 Madam Clark, can you read the roll? Here. Yes. Here. Here. Yes. I was saying a few words before we start getting into the budget. Yes, let me, let us pray. God, we thank you for this day and for all that you've done for us. We've had an opportunity and yet a blessing to go through the Easter season. But I think the premier question that we ask, that each of us ask, after Easter, then what? What happened? What happens after Easter? Do we continue our trek towards sensitivity? Do we understand the resurrection or power that we gracefully experienced? What happens after Easter? Do we take off the beautiful clothing or do we put on a real sense of what this city is all about and allow that presence to overshadow us? So the question is imminent, but the answer is right there before us. We ask it in your name. Amen, thank you Reverend McDowell. So we are trucking along in the budget process journey. And I wanted to say thank you to council for giving us a little push and direction. Chief Jenkins and I are working with this team since we met last on the subject of the fire pay plan. They have really dug deep and I wanna tell them thank you because they really tolerated me and the long discussions and hours put in the presentation together, but it really was their research. I know several of you, Dr. Bussells and the mayor in particular were asking questions about scheduling and staffing and giving examples of maybe even how hospitals do it and different approaches that we need to look at. And they did that and so the direction to me I think was to bring some of that research back to the public safety committee, but I spoke with Chairman DeVall over public safety and we met with him and went over the presentation because in the essence of time where we find ourselves this budget season we really thought that it was better to bring it back to all of council and go over it as a group. And so that's what we're here to do today. And I hope that you all find the information and lightning and informative as we have to make bigger decisions about the pay plan and at the end of the presentation, Missy and I, Missy Kauffman and I will talk to you about some recommendations, funding related recommendations as well. So we will get started. This is the Columbia Fire Department update. Mr. Aubrey D. Jenkins, Fire Chief, Mr. Mickey Folsom, Assistant Chief, Mr. Christopher Kipp, Assistant Chief and Mr. William Brosch's Community Risk Reduction Chief. And they will walk you through the creative recommendations they've come up with regarding lead and staffing and the proposed pay plan update which you're already familiar with but we'll finalize those updates for you. Chief. I want to say good afternoon, Mayor, Council, City Manager, and to everybody that's in the room. We really appreciate this opportunity to come before you to talk about it. And I want you all to know we heard you loud and clear. And so we have come up with some creative ways that we think would hopefully suffice what you're thinking and the direction that you think that we need to be going in. So I'm not going to further my staff now. We sat down and talked with the guys at City Manager. We talked about all of this and we looked at some creative ways that we can kind of get a little creative. What I'm going to do is allow my staff, each one of them got a section to go over and they'll be going through it. Certainly we're going to do it during it or after the presentation, but we'll be available for questions. So, and we'll just follow the agenda. We're going to be talking about the adjustment annually, we're going to be talking about improved safety, accountability. Also, we're going to be looking at a potential part-time positions as well to talk about that, but also the pay plan. So that being said and done, each one of them know their role. So they'll come up accordingly. Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Christopher Kipp. I'm one of their fire department's assistant fire chiefs. I'm over operations and being over operations, I want to bring two items to discussion that pertain to us in particular. That is a way of using annual leave and maybe a more flexible, accountable way and also want to tell you about the improvements we're making to our sick leave management. The first, speaking about annual leave, currently we select annual leave, meaning everyone, all suppression employees, select it in October or November for the following year. And I hope you're thinking how crazy that sounds and unrealistic because it's very hard to anticipate 11, 12 months ahead of time, what time you'll need when in the coming year. But the reason we do that, we've done that for as long as I've been here, is to maintain two specific priorities. And the first is to ensure that we have proper staffing each and every day. Before I go further, just a quick introduction to some of the words I'm gonna use. When I say day in the fire service, that actually means day and night because our firefighters work 24 hours straight. So the ones who started work today at 7.45 in the morning are going to keep working today, tonight, until 7.45 tomorrow morning. So work 24 hours straight. So if I say day, please think day and night, or 24 hour shift. Now the term shift also in addition to a demarcation of time, is also a name for how we organize our department. So we actually have three shifts. Think of those as three military platoons of employees. Each shift has 129 seats that we need to fill. And those are seats on fire trucks. We have 32 fire stations, 51 primary, first out fire apparatus and 129 seats to fill those. In charge of the shift, in charge of all those personnel is what's called a division chief. And the division chief's first job every morning is to ensure that all 29 seats, 129 seats are full. For effective staffing so that we can, so our firefighters are kept safe and so that they can effectively go out and respond to any emergency, solve whatever problem they're called to solve. So the division chief's first job is to ensure proper staffing. And in order to do that for annual leave, we pick it ahead of time, one to make sure that all the days are covered, that only a select number of people are off each shift for annual leave, because we can't have everyone off for Christmas or their birthdays, but also to ensure that personnel are able to take all their permissive leave in a year. Those are the two priorities that have driven that our current approach to annual leave. However, we're proposing this change, which is actually a two-step process. It'll provide more, we believe it'll provide more day-to-day accountability of permissive leave in the hands of our division chiefs. It'll maintain, it'll still maintain a predetermined number of members off each day on annual leave. And we believe it will help better manage non-FLSA over time. The way this will work is as a two-phase process, first ahead of time, next slide, please. We believe this will allow personnel to plan both for the long-term vacations a year in advance as they currently do, but will also allow flexibility to use annual leave more spontaneously throughout the year. It'll improve management of sick leave and other permissive leave, and as I said before, less than the need for non-FLSA over time. Kip. Sir. FLSA over time, what is the number? Four. For that. What do you have for per person for that number? It's complicated. If you're staffed. Right, so if we're fully staffed, what non-FLSA over time or what FLSA over time? FSLA. So it's... What's the average per person is what I'm... To get that number, we could take the average salary and then multiply that, get five to 7% of that number and add it to it. The reason it's five to 7% is it depends on that person's work schedule. If that person did not take any time off in a given year, they would actually have an additional 12% salary of FLSA over time, and that's the built-in over time that they'll... When you build it in, I guess I'm trying to understand the model. So if I look at the screen and I see 12,000 hours of over time in a month. Right. I'll speak some, but Chief Volsman, if I missed up, please let me know. And I just think it's important so we understand because the way leave and everything was planned that also plays into it because part of why we ask all those questions and wanted to do it is so that we can improve the way it manages so that the raises, proposed raises and plan going forward are attainable and achievable. Financially, we can do it because when you got 12,000 hours of over time, trying to correlate that, well, why is that causing? Because a lot of it, if you look at it, it correlates and that's why trying to understand what those numbers are helps us plan as we're planning ahead. Because the last thing we wanna do is create a pattern for projection that people can map out, but yet we can't achieve it because this side is growing but the overtime hasn't changed. So we got a bigger problem. