dean of uh we have the spreadsheet oh we do we we got a spread did I send it to you ien it well I will send it I have it I'll send that out yeah all right I just I asking because I'm sensitive to whether or not we are in a position of having kind of push back on a couple of projects last time um well to list what projects there are sure uh singing Beach Bath House upgrade lifeguard chair M just curious what's the dollar value on the upgrade Moby mat I might have some feedback on that okay I didn't think much of the Moby mats they had at the beach last summer are those those plastic things so it's easier to watch funny some people hate them some people love but it was a drop off off of like four to six inches at the bottom oh at the end of it yeah they need to relay them every day I like the ones over at tux point right right those are like wood right they don't they're not near the water so they're not get slats they're much nicer than I did no I fell on one one day um affordable housing trust 200k Regional Housing production plan to update it every five years you got up 20K um historic Street lamps was not approved by the CPC it wasn't eligible right um cemeter continued restoration like you've been doing every year um otherwise they right the residents historic police photos I think they were getting input from the historic district commission the library windows and rotunda restoration 300K that's what was on but I will and if and they've contributed to open space through the fall Town meting right so we check that box well open space and Recreation are the same that's right right so the three things we have in there are for recreation for for some reason that was that wasn't handled in FY 26 in this budget that was like FY 25 it was it was modified so it's really not yeah okay but the the balance was um I I have complained to the affortable Housing Trust just so everybody knows that we they now have a million four in the bank and they have created zero affordable housing in their history I don't in any way impune their good intention but we have not seen production from them and it's unfortunate they have all sorts of barriers and problems with what they're doing I appreciate that but are we going to continue to raise the million for the 2 million for three million for 4 million for and have no affordable housing created in town I know they're trying yeah I'm not saying they're nasty or bad people I think there's challenges and I think the biggest challenge is in order to have something be financially feasible to the nonprofit developer um they need about 4 um and they need the affordable housing Trust basically kick in the cost of the acquisition property and at a million4 there and I I actually say 40 units is a great idea there's no place to put 40 units that's the problem okay so we are funding a [Music] non operative program here I don't mind giving them another 200,000 they're it's fine you know they're not wasting it but they're they're sure not using it and there's got to be three or four affordable families with twoyear you know couple of kids it would benefit from moving to Manchester and going to the Manchester schools and they're not getting it done I'm sorry one of the things that that's going to be looked at is the feasibility of perhaps the trust maybe helping to pay um for Legal Services or something they've done a little if people want to restrict existing building existing units um to kind of make it see if there's a way of creating an infrastructure that people come to pay for bu the trust that would would make it easier to convert existing that would be good yeah um I just we gotta be gotta have our eyes open here all it's it's and I agree with you I one question that Pony's on to that is have we had any progress with Northshore CDC hey he I think I think Ann signed the paperwork today wow awesome long time coming progress there is progress 29 units the affordable housing trust did get involved in that I know including don't try to take credit who works for actioning relationship great news been hanging on for a while progress um the only other thing I have is that um I think P oh the number crunching team yeah number crunching team um I've been in touch with Anne Harrison because they wanted two people from town either two from fincom oh or um one from select board and one from fincom and Ann wants to be on it um and I would like to be on it unless somebody else and fincom wants to do it back well okay okay I'm happy to play some role too okay yeah okay so I'll give Pam though she's itching to I don't know what it's going to involve I sort think but I'm sure it's stuff I can Farm out that it'll you know probably consist of you know half a dozen meetings yeah in the next few months dealing with two members of the6 fit and col very right so on the school how did anyone know how the hearing went y oh I went I missed I attended it yeah um the public comment was predominantly supporting a budget increase of 9% um not a single person enumerated the difference between as far as curriculum went between the 9% budget and the 5.42% budget um so I thought that was looks like the 5.4 we can plug it in and no I think it's going to go up well because of the insurance insurance because of the health insurance but we can deal with that with they their initial quote is 27% increase 27 27 from their existing carrier what so they're going out for kids can they merge with the town's ter no they can use the town's carrier but they have to stand on their own they they're their High u high utilization of their health insurance challeng and is that including looking seriously at Maya or not yes they're going to they're going to look at Maya but I think they were waiting to get the final quote from their existing carrier before they go to my before they go out and and well they they te up to they've already talked to my a couple of others yeah so but it was you know nobody from the Essex fincom spoke at the the school public hearing I'll tell you three of them playing paddle tennis last night screaming at me in the woods so it was a one on Three um so yeah so um I I don't know I got to do some I'm going to sit down and look at the budget we got in December versus the budget we got in January and just kind of exactly enumerate the differences I think one was the loss of the principal at the middle school yes but they've added two deans in the last two years so it's you know but um and of course using 500,000 from reserves but Pam said they're adding 200 to it after last fiscal so 300 it's like we've been doing where we've been spending reserves but then we add more um so I don't know I'm going to look at that and see anybody anything else toour Andy moves to adjourn you second all in favor thank you thank you keep do me a faor