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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-21-19 (---- co:TH g� 'fid r 1 W PEP E^AC��`1 �`4 �� z,x��► x �'...m8fi..�.s''°wi. OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK DAWN M.JONES, CITY CLERK PERSONNEL & FINANCE AUGUST 21, 2019 5:30 P.M. Committee Members Present: Karen White, Jo M. Broden, John Voorde Committee Members Absent: Regina Williams-Preston Other Council Present: Jake Teshka, Tim Scott, Gavin Ferlic, Sharon L. McBride Other Council Absent: Oliver Davis Others Present: Bob Palmer, Dawn Jones Presenters: Dan Parker, Steve Cox Agenda: Fire Department EMS Committee Chair Karen White called to order the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 5:35 p.m. She introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. I would like to go ahead and call the Personnel and Finance Committee to order. We do have a quorum, and so tonight we will be hearing from the Fire Department and EMS. This is our fourth (4th)budget hearing. Mr. Parker, do you plan to make general comments? And then we go directly to Chief Cox. Dan Parker, City Controller offices on the twelfth (12th) floor of this building, stated, Tonight, we have the Fire Department and EMS for the budget hearing. Before I invite Chief Cox up to speak to the Fire Department and their budget for 2020, I just want to highlight something that we will get into. There is an accounting change that we are proposing for the Fire Department in 2020,and I kind of wanted to walk Council through that. He continued, In previous years, the EMS side of the Fire Department was accounted for in a separate EMS Fund, both a EMS Operation Fund and an EMS Capital Fund. In 2020, we are proposing that the EMS operations actually be pulled back into the General Fund, which is the fund that accounts for the rest of the Fire Department operations. There's a couple different reasons for this. The primary reason is that it's more reflective of the actual operations of the Fire Department. The Fire Department does not run a Fire Department and an EMS department, there is one(1)Fire Department that responds to both fire and EMS calls. So just in terms of accounting reflecting the operation, we believe it makes sense just to pull it all into the General Fund. There INTEGRITY' SERVICE' ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BLANCA L.TIR,uwo GRAHAM D.SPARKS CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLAI ION CLERK EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 46601 I p 574.235.9221 I f 574.235.91731 www.southbendin.gov CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK will still be a Capital Fund. The former EMS Capital Fund will be the Fire Department Capital Fund that they will use for their capital purchases, and we believe that that's appropriate given that the Fire Department does have significant capital needs and want to maintain that separate Capital Fund for their needs. Before I invite Chief Cox up, I'd happily entertain any questions you may have about that accounting change. Committee Chair White asked, Council Members, any questions? Thank you for the update, and now we invite Chief Cox to the podium. State your name and address,please. Steve Cox, South Bend Fire Chief, 1222 South Michigan Street stated, Good evening, As Dan mentioned,I'll be presenting today on the Fire Department budget for 2020.As I presented a couple weeks ago, when we were all here as a city discussing the opening remarks from budget hearings, we presented these goals as three(3)of the main goals of the Fire Department we'll be attempting to achieve this upcoming year. One(1) is to achieve an ISO rating of one(1), which is the highest level of risk reduction for the City, risk management for the City as it pertains to the Fire Department and water delivery systems. At the current time, our department, or the City itself, is rated at a two (2). That's on a scale of one (1) to ten (10), with one (1) being the top level and ten (10)virtually being no fire services whatsoever. I want to improve diversity within the department. We've made some strides in that over the last eight(8) years. As one(1)of our department's main goals, we anticipate going through a very robust recruitment program this fall and into the spring. Our next application process will end on March 31St. We've already convened our recruitment team, and we've already began some discussions in regard to that and community events. I think I'm probably going to be making the first(1St) announcement of this right now. We intend on having a public safety job fair at the South Bend Fire Department Training Center on September 18th, from 4:00-7:OOpm. A couple of years ago when we did this, and we had multiple different agencies there, it was a wonderful clearing house for potential applicants to come. Around three- hundred (300) individuals showed up to discuss public safety jobs. We intend on kicking off our recruitment drive with that event on September 1 8th and we're already talking with members of our recruitment team to continue doing other events as well. The other thing that we have at the top of our list,and I'll talk a little bit more about this throughout the presentation,but we want to increase our capacity and the number of patients that we serve, or clients that we serve, for our community,through our Medicine Program. We piloted that program from July of last year through July of this year. We've had tremendous success with the program. We only have one (1) community paramedic performing those duties right now. We propose in this budget to add an additional FTE to enhance or improve the program. Hopefully, with the idea of getting out and serving a minimum of three- hundred (300) different patients next year alone. We have a lot of other ideas with that. I