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So correct me if I'm wrong. I believe we budget for it by taking the salaries and budgeting an additional five to 7% for that FLSA overtime. Again, do you wanna correct me on that? I'm just trying to get from an hour standpoint so that, you know, because everything y'all do is so complicated. Jump. Well, on the overtime, so we schedule yearly, so 164. So we know what that number is. So we can project on the 164 for every personnel. Yes, sir. We project that 164 for the whole entire year. So with this plan, hopefully, what this will do and what Chief Kiff is trying to say is hopefully by doing this strategy and this annual leave plan, we'll lessen the other overtime and also get our staffing up, which will also lessen overtime. So if we, from argument's sake, it's about 10 hours a month per person, right? A little over that. I mean, it's about 122. Yeah, well, if you say, you know, average person works 120 days a year, then you divide that 164 by that, then, but we do it on yearly. I can't answer that right now, this off the top of my head. We can get you that number, though. It is complicated and it depends on many factors, including when employees take off, because we have three different pay cycles of length and how often they take off in a year. But back to the annual leave usage, our, we'll go a slide ahead. In thinking of changing or allowing some more creative flexibility, we have two phases. And the first phase would look just like we do now, meaning around October, November, employees will submit annual leave requests for time in the next year that they know they're gonna want off, a vacation in June or time at Christmas. And we, our division chiefs and battalion chiefs will process that, rank those according to seniority, and award those annual leave requests. However, the change would be that our personnel would not be required to use all of their annual leave, which we currently do. So they would be allowed to have some floating annual leave shifts, or Charleston Fire Department does this and calls it casual leave. The way that would work is, next slide please, is during phase two, which would be after that initial selection process, when an employee identifies a time that they, he or she would like to take some leave off, they would check a list. And if there are slots available on that, that day or shift to take, they would apply their request to division chief and division chief would be able to control the staffing for that day more closely to actual time. So you can think that the current way we select annual leave is very, it's very restrictive, both for the employee and for the division chiefs managing the staffing. And to have just this simple adjustment would allow flexibility on both sides, both for employees taking the leave, which would help with their work-life balance, but more, but just as importantly for our shift leadership to be able to manage the shift, and ensure proper staffing for our effectiveness. Next slide please. Put in a quick example just to walk through this. We have firefighter A, who has earned 120 hours of annual leave for the upcoming year, 120 hours equates to five shifts, five 24-hour shifts, and next slide. And so during the phase one, she requests to use three of those shifts for a vacation in June. She's awarded those based on her seniority and so takes those available slots in those days. So phase one is ended and she steps into the new year with two additional floating shifts available, and that allows her in February, when she hears about that her family has decided on family gathering in April, she's able to request to use her remaining two shifts of annual leave to take off during that time. Her division chief grants this because there are open slots and so she is able to take time in a more flexible way. Division chief is able to manage that staffing for that day in a more accountable way. Another example of how phase two could be used is in October, imagine that firefighter A is purchasing a house and needs to close on it, and there's a spot open the next week and she has say an additional annual leave available, she's able to ask her division chief and if there's a spot open she's able to take it. So we're meeting the needs of the employees but also meeting the needs of our shift leadership in controlling and being accountable for the staffing for that day. So next slide please. So summary, firefighter A has a flexibility to select both annual leave she knows she's gonna take or knows she would like to take in the next year but also she has a flexibility to request additional annual leave throughout the year which is currently what we don't have so much of. But also the shift leadership, the division chief and battalions are able to account for and maintain proper staffing throughout the year in a more flexible, responsible way. So we do believe that it's more flexible procedure for selecting annual leave could help ensure proper day-to-day staffing for our department and potentially provide better work-life balance for a personnel. What questions do you have? It's a simple, it sounds like a simple change of our procedure but it's actually, it could open up whole horizons for better management. Yes sir, there's some people love it and some people have reservations. The people who love it think, oh now I'll be able to, when an opportunity arises say September and a friend says, hey I have football tickets for game in October, they would have a pool of time to potentially use it. Some people have concerns that if you will remember one of the two priorities that drive our current procedure is to ensure that all employees have an opportunity to take all their permissive leave. In changing to a new procedure we will be giving more flexibility but also giving more responsibility. And so employees will need to be much more on top of things in managing their time which I believe will be better accountability on that issue but also in the department in general. hesitation if we're just speaking I guess bluntly about it is because the personnel on the front end I mean we're essentially I guess being insured all of their permissive leave was already scheduled throughout the whole year. The hesitations that some may have is that a division chief may say have to say no because there's if the slots aren't available or if we don't have proper staffing for a particular day but that comes with the accountability that we're looking for. So I don't see that as being a big issue mayor I'm sorry if they're being flexible on both sides of the spectrum. If somebody actually wanted to plan out all their vacations they still can do that. Yes sir. So they actually have flexibility on both so there's really no handicap and that becomes an individual decision. One of the things we kept hearing and looking at the data was that there was by planning so much in advance it created a lot of problems where people were having to switch around and trying to get things done. We're here, I think they got a little more flexibility still hard for me to think about planning that far in advance but I guess if you got the flexibility and now you can do it because it makes more sense to me having that ability to do that and kind of balance it out because you can pocket some stuff. Yeah there may be a risk but I mean based on the way we've been operating I mean I'm not sure that there is a big risk I think it actually gives you more flexibility. Agreed and sorry go ahead. Did you all think about has the whole year in advance thing been pretty supported by the firefighters they like having that much advance notice about their leave. One of the things we had kind of thrown out to chief was a potential quarterly schedule or something where you can look at holidays and popular times in chunks as opposed to an entire year in advance. And we discussed that a lot and that could be something we do go to. It would be there are plus and minuses of both. It certainly could be a strategy we use. One limit would be if somebody wanted to take if we had it by quarters and said okay each person needs to use a quarter of your annual each quarter that could limit the amount of time someone might want to take in some in a portion of the year. And then another question I had was I know you mentioned that the additional leave would be assigned based on seniority. So one of the things I could see is obviously the division chief is often more senior than some of these folks requesting leave. Could you see a situation where they have to deny that person's and they are able to take leave right. One of the things that I've liked for you a lot of consider is any merit based selection opportunities or some sort of incentive that you had perfect attendance you get first dibs on whatever slots are remaining or something like that. I think that'll help with some of the concerns that people may have that are junior but certainly have things that they wanna do. Yeah I think that's something we could talk about and grow into. One clarification is the initial phase one is seniority based. The phase two, again we'd have to work out the details. But it's a little bit more complicated to the advantage of the members or the employees because in the number of allowed positions that we give annually for each day there are categories by rank. So for instance only two battalion chiefs can be off three captains, three drivers, three firefighters. So a battalion chief and a firefighter could request the same day but they each have unique opportunities. Does that make sense? Yes ma'am. One of the difficulties in having a conversation about this is the differences in the fire schedules and the amount of leave they have to accrue before they can take. They have to take a shift which means they have to have accrued 24 hours before they can get on the thing. And I believe you're in our conversation we talked about the advice from the older people only the partner was if you are a brand new firefighter just coming into the suppression field you should not take leave your first year. You need to bank those days and have them ready for the next year. So I think it was complicated for me to understand because you're talking about 24 hours at a time. And when they take 24 hours and 48 hours if they take a shift off in the middle of the week