Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutBudget Advisory Commission - 05/25/2010 APPROVED MINUTES BUDGET ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2010 5:00 P.M., FIRE STATION#4 17120 Linwood Court COMMISSION MEMBERS: Chair Don Uram, Vice-Chair Rick King; Commissioners: Annette Agner, Eapen Chacko, Jon Muilenburg, Richard Proops, Gwen Schultz CITY STAFF: Finance Manager Sue Kotchevar, Finance Supervisor Tammy Wilson, City Manager Scott Neal, Fire Chief George Esbensen, Recorder Jan Curielli I. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Vice Chair King called the meeting to order at 5:09 p.m. Commissioners Proops and Uram were absent. Muilenburg arrived late. II. MINUTES A. BAC MEETING HELD TUESDAY,APRIL 27, 2010 MOTION: Chacko moved, seconded by Schultz, to approve the minutes from the April 27, 2010 meeting. Motion carried 4-0. III. TOUR OF FIRE STATION#4 King suggested the tour be postponed until after the meeting was adjourned. IV. FIRE DUTY CREW Fire Chief Esbensen introduced two Assistant Chiefs, Tom Schmitz and Ward Parker, and distributed an agenda for his presentation on the duty crew initiative. He said the fundamental reason for wanting to implement the fire duty crew is predictability for the firefighters. With the current system firefighters must respond to a page by driving to the nearest fire station where they wait for enough people to respond before driving to the scene of the emergency. The unpredictability of when the pager will go off causes stress in the lives of the firefighters and their families. Firefighters would sign up for shifts 30 days in advance so they can schedule around their life events. King asked if those members of the duty crew who were not on duty would not respond to an emergency. Esbensen said it would depend on the call, so there would be a number of people who could have unpredictability. He said that happens three to four times a month for Bloomington and other communities with a duty crew. Eden Prairie Budget Advisory Commission Minutes May 25, 2010 Page 2 King asked if the firefighters ever get to say they are out for the week with the current system. Esbensen said they are able to say they are out,but they have to make a percentage of the calls during the year. Schultz asked how many are sent out on a call and if the duty crew would still have more people coming in. Esbensen said there are eight people on a duty crew. That number can handle most things except a big event. Car accidents and heart attacks account for the vast majority of the calls. Esbensen listed the benefits of the duty crew: fewer interruptions to the lives of the firefighters; schedules would be available at least 30 days in advance; and it would improve recruitment and retention. He said they are not sure what the response times will look like with the duty crew,but they expect it could be as high as 12-13 minutes or as low as 6-7 minutes. A more rapid response time would improve firefighter safety because fires are bigger and faster now than they were 20 years ago. He said the time it takes to get to the scene makes a big difference in the outcome. He said response time has been adversely affected by development in the city because there are a lot more stop lights and stop signs that cause delays. Muilenberg arrived at 5:25 p.m. King asked if there would be eight people at each station with the duty crew. Esbensen said there would be two people at each of the four fire stations. Esbensen said having the duty crew would shorten the time for motor vehicle crash victims to be transported from the crash scene to a trauma center. The duty crew would provide improved and flexible response to medical calls, would give them more opportunities for fire prevention efforts, and would provide additional inspection resources. Esbensen said other cities with duty crews, including Plymouth, Bloomington, Brooklyn Park and Minnetonka,report there was a lot of fear about the whole thing in the beginning,but within 30 days most of the firefighters would not go back to the old system. It takes the pressure off their personal lives. He said they have four working models to use with the other cities, and Plymouth and Minnetonka are very similar to Eden Prairie. Esbensen showed a Utube video showing a living room fire test with two rooms: one with natural furnishings and the other with synthetic furnishings. Schultz asked if the duty crew at the station would go to the fire directly. Esbensen said the station closest to the incident would take an engine there immediately. The next station would also send a 2-4 person crew to the fire. For a structure fire they would get other firefighters out in addition to the crew,but the point is to hit the fire quickly. Chacko asked if there are about 1000 calls per year. Esbensen said that was a rough number. Chacko asked if the calls primarily occur during the day or at night. Esbensen said the number is about the same for nights and weekends and for days. Chacko asked Eden Prairie Budget Advisory Commission Minutes May 25, 2010 Page 3 about the number of structural fires. Esbensen said there are four-five major structure fires a year, but he noted car accidents and auto extrications are equally important and they have similar time issues for those. Esbensen