will speak to that shortly. Some changes of our operating budget are that our EMS operating revenues and expenditures are being accounted for in the General Fund, as Dan just mentioned. One (1) of the other points that I'd like to make about that is that allows us to kind of simplify our budget. It's easier to see where everything is going, okay. As it was previously, that was all set up, all of our EMS operating expenses and everything were set up in an Enterprise Fund, which was two-hundred and eighty- seven (287), I believe. And, two-hundred and eighty-seven (287) then only accounted for those things that were assigned to the EMS division. One (1) of the troubles that we had with that the whole time is that our department is an all hazard response department. We don't just respond to EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 2 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK EMS calls here on one (1) hand and fire calls on the other hand. Our EMS services folks also respond to fires and put fires out. They also respond to water emergencies, etc. All of our services that we provide are intertwined with one (1) another, and we feel like this is just a better way for us to account for those personnel and expenditures that we have for the operating budget. He continued, We don't have any changes in revenues or expenditures. This is just an accounting issue. So basically, all we've done is we've taken all of our revenues that we bring in and we account for those back to the General Fund. As opposed to putting them in the two-hundred and eighty-seven (287). Again, we feel like it better reflects operations that the firefighters are responding to medical, fire, water emergency, and all different calls. In regard to our operating budget, the highlights and changes are reflected. This is basically just revenues that are coming in. They remain over projecting at about $5.4 million. That includes charges for services, such as providing services at outside events,such as Notre Dame and other places.The EMS billing,which is the big green portion up here, that accounts for a major portion of our reimbursement, which is more than half. He went on, The St. Joseph County pays or reimburses us, also, for the services that we provide, the paramedic services that we provide in the unincorporated portions of the county. That's reflected in the yellow portion of the pie. Then, we get a separate Medicaid reimbursement for being a municipal agency providing ambulance service. The Medicaid reimbursement, however, is gone from, this program started in 2011. It hasn't drastically reduced in one (1) year, but over time, it went up a little bit and then it started to decline gradually. We work with an accounting firm out of Indianapolis, and we're anticipating a lower reimbursement rate this upcoming year. So, we're budgeting at $440,000 for that money coming in. Which, again, is a lower amount than we received this year. He continued, Highlights and changes specific to the operating budget are such that on the two (2) pie portions here, on the left-hand side this is distribution across all of our funds. Our personnel take up a significant chunk of that, actually eighty-four percent (84%), I believe. Services and charges are eight percent (8%). Inner fund allocations are at five percent (5%), and the supplies are at three percent(3%), with total expenditures of about$37.5 million, which is a fifteen percent (15%) decrease due to the capital in 2019. We had to budget for some of the construction costs associated with Fire Station Number Nine(9).Then,the operating expenditures have a two percent (2%) decrease. Those will be reflected shortly across the different years right here. The majority of our costs in our department are in the personnel. The personnel costs have actually gone down for next year for our budget. I'll speak to that in the next slide. Supplies in our fund allocations and capital have all gone down in our budget for next year. We just want to be able to show everybody how this looks in comparison from year to year. Things gradually went up, up until next year. We made changes, and we're going to be budgeting for lower amounts for next year. He went on, One (1) of those issues is personnel changes. Under personnel, it's about almost $200,000 in savings.We eliminated two(2)positions due to the Memorial Hospital contract,where we were providing drivers for the neonatal ambulances. Memorial reached out to us and have opted to terminate that contract. It's been a nice collaboration with Memorial for over thirty (30) years with our department. Due to some of the expansions and things that they want to do internally, they opted to start a program where they're providing their own drivers. They opted to terminate that contract. We are still under contract with them for the billing side of this through the end of September. There's a portion of the billing side of this that we will continue to do until the end of EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 3 •CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE O F TH E CLERK the year,but it's technically over with, as far as us providing any service with their program, at the end of September. He continued, How this impacts our budget is that they were basically reimbursing us the cost for three (3) FTE's to provide those drivers, one (1) on shift every single day of the year. By eliminating two (2) of those three (3) positions, we're reducing that operating cost. One(1) of the costs, though, that was an outside cost of the program to us,that was something we were going to have to look at in a future contract with them, was the fact that their neonatal ambulances had become progressively busier every year. We were running into situations where we would have to bring in a backup driver