you really have a full week off. In the shift you've got 48 hours you take a shift on leave and then you've got 48 hours more you've got a week off. There are a lot of nuances to scheduling the fire. It's also perfect if it's overtime and if it's paid overtime it just creates all these different dynamics the way it is so just trying something different and maybe levelize it. It's complicated. I think it's the idea it is that it changes it depends on what your schedule is. It's extremely complicated and then one of the things that we discussed when we were going through this before was we've got to convince the firefighting personnel that they don't have to use all of their leave every year. It's a to their advantage to bank something. You get paid for it when you leave the force. You get paid for it when you retire. And if you feel back up the road. 600. Yes sir. It's just a matter of we know there are advantages of not taking all your leave but it's a trust factor with them making sure that the city is gonna pay them out when they leave and I think that's part of the transition we need to have is some sort of counseling to show the advantages of having 600 hours of leave. And I just have a question related to that. They take the advice a new person coming in and they don't take any annual leave their first year. What do they have at the end of the year? How much leave do they accrue in the first year? Believe it's 120 hours. Maybe a little bit more. And 120 hours is. About five shifts. Maybe it might be 144. But just five, not just five days. Five shifts. And what we typically do to you all's point is for instance we have recruit firefighters right now who will be graduating in May 25 and we basically tell them we're not gonna let you take any annual leave except emergency situations because we need you to build that up so that in the next year you have time to use it. So we systematically, it's something recommended by our senior members but also it's something in our system that we try to ensure. Chief, let me ask this question. What constitutes an emergency situation? For use of annual leave? Yes. Well, maybe I'll use the word emergency appropriately. But for instance, let's say. Well, I hear the first part. Then of course when we come to the second half, sick leave part. What constitutes that on either side if we could talk about that? Okay, so in thinking about how I said emergency use of annual leave, let's take a recruit firefighter that's gonna be graduating May 25 and then he comes to the floor and we say, look, we'd like you not to take any annual leave. However, he says, well, my fiance and I are getting married in August and it's been on the books for two years and we really need to use that and so we would make those accommodations. So we wouldn't necessarily let the other ones use that annual leave but say, hey, this is a circumstance where we need to help you out. So, yes, sir. Yes, sir. And so those kind of circumstances that arise that obviously couldn't have been predicted a year ago, we want to, our division chiefs and tie-ins currently are able to manage that pretty well but the addition of this change in approach would give even more flexibility to help employees take care of those emergent incidents. One note back to, you were mentioning division chiefs and when division chiefs request time off that they could pencil themselves in instead of somebody else. Fortunately, we have very noble employees and in all seriousness, they put their firefighters above themselves and over and over again have division chiefs and battalion chiefs come in and work even if they were supposed to be off if it lets somebody else be off. Our division chiefs also, when they are off, they're not backfilled. All the responsibilities just come to me. Yes, sir. Fill in the 129 seats daily, the volunteer, I guess, component of the department, I guess it lies at the county. Is that worked into the operation, that volunteer core into filling the 129 seats every day? We don't rely on that. However, there are times when we have invited them to come and fill those seats. We want to be able to fill all those seats with career employees and the volunteers are a vital part of our system. They often get to the calls first. In fact, the life saved from a fire we had last year, it was volunteers who were on the scene first and made first access. So they're a critical part but we rely on our career personnel to fill those 129. Just remind me when we get to part time to ask you the volunteer question. Yes, sir. All right, thanks. Following up on that, the 129, does that include, I mean, those are the seats, but what's your fudge factor? How many people do you have to have on the schedule to keep 100? On the schedule? Part day. Like shift staffing? Yeah. You got a percentage of folks that are, I mean, you always said what number. So what's the number you got to have to be at 110? 151 is our base number, but that's actually low, but that's currently what we have figured out with our staffing factor. And right now we're at... That's 12 people. Sir? That's 12 people essentially. Right. But right now we're at about 130, 131 people per shift. 131. What do you realistically need per shift truly to be safe? Because the reason I ask is, looking at that we constantly, you've got sick, you've got this and that. I mean, I'll give you an example of a month in February, just leave and sick leave is 11 people per day. But we had 17 days per overtime per day on top of that. So trying to understand what's the number that gives us the balance across levelizing the overtime, but also make sure that you have enough people to account for sick leave, annual leave, and other things that keeps safety factor in play. That we know that no matter what, our guys are safe. If we have 151 people per shift, those are the numbers we calculated so that we would be able to ride 129 people every day. Yes, sir. Right. 151 includes battalion chiefs and everything. Yes, sir. So we are at 458 right now. What is our number for suppression? For suppression, it is 391 currently. So that's 130 for three shifts, right? If anybody was working. Right, yes, sir. So if we know an average of 11 to 12 people are off every day, that's the number we need to be targeted in, plus probably four more, six more people. Yes, sir. In the four. We only need about 18 more people per shift. So you're talking about 60 people, roughly for argument's sake. To get us to where we're in a really safe, 60 more people per day. You got three shifts, am I saying this correctly? Yes, sir. Yeah, 60 to 70 is what we need. And those numbers, the 151 per shift, we're calculating using something called staffing factor, which I won't go into those details. But what we're finding is that staffing factor is too low. And actually we need more people because it doesn't, it has not let us correctly navigate things like military leave, FMLA, which those throw a lot of difficulty into staffing. Well, so on Sunday we had three people on FMLA, two on military. And so that's a big chunk. And those are things we can't really control and have very little ability to predict well. Things we gotta be thinking about as we continue to move forward. But it's, I mean, it's purely in the numbers. So although our numbers 151, we can still let about 20 people off and still meet that 129. If we were in a perfect world, if we were staffed up, we can have those nine people off on vacation. We can have those six people off on holiday. And we still got about five or six to play with for Markov. So since we're not in a perfect world, we are right at short. Plus, with the military leave, we have to honor that we don't have a choice. And with people out on long term, just building whatever case may be, that kind of throws us off a little bit. Well, I think what Mr. DeBall was saying about part time, and you hear today, people are trying to be CDL drivers who are working for other companies just to drive trucks and they don't do any firefighting and do anything to drive the truck just to add another person in there for safety. It's interesting, thank you. And we've done something similar with a tanker driver program where we brought in firefighters with CDLs just to drive tankers. Any other questions? Well, we do believe, you can stay on the slide, but making some changes to annual leave, whether it's this proposal or going to an idea of quarterly, we'll give some help with managing the shift staffing, but also give flexibility to our firefighters. And when would this new strategy go in place? It'll be for 2024, because annual leave for 2023 is already in place. But October, November, 2023 in preparation for 24. That's correct. And the next months, the next few months would be a really a massive education campaign to talk about things like Councilman DeVall talked about it, about the value of accruing annual leave, but also we'll be stepping into giving flexibility and responsibility and making sure our personnel understand all these implications. So that is a proposal of how to do things new. Next, I wanna talk about how we are currently doing things better with managing sick leave accountability. According to our guidelines, we currently have specific department guidelines that dictate when an employee is to bring in a doctor's excuse for sick leave, and there are seven criteria, and I can go on that if you ask, but those are what we currently use to manage that. And personnel, even for one day, there are times when a doctor's excuse is required. For instance, anyone who use sick leave yet on Sunday on Easter will have to bring a doctor's excuse, and that's just for accountability