08-08-18 Personnel and Finance (#2)

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®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK to $100,000. So when I retire in three (3) years, I would receive that DROP payment but then my starting pension pay would be locked in at 2019. Councilmember Teshka followed up, So what makes somebody DROP eligible? Captain Ellis replied,You have to be minimum aged fifty-two (52)with a minimum of twenty(20) years of service. Councilmember Teshka followed up, Oh, so that was a hypothetical but those are the actual numbers. Thank for explaining that. I've heard of it before but I wanted it to be clarified. Captain Ellis followed up, It is a great tool because then we can plan when individuals will leave in the future. Chief Cox stated, I would be remiss not to point this out with this particular graph. If everybody looks at the blue bars, the ones all the way to the right are the widows. The purple ones, the ones to the right are the widows and then the green ones,the ones to the right are also the widows. They are all outliving their spouses. Also, what is interesting about this particular graph is that the Fire Fighters in the thrity-seven (37) fund who have basically all pretty much retired and fought fires in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, all the way up to the 90's, have a longer life expectancy that today's Fire Fighters. I want to point that out because, to me, that is counter intuitive. In the 40's and through the 90's,Fire Fighters didn't have access to the protective equipment that we use now including air packs and other types of gear to safeguard Fire Fighters. A lot of the research that is coming out right now shows that is a result of all the contaminants Fire Fighters run into in the burning building. A lot of those are being absorbed through the skin and there is really no way to combat that, other than fully encapsulating the Fire Fighter and that really wouldn't work out because of the heat stroke. The reason I bring that up is because I have another slide here that talks about the challenges and I want to talk about cancer in the fire service. That has impacted our department greatly. I just wanted to make that point while we are still on this slide. He continued, This (referencing a slide in the presentation) is an overall budget summary for our department. It talks about the main funds we have. Obviously there is the General Fund. The main cost hit deals with personnel and service which are the personnel wages and benefits. Currently we have one hundred and seventy-seven (177) Fire Fighters and three (3) civilian employees that are paid out of that fund. Fund#249 is the Public Safety LOIT Fund. We currently have thirty-five (35) Fire Fighters that are paid out of that fund. The #249 Fund is specifically paying the wages and benefits for Fire Fighters and Police Officers and I don't believe there is anything else being paid out of that. Each year we get a reimbursement from the State and,based on how much money is in the fund, we are able to come up with an idea of how many Fire Fighters and Police Officers we are able to pay based on the revenue had. He went on, The #287 Fund is a capital fund. It pretty much speaks for itself although I will say we don't have a sustainable funding source for that particular fund right now. In 2015, what we did was create Fund #287. Most of the Council Members that were here previously would remember the#288 Fund was what we utilized for the capital fund at that time and we used EMS revenues in order to buy capital purchases such as equipment,vehicles or buildings. It was turned into an Enterprise Fund back in 2015, and what was done then was the #287 Fund was created to fund capital projects. At the time, money had been identified through Medicaid where municipal EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building',227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.9173 I TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 10