to cover an additional second (2nd) or third (3rd) call. A lot of those extra costs were coming on our department. By eliminating this, not only have we reduced the staffing by a couple of people, but also those additional costs associated with the program. What we have actually proposed to do within this budget, is to reallocate one (1) of those positions to the community para medicine program. Instead of reducing by three(3), we were hoping to go ahead and reallocate one(1)of those three(3)positions back to the community for the medicine program. He went on, We also have contractual obligations within our department, the CBA with the union local, that salaries for next year will increase by two percent ( 2%). That was something that we had to add into the budget by next year by contract.Additionally,the decrease is due to the neonatal transport program elimination. Only one (1) round of recruit school is expected. When we put on a recruit academy, we have to pay for those salaries and benefits for the recruits going through school. They're paid at a much lower rate than one (1) of our sworn firefighters,but it's still a cost associated with it. What we attempted to do is look at and project out for next year, and how many individuals were going to be retiring and leaving the job,etc.What we're attempting to do this year is just go ahead and cover the cost of all of those recruits. He continued, In the fall, we'll be running a recruit academy, and we'll be putting on ten (10) individuals, and I believe they're going to graduate the first(1St) or second(2nd) week of February. The idea is that it would be the only recruit academy between now and the end of the year for next year. Those additional costs won't be there next year. Then, we do have some other savings built into some of the efficiencies that we bill in the benefits, as well. I will begin talking about some of the special services that we provide as a department. This is my eighth (8th) time delivering this budget presentation to the Council and often times we get all hung up in the extra stuff that our department does. I just want to put a focus on the things that we actually do every single day and often times, kind of go unnoticed, for lack of a better way to put it. He went on, A great example of this was the commercial fire we had on South Franklin Street. I'm sure several people in the room saw the video that went viral,with the raccoons. We received notes and stuff from people from all over the country about this thing,with these raccoons running down a ladder. Even to a point where we received a donation from a lady in Tennessee because of the compassion we showed for these raccoons. A week after that fire, the individuals on our B shift managed to rescue a gentleman out of a house fire, who was unconscious. They provided him the medical services, and he just woke up yesterday in the ICU down in Fort Wayne, and we haven't received anything additional about that case. I just wanted to put a focus on what it is that we do every single day because the staff that we have, they're professionals, they're phenomenal people, they're highly trained, and without a doubt one (1) of the absolute best Fire Departments in this entire region, not just the state of Indiana. They provide fire suppression and prevention, EMS services, hazmat response, water rescue, and technical rescue for people in South Bend and EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 4 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK regionally. I also would like to point out, we just developed what was called a Heart Team. The Indiana Department of Homeland Security came and provided us with some training on a thing that they call Operation Force Multiplier last year. Where,they wanted local public safety agencies to couple up with the National Guard, to be able to take resources from both and create teams that would have exponentially more capacity. I've got to give Chris Baker all the credit in the world because he took this and developed it with a gentleman by the name of Josh Weideman, who is Chief Warrant Officer at the Gary National Guard Medical Unit. He continued, They developed what's called a Helicopter Aquatics Rescue Team. We now have one (1) of only eleven (11) Heart Teams that are deployable in the entire country. They just went to an academy in South Carolina, and the folks on our department. They're a part of this team, and the folks at the National guard are all going to be recognized at the Colts versus Bears game on this upcoming Sunday. I can assure the Council, you will all hear about these individuals being deployed at times of need in national emergencies coming up. That is just another highlight of amazing things that are being done at our department. I'm going to take one(1) step back here, I'm going to allow Captain Gerard Ellis to step forward, who is the departmental pension secretary, and have him go ahead and present this. Gerard Ellis, 1222 South Michigan Street stated, Good evening. A little overview of the firefighter's pension, if you think of one (1) fund, there's kind of three (3) tiers to it. The 1977 Fund of which all of the firefighters here in the room except Chief Rodriguez, we're all members of that fund, which is a state liability. The chart you have in front of you, the three(3) bars to the left are what we call the 1937 Fund which is the old plan. It includes the firefighters and their widows or dependents. He continued, The two (2) bars to your right are what we refer to as the 1977 convertees. Those members converted a few decades ago into the new fund but they're still a liability. Their pension checks come from the City. There, I just put the number when I started back in 2014 in this position. I had about one-hundred and ninety-one (191) pensioners, that includes