purposes. Also, personnel must call in to their supervisor, call in to the supervisor in charge of the day, the division chief, when they need to use sick leave. So that's a initial layer of accountability. However, something we're doing new is using a letter of sick leave use. And we started this January, and what it means is once an employee uses 72 hours of sick leave in a calendar year, their battalion chief issues them a sick leave use letter to say firefighter X, you have used 72 hours of sick leave this calendar year, and outline some other expectations, one being they'll need to bring a doctor's excuse in for the rest of your regardless, and that they'll need to call their immediate supervisor. These all sound like restrictions, but actually they're to develop relationships. So the letter of sick leave use is a way for us to consistently have battalion chiefs have a conversation with their employees to find out if they need anything to help prevent sick leave use. For instance, when the battalion chief issues this letter, they might find out that an employee has some kind of sickness that requires FMLA, then we can plug them into HR and get that 10 care of, or they may find out that the employee doesn't understand how to use sick leave property, and they can have that intentional conversation. So the letter is really a letter to document a conversation and a relationship, and believe that through those relationships, that's where we'll really get traction and controlling sick leave, because then employees will be more open to come to their supervisors, because they know they care and wanna help them to try to work out situations when that employee does need to have them off, and having the flexible annual leave could be part of that, or moving holidays or vacation days would be part of that conversation. The letter requires, as I said, the employee to excuse for any more sick leave that year, and also requires the employee to not only call the ship's supervisor, but his or her immediate supervisor, again, to establish that relationship and add a layer of accountability. Then, as at 72-hour mark, then at the 120-hour mark, our employees are allowed to take 144 hours of sick leave, but at the 120 mark, there'll be an additional letter, then that's from the division chief. So it's another layer of supervision, taking intentional accountability and helping the employee better navigate time off issues. And the 120-hour letter will require that employee to not just call and say, hey, I need the time off, but to actually request the time to use. We believe that this also will improve our monitoring of sick leave use, will decrease sick leave use, ensure proper staffing, and potentially decrease the non-FLSA over time. But it's something we've implemented this year and have already seen benefits, fewer mark offs each day because of a better awareness, better accountability. Any questions? Thank you all for your time. Good afternoon, Will Borosius, division chief. So I hand to our commission and our accreditation. So basically data and numbers and statistics, that's my job, that's my thing. So what we're gonna talk about my portion here that I've been tasked with is on part-time staffing. And so Chief Jenkins and of course staff, we've conducted some research on the use of part-time firefighters, the effective use of it, how can we do it, what are some of our challenges? So that'll be a bit of the discussion here. So some of the research includes a few examples, from other departments that we've reached out to, and that we basically wanna emulate some of what they're doing and then model it to match what we do here at Columbia, which includes West Columbia Fire Department, Greenwood, North Spartanburg, Buford, Town of Port Royal, and Sumter. Now the major difference in these departments versus us is that they're a little bit smaller. But let me tell you about some of the advantages. One advantage, it gives us an ability to recruit some firefighters. Coming from someone who used to work part-time. So I worked as a full-time firefighter and then on my days off, because this is my trade, this is my craft, rather than go build or work on cars or paint or do something else, this is what I know how to do. Exactly, so I would go work part-time at another fire department. It was something that I felt comfortable with. And there's other firefighters that want that opportunity. Perhaps they work at a smaller department and they wanna come to Columbia because we are a larger department, we are busier. And perhaps they haven't felt comfortable yet making that full-time jump, that full-time leap. Maybe part-time would be a way that we can get them interested in the department. So come in, make sure we're a good fit for you, make sure you're a good fit for us. And hopefully we can recruit those individuals. Another advantage to this is we're not the only ones in this boat. There's several other fire departments, not only in the area, but around the country. And so through Chief Jenkins' connections and working with some of our local fire departments, we haven't dialed it in yet, but we're hoping that some of these other fire departments would be on board with possibly allowing their firefighters to come work part-time for us. And in an instance, we will allow our firefighters to go work part-time for them. Maybe perhaps where we don't have to buy a new set of turnout gear for that individual or they don't have to buy a set of turnout gear or et cetera for those other physicals, medical records, all that stuff could be transferred back and forth. Mr. Mayor, I believe as the last public safety meeting you were talking about the challenges of small departments and large departments taking people from each other. Well, this would be one way that perhaps we can all work together to benefit all the communities and the surrounding areas. You have flexibility in the hours of the shift. Absolutely. Is that a mindset instead of 24, 6, or 12, possibly? So again, this is still early on. I think we have to look at every possibility. And that's one thing Chief is still pushing us to look into. So maybe it's 12s, maybe it's eights, maybe it's 24s. I think once we dial it in and come up with something that, again, works best for Columbia Fire, I think it could work. Some of these other departments, they have limits on that very same thing or you're only allowed to work X amount of days because they do it in 24-hour shifts. And so to make sure that that individual is not crossing over into full-time hours, they limit their hours. But perhaps we can look at something like that and say, hey, look, we only need an individual for 12 hours or we only need an individual for this amount of hours here. Would that help with folks needing time off? So let's say somebody needs half a shift off and somebody like this could fill in 12 hours where this person, maybe they have a, their kid has a play or something they got and they don't need to give up a full shift and that way it could be a pool that works. So that sounds like there could be some interesting flexibility to help people with their personal time. Yeah, I think that's definitely something we can look at. You know, anytime you create something new, there's obviously some challenges there, but there's also some unique and creative opportunities to draw on that blank canvas, so to speak, and really make it fit the needs of the department. So I think when we get it dialed in, it can be very good not only for the city, but the county, everybody involved as well. Well, what I've read, there's some departments that are doing that currently and the advantages they potentially have gotten employees that wanted to switch, you know, because they could get more full-time hours and people, they even said, for one of the articles I read a lot of transfer over from the volunteer, it gave them a way to slowly build up, get the training and the expertise that they could get a good position. It's a very interesting concept. Yes, sir, there's several advantages to it. Like you said, the one would obviously be the volunteers, we've already trained them. We are one family, so to speak, and so there's definitely some advantages to using those individuals. We've looked at this before, probably about a year and a half ago, but there were some challenges. One, currently the volunteers are basically paid for by the county, so then we get into an issue where are we bringing them into the city and allowing them to work, but they're budgeted from the county. Now that we have this potential plan in place, it would allow us to modify that a bit. And then we look at the university. One thing we taught when we taught with Chief Jenkins is that every year there's thousands of students that flock to our city. They come, they live here hopefully for four to eight years. There's an advantage there for us. Maybe there's a potential deal we make with the university and we help market and advertise there on the campus and we create something like a reserve firefighter. Hey, while you're here for four to eight years attending school, we're gonna help you build your resume. We're gonna help you build character. We're gonna help you build experience so that when you get into your full-time career, you're a more qualified employee. Or you love us so much that you no longer have decided to pursue, but now mom and dad may not like that option, but now we have that individual who's falling in love with the fire service. We see that amongst the volunteers right now. They come in, they go to college, they volunteer for us, and then when they go to graduate, they say, we got one right now. I was