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called for it or not. In the end, that is what his reasoning on why the higher percentage was <br />associated with the fixed cost as opposed to call volume. Some of the County Councilmembers <br />did suggest we should be revising some of these numbers based on call volume. Chief Cox stated <br />anecdotally as a department head, the majority of our costs are associated with personnel and not <br />call volume. Those personnel are in place in order to make calls or be ready to make calls at all <br />times of the day. If we make zero (0) calls in a twenty -four hour shift or three- hundred (300) <br />calls in a twenty -four (24) shift we are still going to pay the same amount of money in regards to <br />personnel, benefits, and equipment aside from maybe some bandages or water usage. As far as <br />personnel costs go, it is the same no matter how many calls are made. <br />Mr. Agostino stated he does believe that is accurate, particularly on the front end going in. Chief <br />Cox is right that you have a certain amount of cost you are going to incur no matter how many <br />calls you take. However, your calls might change if you go from 5,000 calls a month to 6,000 a <br />month because then you do pick up more personnel without necessarily expanding your other <br />costs. If we were to follow the staffing study that was done by the City, we would be at ninety - <br />nine (99) employees and looking at some true variable costs. Right now, we have a certain <br />amount of costs that are going to occur no matter how many calls we receive. That is why the <br />argument was made to treat the bulk of the costs as fixed costs and allocate based on a net - <br />assessed value. <br />Vice Committee Chair White asked when that staff report was done. <br />Chief Cox responded it was done fairly recently, around August. The Department of Innovation <br />did that study. <br />Mr. Agostino stated that was using modeling, if he understands it correctly, for a profit driven <br />call- center, not government based. It was maximizing what you can do out of a call- center. That <br />study backed up the advice that we received from the Operations Board members about staffing <br />and needing a certain amount of people to cover fire, police, and other types of calls. While it is <br />probably more than what was being recommended, it matches the recommendation that we need <br />to have more people staffing based on the volume we do have and based on the population. <br />Mr. Croymans stated one (1) of the nice things that the study did provide is it gave us peak hour <br />times, so even though we were only able to ramp up our staff by four (4) members we can put <br />them in on peak hour times and their work goes further. It was a very good study and we need to <br />thank South Bend as the one (1) agency that has actually stepped up to the plate to help us going <br />forward. <br />Council President Scott asked Mr. Croymans to give a quick overview of where we were and <br />where we are now and the status of the PSAP center as far as operational up and running <br />logistics. <br />Mr. Croymans responded by distributing a chart that is on file with the City Clerk's Office. This <br />is a high level overview but the columns off to the right are the ones that could affect our ability <br />to move into the center in December. On the building, obviously the physical plan of the building <br />is up and running. We do have some large issues with our server room, the air handlers are not <br />