widows, dependents, and retirees. Currently, I'm down to about one-hundred and forty-one (141). The number is going down, as people age, death occurs. The '37 Fund, there on the left, I currently have forty-one(41)firefighters,technically about forty-seven(47). You can see their average age is about seventy-eight(78), and they've spent at least about twenty-eight(28) years in retirement. The widows there,the middle column there,that's the last group of the old fund, and most of those retired back in 2007. They have, obviously, less years in retirement. The convertees there, in the pink, their average age is still up there in the early seventies (70's), and they've spent about approximately thirteen (13) years in retirement. Most of those have left past the 2007 timeframe back then. When it comes to the pension, the state of Indiana reimburses the City and it's kind of a pass-through. What we pay out this year,the state reimburses the City for those payroll expenses next year. Dependent on how many deaths, how many death benefits are paid out, it can fluctuate. Some years we're off a little bit and there's a little bit of gap there where the City has to cover that gap and pay a little. If a retiree passes away and there's no widow to add to the pension, then that kind of helps in the following year because all that's reimbursed and we're not adding a widow to the pension. Other than that, are there any questions to the chart there? EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 I I D574.235.5567 www.southbendin.goy Y tYp 5 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Chief Cox stated, I'm going to move this part of the presentation along. Back to expenditures and our operating budget, supplies have decreased by twelve percent (12%), that's roughly a million dollars for 2020. 2019 had some grant-related, one (1) time purchases that were made at the end of the year last year with the expectation that they were going to be reimbursed this year. That has happened. One(1)example of that is,we put in for a Firehouse Subs grant for twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000). That was awarded I believe in the November timeframe. We bought that equipment this year. That one(1)time expenditure was this year, and then we'll be reimbursed for it. In that, we don't anticipate it again next year because there's a period of time that has to elapse before you're eligible again. Then, in services, we also have a five percent (5%) decrease. The national refunds from Memorial will be discontinued. That'll be$120,000. Then, we've also had a decrease in our inner fund allocations, as well,to the tune of about$320,000. Capital projects,Fire Department has been working with Central Services to ensure the replacement and maintenance plan stays intact, and basically,we continue to work with the folks at Central Services to maintain this. Next year,what we had on a schedule was a replacement of two(2)pumpers. Two (2) engine companies. The big truck right in the front that you can see, the fire truck, it'll be two (2)of those, and one(1) ambulance. Then, two (2) command vehicles, which are typically SUVs. He continued,Additionally,we had several cardiac monitors that aged out. We will have to replace them because they've reached end of life, and we're expecting that cost to be roughly $280,000 next year. We've added that as well. As it stands, that's all of our capital that we're projecting for next year. I just wanted to mention quickly the community para medicine program. We have asked to add one (1) FTE here. We have had tremendous success with this program, and we anticipate building on the success that we've had with this program. There are a lot of avenues that we can go with it. One(1) of which, I think I've mentioned before, we've been speaking to the FIMR, the Fetal and Infant Mortality Team associated with the Health Department. We feel like the application of the community for medicine programming in conjunction with the FIMR team has a potential for some impact to reduce infant mortality rates in St. Joseph County. Interestingly, we just went to a program that was put on by the Health Department, and it shows that babies of color are actually at the highest risk in regard to this, and mothers. Our thought is that this program probably matches up well with matching the services to those mothers that really need some of that assistance providing them the prenatal and postnatal care that they need. Hopefully, we are able to make an impact, and this would just be the second (2nd) community paramedic that we would be adding to our department. Committee Chair White stated, Chief Cox, if you could maybe give a little bit more descriptive information about the special initiative of community paramedic medicine,just in case one(1) or two (2) may not be familiar with it. I'm not talking about the firefighters. Chief Cox replied, Absolutely. So, the community paramedic, the program we just piloted, the idea of this was for us to be able to take the individual that is a trained paramedic, who is specially trained in providing individuals that are utilizing the EMS system as their primary care physician. In essence,they don't have the services available to them,a primary care provider,a doctor's office, even being connected with Medicaid or Medicare benefits, etc. The idea is that our community paramedic then reached out to these individuals once they're identified, and they work with them to provide them and match them up with the services that they need to find them in a medical home that works for them. EXCELLENCE ; ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION ; EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 6 •CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK He continued, What we have found is that the majority of these