just discussing with Chief Olsom. He's graduating with a degree in process management, but he's saying, hey, look what you have to do for the rest of my life. Well, now we've got an individual who loves the fire service. He knows us, we know him, and we bring in a more skilled worker into the workforce that hopefully down the line can provide a skill level that some of us who've been in the fire service the whole life may not have that particular talent. So, no, sir. So that enlarges the potential for recruitment? Yes, sir, that's, and we're discussing today when Chief Olsom and Chief Jengus talk about the pay, that's about recruitment and retention. When Chief Kip is talking about the annual leave and the sick leave, that's about recruitment and retention. We want people to see our department as a place where they want to work and remain. And the same thing here, they may come in as a part-time employee, but we want them to come in and stay and remain here for 25 to 28 years. That's the main goal behind all of this while also having a positive impact on the cost when it comes to overtime and budgeting. So, no good deed goes unpunished, as they say. There are some cons that we'll have to work through, but I feel that we have the talent, we have the bandwidth, so to speak, to conquer these cons, and one is training. How do we get those people vetted? How do we ensure that we provide them the same level of training, although they may be a firefighter at another department? Are we meeting the same standard here in Columbia? And I don't want to say we're better than others, but we are busier and we do have some unique things. You look at our city, we've got five major colleges, universities, three interstates, trains, three major rivers. We have a lot of things that other communities may not have. So you have to make sure those individuals are trained to that standard that when they're riding our trucks and coming in to protect our community, we're protecting them as well. So when it comes to part-time, that may mean we need to add some more part-time training instructors. That's something that we've been talking about for a while, we may have to do that. But that's pretty much the biggest con is vetting those individuals, making sure that we keep them safe, making sure that we can provide their uniforms, their gear, and a lot of those cons go away with using volunteers and converting some of those over to part-time individuals. Without going into details, I will say my Facebook messenger has been lit up recently, just the hint in the small little trickles of rumors about part-time. We've got firefighters from around the state that are ready to come in. It could, but I'll also give a big kudos to our training staff, our firefighters. We, coming from someone who came from another fire department, we have a very special fire department here. We're not perfect, but I always tell people, maybe we're perfect for you, right? And so I think the opportunity for them to kind of step foot into Columbia Fire and just to see if it's for them is a wonderful opportunity. It can be intimidating. Again, as someone who came from the outside, it's a very large organization. There's a lot of people to get to know, but this perhaps breaks down that wall a little bit and perhaps gets that person in. So our social media, we've been doing the virtual ride-alongs. We've seen fruit from that. We post, our PIO Mike D'Souma does a phenomenal job working with our city marketing department, working now with our city talent acquisition team. We're pushing forward this message of we want folks to come here and work here and then remain here as well. In your research, have you come up with any? Yeah, that's a tough one because I'm not in charge of the budget, so I don't wanna speak out of pocket or out of term, but for round numbers, if an overtime rate is at $30 an hour and a part timer is at $15 an hour, just on the surface, using round numbers, you'd be saving about $15 an hour and that 24 hour period. Now, those are not concrete numbers. I don't wanna speak to the budget, but just round numbers, so. That's something we could do further research and provide those numbers at a later date. Yeah, if you had 10 pork tempers, it could. Again, not the budget persons. I do numbers for responses and calls, but yes, sir. Any other thing is not only just about saving money, it's about safeguarding our folks. And so right now- I think that's the most important part of this is that it creates a balance. I mean, eventually we're gonna staff fully up, so I don't think this is a money issue. I think this, to me, is a safety issue and making sure, like you said, military, other things, sickness happens. When you look at it, where's that balance? So this is a good tool to help us as we're having to be more creative today in recruitment. We talk about this all across the city. It's not just a fire department. It's the same thing that we're, you know, that's why we would like to have red light cameras and speed cameras, so that we could put people chasing crimes instead of chasing speeders. We're just, we're in a different time than we were four years ago, and we gotta change. So we need all the tools we can get. I think Mr. Brennan had a question. Chief, unless you wanna say something to follow up on. I just wanna follow up on Mr. DeVall's question while I was on mine. So I don't have a conversation with Chief Ford and something I can tell you right now he's been a significant savior for them using the part time. And Chief Davis from Lexington and I have been talking, we actually gonna put together a team with our operating chief, our training chief and our safety chief to talk about how we can really make this work. So we are, it is moving forward as we speak and we're gonna have, be having those conversations. I just wanna make sure we're also on mine to clarify your question. Thank you, great. And Chief Roche, I think this is a fantastic path forward not only for recruitment retention catching up, but also just the growth that's come into the Midlands that the firefighting force is gonna have to tackle. So what's the timeline for putting something like this into place if you think about the census year fire department essentially that I'm sure we would have to work something out. And I guess we would have to put a line item in the budget specifically to fill this part time staffing as you all move forward. So how quickly can you get it up and running? Well, the fire chief has just mentioned that he's already working. So this is a priority for us. And I don't wanna speak for Chief Jenkins but it has been tasked as I won't say number one but a very high priority for staff. And so we've already kind of got our assignments. I met with the volunteer coordinator this morning. I spoke with the training chief this morning. Really it's gonna depend on how this meeting goes. And if everyone says yes. And then again, that budget, we get that line item. Things we can do before that budget line item is there is to go ahead and start advertising, start working behind the scenes things. A lot of firefighters, we're all connected. It's a large but small community. So sometimes what do we say a telephone, a tele firefighter, I'm sure this is live. So I'm sure the word's already spreading now that this is something that we're pushing forward with. So I think we can spin it up fairly quickly based on the budget. But as far as getting the word out and getting the process in place, I believe we can do it. So a university student who has no backgrounds in being a fire professional, what's the training aspect look like if they wanted to become a part-time team member? Sure, so you're looking at about three to four. We're already training these individuals, they're just volunteers. And some of them, because of the way their schedule works, they actually come and they work 24 hours or they volunteer for 24 hours and they take 48 off. They come back for 24 hours. This would just be a way to reward them monetarily and to keep that practice going. There's other fire departments that see what we're doing and have already offered some of those. They get paid to go through the training is what you're telling me. They get reimbursed. Reimbursed. Really, they get reimbursed through the volunteer system. And again, that's where that volunteer versus part-timer really, because right now we even have to make sure we say things correctly and that we do things correctly so we're not violating any FLSA laws. But I think Chief just spoke to growth. Again, this opens up a whole world. Chief Adams with Fire Prevention Project, all the new things that are going on seems like every day I turn on Facebook, the Chief's out in front cutting a red ribbon and that's what we want. So is that something that we could also explore making sure that we sense a lose? A volunteer currently could also be currently categorized as a part-time if they wanted to. We would have to create a line in the budget and then have some type of code because again, right now they're being reimbursed and through laws and rules, we cannot reimburse them over a certain amount of money without violating a rule. That was something Chief Adams was working on before he retired. And is that something we can work into the contract negotiations coming up? So to the next slide here, we've got the recap and again, this is high energy. This is exciting stuff. This is things that we've been working on. We were just talking to Dr. Davis not too long ago. Seems like a year into making now that we've been trying to find creative ways. Everybody around the country is trying to find that way to make their