said over time they have seen an increase in response time while seeing an increase in petroleum-based fires because of the use of synthetics. Those fires are more intense and development in the city causes more traffic and congestion so the fire rigs are traveling at a slower rate and our volunteers are arriving at the station at a slower rate. Schultz asked if each of the fire stations is fully staffed. Esbensen said they have 11 open positions as a result of building up Fire Stations 4 and 1. He said they recruit every other year and look out 18 months. The volunteers spend seven months training for Firefighter I and 11, and it takes 12-18 months for them to have enough experience for their own welfare. King asked about shifts. Esbensen reviewed the shift structure used by Minnetonka. King asked about the cost to implement the duty crew. Esbensen said they have put$250,000 in the 2011 budget to implement the duty crew,but they are not sure it will take that much. He didn't think we will exceed the $580,000 in the budget. There are no PERA or health insurance costs. King asked if there are any benefits to the community for the duty crew. Esbensen said the quicker response time is a benefit. King asked if there is any benefit to insurance rates. Esbensen said residential rates are based on pump capacity, and the main difference in rates comes from having a 100% full time fire crew. He said it does make a difference for commercial property but they can mitigate that by having a fire suppression system. King asked if this would make a difference for businesses that don't have a sprinkler system. Esbensen said they are working hard to get businesses to sprinkle the building as it is very risky to not have a sprinkler system. Muilenburg asked if it would save about three minutes per call to have a duty crew. Esbensen said that was correct, and the three minutes is really a testimony to the dedication of the fire staff in being able to answer the page and drive to the station in that amount of time. Esbensen reviewed the list of questions submitted by Mr. Proops. He said the duty crew will eliminate travel time to the fire station when firefighters respond to a page which will mean about a three minute reduction in response time. Firefighters have endless training but every emergency scene is a scene of chaos and there are always many kinds of variables in each situation. When they are at the station they will be able to perform other duties that are not performed now. The firefighters will figure out how to work their schedule when they are on a night shift and have to go to their regular job the next day. He said they will be paid $10 per hour while they are on duty. Only the current firefighters will be used on the duty crew because they don't expect to expand beyond the current levels. He said the current training costs $6,500 per person so they have a significant investment in people. Muilenburg asked what they plan to do about short staff situations. Esbensen said he didn't think we will have bad recruiting results as we have been quite successful even without the duty crew. Everybody would have to work a certain minimum number of Eden Prairie Budget Advisory Commission Minutes May 25, 2010 Page 4 shifts per month. Neal noted there is some systemic monitoring with the current payroll system that works pretty well, and we could do the same with the duty crew group. Esbensen said all the surrounding communities have the same concerns and they deal with it. Kotchevar noted they have to work a certain amount or remain an active firefighter. King asked if we are talking about 24-hour shifts. Esbensen said we never considered that because we aren't interested in having people sleep at the fire station as that brings a host of other problems and challenges. Muilenburg asked if they have five-year growth projections, or do they plan to be static at $10. Esbensen said there hasn't been a significant increase in benefits for paid, on-call firefighters, and most of the firefighters don't sign up in order to make money. In response to the question of this being the first step to having a full-time paid fire department, Neal said he thought it is the opposite of that. This is a good plan and a good mechanism to keep the paid on-call system we have. Chacko asked if more people respond than are needed when pages go out. Esbensen said we have a metric developed around the nature of the call that shows how many firefighters are called. Those who live closest to the fire stations get to the trucks first, and the other people come in to help if there is another call. Chacko asked if there are other technologies available that would make the process better than a pager system. Esbensen said the pager system works well. The CAD system has a whole metric about what has to be done for the type of call and the kind of trucks that will respond to it. He said their mission is to get enough resources there as rapidly as possible to get the incident under control. V. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Schultz moved, seconded by Muilenburg, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 5-0. Vice Chair King adjourned the meeting at 6:06 p.m. The Commission members toured the fire station after the meeting was adjourned.