patients, maybe even as many as eighty percent(80%)of them need social services more so than medical services. It's been a really interesting journey for us working through this program, working with several different entities to collect our data. In fact,the Office of Innovation, one(1) of the business analysts, Anna Kennedy, is working with our department right now to provide all of the data associated with this program, to hopefully be able to show all of the impact that we're having with this. Additionally, I can just tell you that we've had several of these patients that use the EMS service as many as twenty(20) to fifty(50) times in one(1) twelve (12) month period. Those have actually dropped off now that they've been linked up with the services that they need in Indiana. The gentlemen you see on the right-hand side, our community paramedic took that picture. With his permission, we're using it. That gentlemen, he used to fall a lot in his bathtub, and the main thing he needed was a bar in his bathtub. He quit calling 9-1-1 because our community paramedic got a plumbing agency, locally, to come over and just donate one(1),and they installed it for him. Now,as you can see,he's happy as a clam. He went on, This is one (1) of those things that seems so simple, but we have found an absolute need for it. The idea of this, of adding an additional FTE to the program, we feel like there's a lot more that we can do with the program and more impact that we can have. We're really, really excited about what this could eventually be.Additionally, I would also add that the state legislature this year, they have actually passed legislation to make community paramedics, their services, reimbursable through Medicaid via FSSA. The mechanism hasn't been completed yet,and I know they're doing a summer study down there in Indy about how this is going to wind up, being reimbursed, but we anticipate, hopefully, within the next year we will be starting to see reimbursements with the idea that this hopefully becomes a sustainable program. He continued, The Tucson Arizona Fire Department is who, we have Suzie Krill, she's our community paramedic,we actually sent her out to Tucson to go ahead and shadow their community paramedics for a week. She learned a ton. They have four (4), their city's about 400,000 people, and they also have a social worker that works with their program to help provide those services. We've been in touch with Tucson a lot throughout the year and through the pilot and everything. It's been a great experience building this program out, and we hope that we receive full support from Council. The Mayor's Office has already let us know that the Mayor is in full support. I'm happy to answer any other questions associated with it. Councilmember Tim Scott stated, Thank you for this. This is like my number one (1) top priority for you guys. You guys do a great job. You and I talked about this, but how much mental health training do the para medicine people have, but also your EMS people and your firefighters? Because we know some of the mental health issues that are happening in our city. Chief Cox replied, Right. I'm glad you asked that. With everybody's initial training on the department, with your EMT program you receive a certain amount of mental health training. Not just responding to mental health issues, but also discussing mental health issues that first responders have, just based on their responses, PTSD issues, etc, substance abuse, all of those things that occur in the emergency services. We also have developed a peer support team. They receive training. This was about last year, and I think we have eight (8) individuals in our department that are peer support providers that whenever there's a critical incident, they respond to the individuals in the department that've been associated with the incident itself, to be able to EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 7 CITY OF SOUTH BEND ' OFFICE OF THE CLERK provide not only debriefing, but then, if they recognize that someone needs additional care etc. Then they're able to match those people up to the appropriate care. He continued, I'll also give a shout out to the Human Resources department. The City has a EAP program, that allows five(5) free visits for City personnel to be able to go and receive counseling. For the public safety agencies, they bump it up to twelve (12) visits for each individual. That includes family members who are often impacted. It can even be things like marriage counseling and that kind of stuff. It's on the front and center of our radar. You'll hear about cancer prevention in the fire service momentarily, but those two (2) items go hand in hand, with the fire service anyway. As far as our most critical things that we're looking at internally and making sure that we're addressing with our personnel. Councilmember Jo Broden asked, Could you characterize the interaction with regard to the paramedics, in terms of frequency of visits, type of visit, medical versus case management, the duration, repetitiveness with a single client? Are there any stats that you could share on that with us? Chief Cox answered, We can, and we will be presenting at SB Stat in the third (3`d) quarter and that is exactly what we're presenting on, is our data set that we've developed from the pilot program. Again, I don't have those numbers in front of me. I don't want to tell the Council the wrong thing. I will tell you there is a significant amount of these individuals that Suzie is able to visit and resolve their case within one(1) visit. As I said, we have a lot of people that may or may not just have Internet access and they have no way to sign up for Medicaid. She arrives at their house, recognizes that they're eligible, and then she signs them up. Then, they're off to the races, and they're