departments better. So the new two-phase process for annual leave usage, again, that accountability, making sure that we are not only a flexible department, but also holding folks accountable for that potential use of part-time firefighters. I think we covered that well. Some of the benefits that definitely are there, some of the challenges that I'm sure we'll be able to accomplish. And as staff continue to work to find creative solutions, I don't think we're done. Chief Jenkins is pushing us in the right direction so we have to keep working to be creative. We have to find ways to continuously improve going back to that accreditation model. And then some of the advantages of the proposed recommendations. Again, the new two-phase process for annual leave, approved accountability, we've spoken on that. Flexibility in annual leave, allowing our members to have the flexibility where they're not picking a year in advance. Or when life happens, they're able to make some adjustments and we're able to help out as well. And then potential for a decrease in non-FLSA over time. Again, holding folks accountable. If you're scheduled to be at work and you are not sick, we need you at work. This is where you need to be. And then part-time firefighters. The number one thing is a potential recruitment tool. Keeping our firefighters safe. Mr. Mayor, you mentioned how busy we are. Maybe it's a situation where our folks have respond to a critical incident and we're able to call in some part-timers and allow those folks to go home and to take that mental rest that they so desperately need at that time. Potential for a decrease in non-FLSA over time. Perhaps we're using our part-timers on this day and not paying that overtime rate to have that position going. And then potential overtime savings as well. Question real quick. Are we gonna still continue to use volunteers in addition to part-time? I think we have to because not every volunteer will be able to do this. So like, for example, we have some volunteers that do very well and their real jobs, their secular career. We've got doctors, we've got lawyers, we've got the garbage truck individuals, right? And if they're happy doing that profession, then we're okay with that and we'll take whatever they give us. And I wanna stress too on the volunteer side as the former volunteer coordinator, when we recruit volunteers, it's not always for firefighters. It's whatever they wanna do to benefit the community. We've got one individual. She's not a firefighter. She makes it very clear. Although she just went through training, she finally came around. But she helps out with our social media. She helps out with our marketing. She helps out with our recruitment efforts because she's thinking from things in a different world than we are due to her secular job. Any additional questions? If not, I'll turn it over. Yes, sir? In the last two or three days, I think, we've had some horrific fires all over the city, but particularly District 2, Chestnut Street and Oak and Pendleton Street, terrible fires. Devastated, I mean, it could very well devastate each. And I wanna thank you all. I wanna thank you and the Chief. Thank you all so much for your due diligence in getting that fire, both of those fires contained. There was no injuries from what I understand. I was able to witness both of those fires. The manpower and the sister power were there. And of course, we were able to eliminate them. Just wanna say a word of thanks as we go through this document. I would be remissed if I didn't say something about what you all have done for this city of ours. Thank you all so much. Sir, and I would say that I agree. I think we have the best firefighters bar none. And maybe I'm looking at it from a skewed vision, but I wouldn't be a part of an organization if I didn't feel it was the best. And I truly feel that. But also, yeah, maybe, yeah. But also before I turn it over to Chief Olson and Chief Jenkins, I'll say thank you all. We can't do what we do without the support of city management and council as well. Getting into the pay plan and where we are in the hard work and the long hours of staff, the emails, whether it's on a holiday or a night or a weekend, it truly has been a team effort. So I would say from every firefighter and every employee that works for the Columbia Fire Department, thank you for the consideration moving forward. Chief Olson. Afternoon, Assistant Chief Olson. I'm here. Thank you, Mayor, Councilpersons, city manager here to talk about employee compensation. This study, we talked about it before. So we're going back over the same thing that we talked about in the past. In 2021, Evergreen Solutions was engaged to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the city Columbia's current system, collect salary data to study internal equity and adjust the current compensation system to better reflect the market. Now, doing this analysis, they did the whole city as one, Evergreen just didn't do the fire department. But I'm here to talk about the fire department. So we can get down to the nuts and bolts. As a result, the market study and some additional work by the consultant made the follow recommendations, establish new pay grades and pay grades and a step program for sworn firefighters with corresponding pay adjustments. New pay ranges are being recommended as well for non-public safety positions throughout the city. Next slide, please. Now, this current map chart, y'all have seen before, and the way we based those numbers, you can see we also have the call volumes on the side. When you look at our call volume, and let's just take, say, let's look at murder beach call volume, we double the call volume what murder beach does. And if you look at our current pay versus their current pay at that time, which some of these on this list, their current pay has changed. We don't have those numbers on this list. But when you look at that, you can see a big disparity. Next page, please. Now, based on Evergreen solution market survey, fire salaries are approximately 12% below other departments within the state, which is in line with the same study that we conducted ourselves. Proposed solutions. Step one, create new pay grades for fire using salary based on $43,800 for firefighters. Step two, is to bring the employees to the minimum and increase salaries by 3% and take it to the closest step. Now, the estimated cost, estimated cost in the city, as you see highlighted in blue, is $1.48 million. And that's with, that's being fully staffed and with the fringes. You can go to the next slide. Now, here's an example of the chart, just like the police department, you know, the police department have their grade, I think there is under 200s, and the firefighters, the fire department will be in the 300s. And this is how a proposed minimum would look. So currently, you notice on the previous slide, our firefighters are right at $34,000, you know, but now once they come, once we get this rolling, we'll be at 43,8. So the total compensation back up for the city and county just to implementation of this is $2.8 million. We have any questions? Mayor, you're smiling, you like it, right? Is yes, that's part of it, but we got house renovations and everything else. So I wanna make sure that we're not just addressing one issue, we're making sure that we give ourselves cushion. And then the other thing is I wanna make sure that, I don't know how to say this the right way, but. You say it. I wanna make sure that the people who earn the pay get the pay. And those who just glide by and do the thing, you know, in this scenario, there's an automatic you get, you're getting it, no matter what. So how do you reaffirming that moving forward? Everybody needs to be brought up. We all agree to that. But moving forward, you shouldn't guarantee a 3%. If you're working the minimum and you're the guy who's taking every day off everything else and the one who's causing the problems, why should you get rewarded? Well, I don't, I don't understand how that works. Conceptually, I get this part. Well, I'm glad you liked that part. But everything that we have talked about today, I think we stress that the importance of accountability. We looked at, we were, Chief Jenkins gave us direction and we took that and ran with it. We listened to what you, what you were brought up. We listened to Dr. Brussels. We looked at Brennan. We looked at every single thing that y'all brought up. I mean, we're listening. Even Councilman Taylor, you know, we paid attention to the things and we want accountability. Cause with that, I'm the budget guy. So I need sustainability because it does no good for us to have something. And then the next year we come back, say, Part of it is starting this pay plan. Part of it is us doing the annual, changing the schedule for their annual leave. Part of it is holding them accountable for the sick leave. Part of it is the part time. Part of it is holding each one of us accountable. When we get up in the morning, we stress to look ourselves in the mirror and say, okay, how can we improve what we do? And I can guarantee, now I don't want to put a guarantee on that, but our guarantee is that we're gonna work as hard as we can to do what we can to make sure that we hold them accountable. Because we're not only accountable for you all as the, you know, the protectors of the city or the guiding light for the city, but we serve the citizens every day that we get on and off that truck. And I can tell you with the conversations Chief Jenkins had with us and in our group settings, we would be remiss if we didn't come here wholeheartedly thinking that this is possible and that we