09-06-17 Personnel and Finance (#5)

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over$5 million. We also have some supplies and allocations related to EMS and that totals $6.3 million. The total budget is right around$33 million. He then showed a graph depicting the year- over-year comparisons with the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and the projected 2018. He stated, We are requesting a slight decrease in our supplies, capital and debt even though we have a slight increase in personnel costs. We are not requesting a change in any staffing numbers but we have received a grant that funds three (3) firefighter positions for the next three (3) years. Committee Chair White asked, Would you be shifting firefighters being paid from the General Fund over to the grant? Chief Cox replied, There are a lot of strings attached to the grant. We have to maintain the overall staffing levels of when the Department was first issued the grant. We had a couple of retirements just prior to getting the grant and we were down three (3)personnel. We don't have to increase our numbers as long as we don't drop to two hundred fifty-four(254) in that three (3) year timeframe. He went on, During 2017 so far we have graduated two (2)regional recruit academies. Our Department began several years ago, once the training center was built, reaching out to other regional Fire Departments who may not have the facilities we have to provide training for their recruits and they pay us to be able to do that. We do not prioritize making money on that negotiation. Our priority is to equip the firefighters with the best training. We have all staff trained for incident command and have standardized that process. We also have a wonderful Indiana River Rescue Training School. We also commissioned a hazardous material vehicle and replaced the old one (1). We completed the first annual work performance evaluation for our wellness and fitness initiative. We look forward to the completion of Fire Station Number 4 and beginning construction of Fire Station Number 9. They are both LEAD certified buildings which means they are more sustainable. We are hosting a Public Safety Career Fair from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on September 14, 2017. We are realizing there has been little study done on the cancer susceptibility that firefighters have. In the past few years there have been some major studies and we launched a cancer prevention initiative. A challenge we face moving forward is establishing our Capital Expense Funding. We anticipate close to twenty(20)to twenty-two (22) firefighters that will be retiring. We have a diverse standing hiring list and we will be starting to replace those. Our Medicaid Reimbursement Program may be going away and we will have to prepare for that. He then showed pictures of the construction of the Fire Stations. Bob Means, Chief of the Indiana River Rescue School for the South Bend Fire Department located at 1222 S. Michigan Street, stated, The River Rescue School was formed in 1983 when the East Race Water-Way was put in the City. It started off with two (2) schools a year,typically in the spring and fall. We have since evolved to have over nine (9) different schools. We trained all of the Chicago Air and Sea Fire Personnel. This year we brought in a New York Fire Department Special Ops team. We have been hosting the International Association of Water Rescue Professionals for the past three (3) years and we plan to continue hosting it. That brings over two hundred and eight(280) different people from the all over the world. We've done a good job being a regional training center but have since become a national training center. We try to operate at cost but the demand has been very large and we usually hold more schools than we anticipate. 5