able to get the care that they need through Medicaid. She does have cases where she's had to go back and provide follow-up care with different types of people. It just depends on the case. Councilmember Broden stated, But, first(1st) identified through a EMS or fire incident? Through referrals? Chief Cox replied, When we started the program, we had to start from something. What we did is we did an analysis of all the patients that we had transported to the hospital in the previous twelve (12)months. We identified,just the top, I believe, eighty(80) users of the EMS system. Suzie just went and reached out to all eighty (80) of those people. As things have gone forward now, what we've been doing is fire crews will go out to somebody's home, they'll recognize that individual needs services, and then that fire crew can then match Suzie with them. She handles that case by case. Councilmember Broden followed up, Thank you. Committee Chair White stated,Thank you. Good information and exciting. We can make sure that our local news people can really grab a hold to this. Chief Cox stated, I couldn't agree more. Absolutely, cause it's a good story. One (1) of the other special initiatives that we are focused on for the probably foreseeable future is cancer in the fire service. As you all know, we just had one (1) of our firefighters pass away last week. We had the funeral last week on Wednesday, he died the previous Wednesday. He is the second (2nd) EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend.Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 vwvwsouthbendin.gov 8 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK firefighter this year in our department who has passed away from an brain tumor. The science is there, this is clearly something that's effecting firefighters nationwide. As part of our ongoing effort, one (1) of the things that we're going to be doing is applying for an AFT grant, Assistance to Firefighters grant, through FEMA. This will run a research study by Steven Mopett, who is our occupational physician out of Indianapolis, IN. Dr. Graham Peaslee, is a nuclear physicist over at Notre Dame, who's currently doing research on different types of chemical compounds that are causing cancer specific to the fire service. As luck would have it, while being in Notre Dame's back yard as soon as we knew Dr. Peaslee was doing this, we reached out to him. We've been able to kind of connect using In Focus as our program facilitator. Some of the different researchers in the country,we have a conference call with all of these folks. One(1)of them is with a researcher, oddly enough in Tucson,who is working with Tucson Fire,through the University of Arizona,and another at the University of Miami. We're hoping that we're able to obtain this grant, to be able to do a research study here locally. He continued, Also, the department has been taking action in regard to cleaning gear and everything, just our actions on scene. Trying to develop a culture where we reduce the risk of exposure to our firefighters. One(1)of the things that we were able to do this year was add several gear washing machines. I know,again,this seems like something simple,but these things are about $10,000 apiece. And it's not as simple as just installing one (1) and plugging it in. There's installation, a lot of other stuff, and we have to train our firefighters on how to use this equipment appropriately and everything. Additionally, the individuals that are washing gear, they're exposed to all the carcinogens on the firefighting gear as they're washing it. There are a lot of moving parts to this, but we are doing what we can to possibly pick the low hanging fruit and be able to reduce risk to our firefighters on a daily basis. Committee Chair White asked, Any questions? Councilmember Broden asked, are those at nine (9) and four (4) now, or, where are they, the machines? Chief Cox replied, When we built Station Four(4) and Station Nine (9), we incorporated those in both buildings, and then also had one (1) installed at Station Ten (10) on the South Side, and one (1) in Station Eleven (11) on the Northwest Side, as well. Up until last year, we only had one (1) gear washer for two-hundred and fifty(250) firefighters. You know, you can just run that machine all day long, and we'll never catch up. We needed the increased capacity, so at this point we actually have gear washing machines at five(5)of the eleven(11) stations. Which, is fantastic,but a lot of the urban departments don't even have one (1) gear washer. It sounds crazy, but in the fire service sometimes,unfortunately,having dirty gear over the years has been kind of a mark of tough guy image, or whatever. Unfortunately, a lot of people are suddenly realizing that that's actually causing cancer. Our department has been very proactive in trying to make sure that we're trying to completely change that culture. Our culture is moving towards one(1)of safety and prevention for our firefighters, of risk management. Councilmember Broden followed up, are there grant dollars available for that? Chief Cox answered, for washing machines?There are sometimes. When I say that, so AFG is our main place that we can go to for large grants. Each year they actually have a very specific item or EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227WJefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 I I U 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 9 CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK items that they identify as being top of the list. I don't know that gear washers were actually at the top of the list in the last couple of years. He continued, Our exhaust extractors in several stations, that we installed, came from an AFT grant two (2) years ago, I believe. We already had exhaust removal systems in all