can move this forward. And with this pay change and getting us competitive, we're the best department in the state. We are the state capital and we should be the best department. And when you talk about the housing, we're working hand in hand on, and that's my responsibility. We're working hand in hand with support services in the city and in the county to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to so that they can have somewhere safe and equitable to let it, you know, to work out of it. Everybody's watching, but I'm correct to say that the county's finally approved the second set of gear so we can actually get that done. Is that correct? That's working through procurement as we speak. You had a county, the county has sent their letter over. We approved it a year ago, I'll just say it. That's my understanding, yes, sir. They have, I would add Assistant Chief Folsom that about two weeks ago you all promoted, was it 30? How many positions were promoted, 34 or 23? And we stood there. I know a lot of council members couldn't attend that night but Dr. Bussells and Reverend McDowell did and you put us on the spot to get up east in between Dr. Bussells and Reverend McDowell, you know, shaking each one of their hands and having a really good time with them as a matter of fact. But one of the things that I know I've attempted to challenge them without coming out saying it, knowing that we were working through these discussions is that the command is one thing. All of you in this room today, y'all have done a phenomenal job of presenting this information. You are advocating as you should for the team but those promoted have a responsibility as well to make sure that if we are able to move forward with these proposals that they go back and they communicate that properly, they help you educate and they hold these firefighters responsible and accountable for what we're presenting. And I feel like if presented correctly Mayor and Council, the sustainability part you're talking about needs to resonate because it can't just resonate with Chief Jenkins or through Chief Jenkins or Chief Folsom or Chief Kip or Chief Brochus. It has to come from the boots on the ground. They have to feel it. The culture has to change. They have to own it and that's my expectation or there's, I mean, I was, I meant that. I mean, this isn't something, this isn't easy work what we've been doing the last few weeks, it's worth it but they have to be a part of it very actively and engage to communicate what that means to and what jeopardy it puts you all in each other if we're running right and short and abusing over time and those things. Yes, ma'am. These measures I think put a better system in place. So if everybody's on the same page about that but it can't just be you all in this room it has to be that leadership that you just promoted and everybody, it has to trickle on down and I felt that in the room, you know, the families were there, we spoke to the families and the sacrifice that everyone is putting into the career path that's been chosen is meaningful. I mean, they get it. The families certainly seem to get it and I do feel like, you know, the wages not just because we've done a study that underscores that we're below where we need to be but we want these folks to be choosing career paths where they wanna be promoted like you just did and where they believe in the system and the culture is changing. I think that's the key about it being sustainable. Miss Wilson. Well, I think it's a blend and we hear a lot and there's, and I think part of that is making sure that they're engaged in the conversation and they're all but as we talk about this compensation package, you know, I mean, this is about 90% of the department is getting an adjustment. I guess my next question really is what, you know, it says $2.8 million but the reality is it's really more than that because this is not accounting for the new staff coming on or where we need to get to. So what we really need to start looking at is what's the real cost for this because we gotta have more bodies. I mean, because this is just getting us where we are today and what we know right now is we're still short. And so what is the real number when we get there? It's the number. This is it. This is the number. And I asked them to run that number at Fully Staff, Marianne, to go, when we met with the county to go over the number with them at Fully Staff as well so that they could plan accordingly. And there's some discussions going on. I mean, very valuable discussions. I think the county administrator, you know, understands it, very receptive. We all budget in the work that we do not just with public safety, but city or countywide. You don't always budget at 100% because you know you're gonna run vacant seats and all that. But in this instance, we felt like we needed to run the numbers at Fully Staff. What's the Fully Staff number? Personnel wise, 454 on the street. And right now we're at 458, but that counts administration. Yes. So how much would it be totaled in if 454 is on the street? 508 is total for, you know, staff admin as well. So we're talking about another 54 people. They need to be hired. And Ms. Wilson, back to your part. Yes, sir. We listened when you spoke as well. Chief Jenkins has already, we already got a meeting schedule. So even, you know, if this pay plan will go through, we're gonna address the accountability. We're gonna address the scheduling. We're gonna address the sick time use. So he's already, we already put that into motion. Well, I wanna make sure we're addressing the concerns too that we hear, you know, making sure that the resources and this part of this conversation goes deeper. And I think Ms. Wilson and we've had this conversation about moving forward that, you know, we gotta have a fire contract, not a fire and agreement because the costs, we need to make sure that we have the equipment, the safety, the factors, the backup equipment, all the things that are necessary. And we gotta figure a better way to get things done because I gotta be quite honest, the fact that it takes us a year to get a second set of gear when we voted on it, literally a year ago, and it shouldn't be that way. And this is where I do think that Mr. Brown is working much closer with us from the county side, but we gotta figure out a way to compress that because I do think that affects because we made a commitment to the fire department for that second year, a year ago. And now we're, everybody's looking at us, well, yeah, they're gonna make this. I can hear them right now. Oh, they're gonna make this commitment to this, but we're gonna wait a year to see it because it's unfortunately, it's what's before us. But I do wanna make sure that we're continuing to address the other issues. And I think you'll see that pay is always in the top five. And look, let's be realistic. We're gonna make a 9.2% adjustment here. And in two weeks after this goes in, somebody's gonna raise rates somewhere else. We can't continue to try to match everybody. So we need to make sure that everybody understands what they actually have. And I mean, nobody has made their base pay in five years that I can find, nobody. But we also need to understand the value of our benefits. But we also have to make sure that we're investing in our houses. That's a value where people are. Equipment is a value. We talk about the clean rooms and other stuff. Those commitments that we've got to make that happen. And so I think as we continue to move forward, we need to address that. But we gotta have a plan. We make this adjustment. Y'all, I'm serious. We are not gonna be able to forward $166,000 a month in overtime because it's not sustainable. So as we do this, we need to think about how this affects recruitment. I love the part-time idea. I think anything that we can do creative, I was serious about the calls. I worry about our guys constantly going to every wreck and everything. I think it's not good for them. I don't think it's good for the equipment. And I know they love being there and doing their job. But at some point that we put more risk and wear and tear on our human capital and our mechanical cap by doing that. Those calls cause more wear and tear than they'll go into a fire. And I do have concern about that. I think as we move down the road, that's something we need to look at as a city. But I think we need to be conscious when we make that decision, we gotta make sure that we're working together to levelize. And I know recruitment's a big part of it. That's why I think some of these innovative ideas, y'all are talking about it that we've been through. And Mr. Mayor, I will echo what you're saying. I don't think nobody in this room would worry more about these guys out in the field than I do. That's why I go out there with them. I'm always out there with them because I worry so much about them. And I wanna make sure, I also do wanna say this, I know we compare ourselves to people. I just wanna do what's right for Columbia. You know, that's my whole opinion. I'll be honest, I don't give a damn about anybody else but the city of Columbia. And I'm just gonna be honest about that. And also, I will say this, as a matter of fact, Chief Kemp and I met with the division chief this morning before we even came to this meeting to lay out some expectations on what's going forward. And I am going to call a mandatory meeting with every chief officer in the department and all expectations going forward. And we got a golden opportunity. And she was talking about all those promotions that we did. We got a golden opportunity so we got some fresh minds in some key places right now. I think