of our stations. Chief Taylor installed those back in the mid-nineties (90's). As with any mechanical device, some of them were aging out. They needed to be replaced, and we wanted to standardize them at every station. We've now done that as well, but we did get a grant for that project. Councilmember Tim Scott asked, Part of your study with your professor at Notre Dame, are they also looking at the makeup of the equipment, like the plastics, the TPO's?What I understand, and I believe I heard him on NPR mention that fire retardants are making up the treatment on the fabrics and that. All those play into the plastics industry. You heat up plastic and you get gas out from those. So, the whole entire equipment, is that part of the study? Chief Cox answered, That will be part. We're going to propose two (2) separate studies, and one (1) of them will focus on Dr. Peaslee's side of the house. That is exposure and how do we identify that exposure within our firefighters. Then, Dr. Mopett's end of it is going to be an early detection piece that we're looking to do research on to detect cancers earlier in a way that's cost effective and more effective than current. For us to be able to identify someone with a brain tumor right now you have to put them through an MRI or CAT scan,which comes with risk. What we want to be able to do is utilize any early detection devices that are good and have a good efficacy but don't cost alot of money. Some of the screening devices out there, such as bladder cancer,those are like ten-dollars ($10) a test. Those are easier and we already do those for our department with his company. We feel as though we can do more, and especially we really want to push the marketplace out there to be developing those types of tests for firefighters and to make it more economical. This way, we can detect earlier those cancers because we already know that the prognosis for earlier detection is much better than late detection. Councilmember Scott stated, from all of us, our heart goes out to everybody for the loss. We did a moment of silence here at Council. Chief Cox replied, Thank you very much. Councilmember Scott stated, Literally,that was my number two(2)priority with this,is the cancer prevention because I've been reading and hearing a lot about it. Chief Cox stated, One (1) of the other special initiatives that we have started is a drone program with our department.We have ten(10)individuals within our department that are all FAA licensed, and one-hundred and seven (107) individuals that can operate drones at scenes. The Fire Department in conjunction with the Office of Innovation has received a couple of different waivers for when and where we can fly drones specific to public safety incidents. Our department has been utilizing drones in a way right now to be able to provide command over watch, to provide search and rescue, a multitude of different uses. I think, personally, that we're just at the cusp of this. Every single time we fly a drone it seems as though somebody else has another idea for how we can use it. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building',227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 vwwv.southbendin.gov 10 CITY OFSOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK He continued, We've used drones in fire scenarios. As you can see in the picture on the right-hand side, that's actually using a thermal imaging camera that we have on one (1) of our drones. You can see that's at our training center.That's a burn house,a residential burn house,and on the second (2'") floor, where you see the firefighter where he's all lit up, that's because he just walked out of that burn room. The inside of the door is bright because that room has a fire going in it, and so it's hotter than the outside air. Using the thermal imager, we can identify where the hot spot is in the house. Incidentally, we have thermal imagers that we use, hand held, when we're inside a fire, where we can actually identify where a cooler area is. Especially, if we can see a shadow of a person in there, even if there's no visibility in the room, you can use the thermal imager to identify a person or a body that's in that room. This is a tremendous asset for us. He went on, One(1)of the things that we initially thought about was if we have a thermal imaging camera on a drone at night. We might be able to see somebody who falls in the river much quicker than just using lights and somebody on a bridge. We've actually been working with some folks at Notre Dame to dump out some software and doing research with them. Dr. Wong, and also with Denise Riedl over here from the Office of Innovation and a couple of the folks over there. We are excited about this program. Tomorrow we're going to have a meeting to talk about drone fleet management program for the City. We're excited because we got to do the pilot program for the City in regard to this. I just want to bring this to the Council's attention. We're not asking for a lot of extra money for this, and we just want to make sure you knew it was happening. Also, community risk reduction. This is something that we do all the time, but I just want to put a quick focus on it. One(1) of the South Bend staff programs that we did was identifying specific areas in the City that were at greater risk for having a house fire. Not only having a house fire, but having a house fire that was in a home without a smoke alarm. The City of New Orleans Fire Department created a formula that they believe, using census data to identify, using different questionnaires, as to finding areas to greater risk of fire and no smoke alarm. Chief Cox continued, At the department, is we've applied that formula to different census tracts within the City, and we've identified specific neighborhoods where we believe that the risk is greater. We've targeted those areas to do smoke alarm blitzes in the City. I know Committee Chair White,myself, and Councilmember McBride,have actually even been out on our alarm campaign, installing smoke alarms in their districts. We're excited about the fact that we started doing this. He went on,The State Fire Marshal's Office actually started a program,just this year, to get more alarms out to local entities in the state. I believe they've pledged a hundred alarms to our program. At least one hundred(100)smoke alarms for our program. We've also partnered with the local Red Cross, and they've been phenomenal in supplying us with not only smoke alarms, but also personnel that'll go out and help us give safety briefings and things along those lines in homes. We've already installed, in this program, thousands of alarms in the city just in the last two (2) years. That's fantastic. He continued, Our public education folks with Captain Gerard Ellis and Chief Rodriguez have been phenomenal in pushing this program forward along with our public education outreach programs in the schools and different businesses throughout the City. It's been great. I can't say this enough, the cheapest way for us to prevent a tragedy is by going out and addressing it before it happens. There's no question about that. This is another cultural thing, our folks are very much tuned into this. We do provide a ton of outreach within the City every year,to get out there and do these public education events, to be able to hopefully reduce the amount of property damage, life EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 11 CITY OFSOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK loss, and injuries in the City. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the Indiana River Rescue school. We have an additional fund. I'm not going to speak too much unless anybody has a question about it. This is more or less a self-sustaining program, bringing tuition in from individuals throughout the region. This past last year we even had a dedicated class of New York City firefighters. Thirty (30)of them came here to learn how to do river rescue. Chicago Fire Department also sent a group here. He went on, I've said this a million times to the Council,but we have a nationally recognized river rescue program here, that is now just been augmented by the Heart Team creation. We also are hosting the International Association of Water Rescue Professionals conference every year. We've been doing that now for the fifth(50th) year running. We have folks from all around the world that are attending that conference every year here. I believe we had about five-hundred to six-hundred (500-600) attendees this year at the program. Not only is that allowing our personnel to take part in world class training, but it's also building relationships with people that are top level professionals throughout the world. At the same time, we're helping the local economy by filling hotel beds and everything else. In fact, our department last year received a local tourism award for putting people in the hotel beds. We've been trying to hit on all cylinders,here, and it's been pretty great. I'm happy to answer any other questions you all might have. Committee Chair White stated, I'm going to go straight down the line. I'm going to start with Councilmember John Voorde. Questions? Councilmember John Voorde asked, Let go to Capital Projects. Did I hear you say you're going to get two (2) pumpers, one (1) ambulance, and two (2) command vehicles? Is it new and for $1.34 million? Chief Cox followed up, The pumpers are roughly going to come in at about a million, roughly. The ambulance is at about,roughly, $260 million. In that ball park anyway. And then, the two (2) command vehicles will be two(2) SUVs and probably will be roughly$30,000 to$40,000 a piece, if I'm not mistaken. That should come out pretty close to that number. Committee Chair White asked, Can you go back,because I think you mentioned$260 million,but you meant$260,000? I want to make sure I'm hearing this right. The pumpers cost nearly a million bucks a piece. Chief Cox followed up, I'm sorry, did I say$260 million? My Apologies, I meant $260,000. Councilmember Voorde asked, I want to make sure I'm hearing this right.The pumpers cost nearly a million bucks a piece? Chief Cox stated, No, sir. Roughly, about$500,000 a piece. Our last purchase, I believe,was right at about $500,000 for one (1). We bought two (2) the last time, that came out at about a million dollars. The ladder truck was close to a million for one (1). Those are too different mechanicals. Councilmember Voorde asked, Where's that money going to come from in 2020? Chief Cox answered, For the capital equipment. If we go back, if you don't mind. I'm going to just show you one (1) of the pies here. This one (1) right here. Dan mentioned, although the two- EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY j INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173'TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 12 CITY OFSOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK hundred and eighty-seven (287) Fund, all that revenue is going to be going back to the General Fund. The St. Joe County money, the yellow piece of the pie here, that will actually be placed still at two-hundred and eighty-eight (288), which is the Fire Department's Capital Fund. So that will be what we'll be using to purchase capital equipment. Councilmember Voorde stated,You've been around long enough to know that at one(1)time that EMS Fund was a dedicated fund. With no further business,Committee Chair White adjourned the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting at 6:37 p.m. Respec 1 Submitted, Karen White, Committee Chair • EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 13