we need to make sure that we're harvesting those ideas. I think those guys got a lot of information, institutional knowledge, ideas. And they need to know that they can bring those forth. And I think when you show this plan that everybody understands what that means, you know. I think it needs to be clearly delivered so there's no confusion. Look, this is a plan moving forward. You can choose your path. And I think it's very important how y'all deliver that message. Any more questions? I got a question for the city manager probably. That when do we have to wait for the new contract between the city and the county to get rid of the estimate for the city cost and estimate for the county cost? When will we reach the point where the city of Columbia providing a county-wide service and the county government buys into that service by helping this fund? I think the next contract, Dave. I mean, you know, to not, well, it may help put a little context behind that question and Missy and I can go through the next few slides pretty quickly, but the reality is they have to budget either way. You know, they've got to have, they've got to understand what the needs are, particularly if we're going in this direction because the costs will be more. And simultaneously we need to be having those discussions, Mr. DeVall, about the contract. And they're aware of that. I mean, there's not a time that we have this conversation to the point of even how, you know, and I'm being, I get it. It's about the brand and how historically, you know, the citizens of the county are made to feel and understand that they are gonna be protected. So Columbia Richland Fire, but I think a lot of that, if I had to give my opinion about it, is that we over the years have morphed into something that makes it feel less than a contractual relationship. There's not a time that you hear me talk about it even when I am careful about the wording on these presentations. It's Columbia Fire Department is a contractual relationship that we have to serve that hasn't really been the narrative over the many years. Yeah. We've simplified this thing, so it'll change it. Yeah. I don't think that's part of our problem. It's divided, but it's really not divided. The Chief has never treated the service even though it's a contract in any way, like he just said, different than making sure all the citizens of Columbia Richland County are protected, period. When it gets down to the negotiations and is it a contract, it is a contract, but it doesn't feel like it is. I'm not suggesting that it should feel that way, but we do have to meet our costs and we do have to know with clarity that the funds are gonna be there if in fact the county's expectations that every firehouse is covered and no one's riding short and all the personnel's in place. So if we give a number, it should be a number that's respected and budgeted for on their end. And I'm not saying that where we are right now that that isn't being received, at least on the staff side, I deal with the staff. So the administrator and his team have been wonderful in receiving the information. Oh, I can, yes. Mr. Mary, if you would. I wanna go back just a minute. A year ago, we fought vehemently to get new equipment, new gear into the... This is ridiculous, man. This is really disgusting. We just talked about it, that's why you're gone. All right, well, let me go away. What I'm gonna say, let me say what I need to say, I had to leave out. Hey, we gave you a plug, don't worry. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's, look, I talked to firefighters this past Sunday. You know, the question they asked me, when are we going to get our new gear with them? That's the question they asked me. And of course, being who I am and some of the things that I said, oh, you're gonna get it. I think it's ridiculous, man, that we approved this a year ago after much dialogue and we ain't got new gear. And I hate to say it this way, we ain't got no new gear yet. These guys, these guys, these guys who run in and out of cancerous materials, jeopardize in their lives, but we don't have new gear. I think it's a shame and it's an abomination. And excuse me for overlapping what you all have already done. But I needed to say that. Thank you. And based on what you saw yesterday, those two days, you're sorely needed. Yeah, I mean, and I'll admit it. I mean, you got chances of burns, steam burns and everything else. And that's what we've been talking about. That's what we were just saying as we move forward, getting this contract set up so that we're not in this situation. When decisions are made, we can move forth with it and get it done. What are the time parameters for that particular time? I'm not missing, you were our goal between, you were the person that we talked to. I talked to you on chance to see about it. What are the times then? You wanna come on up anyway, because we're gonna be. Are you talking about the timeframe on the gear? The gear, the gear, the gear is at procurement. And yes, sir. And since it's grant funded, we have to make sure that we're doing it the right way. So it is already at procurement, going through that process. We're getting close. Closer than we've been ever been. I wanna hear that. And I feel better when they come on site. Mr. McDowell. And we get that gear. We want you to come and hand out the, no, we want you to hand out the first out of gear, okay? No. Thank you, Bo, very much. Thank you, thank you. So just a little clarity on funding sources. As we hopefully continue to work with the county, but I wanted to make sure you all had some clarity because it gets a little confusing about fees that are charged and millage rates and that sort of thing. But these are some good options and we're gonna end with one that, you know, can't hint hopeful that as we continue our discussions with the county staff, may be a good solution if in fact, the city and the county are to move forward with the proposed pay plan. So a little history on fees, the fire hydrant fee, and Missy will go through these fairly quickly, but it's important for you all to understand, you know, legislatively how any of these are changed and there's a little nuance for each one of them. So we'll start with fire hydrant fees. The fire hydrant, thank you, Ms. Wilson. Fire hydrant fees are added to, they're added to the water bill as a mechanism for billing. And they are included on all out-of-city customers. The current rate for, and there's a variations of rates depending upon your different service types, but residential rate is $10. It was last increased in July of 2019 and it's applied to all out-of-city customer bills. Second, we have fire service fees. This fee is also has been, was established in 1979, so it's been around for a little while. It's been increased one time since it was established and that was in July of 2015. It also was applied to out-of-city customers. Those funds are remitted to the county. The city does not retain these funds. Their help to offset the cost of the fire service for the out-of-city areas. And this is also remitted in addition to Richland County. It's now also remitted to Irma Fire District and Lexington County Fire Districts for those properties that are located within city limits. Finally, we have fire millage. Fire millage is set by Richland County, collected by Richland County. The city of Columbia receives the city of Columbia's portion. The other jurisdictions receive their portion and of course, Richland County would retain the unincorporated areas. The current millage rate has been the same for the past five years. The mills have stayed the same. County has not raised the mills either. It should be the conversation that we have lined up with the chairman and others is to do a true audit and make sure that we're actually collecting what's owed us. I think there's a lot more property that's not paying taxes that should be paying taxes. And you know, do you start adding that up? That could be quite a bit of money to come to us. So I think we need to make sure that some of that's done first before we go straight to raising taxes. Fire hydrant fees though, are paid from non-property taxpayers, right? Since it's via the water bill. That's correct. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The millage rate is eligible to be adjusted up 1.8 mills based on the private budget. Our millage rate is the same way as the regular property. Yes, sir. And it's only 1.8. It's 1.8 right now. That's the only, there's the two factors. It's the population and CPI. This is just on the population. I think the CPI is still, or it's the vice versa. So only one portion of it. They do. If they, it's the county's decision though. It's the county's option. We get 17 in one part of it. And then again, property tax as well. So you know, there's so many different excessive oil. But I do think we have, you know, again, it comes down to both legislative bodies and the timing of budgets that are certainly in motion and funding sources that the county is clearly looking at. So again, I understand about auditing certain things and other properties and that certainly needs to be done. Whether or not that's gonna be done before decisions will have to be made about moving forward with not only the buyer pay plan, but I think the county's also beginning to look at as we transition 911 and how they're gonna afford to do some things they have to do. So while this hasn't been adjusted in the last five years, yet certainly not trying to speak for the county, just in discussions we've had, I do believe this is something that is on the table, at least to be considered and looked at. And if it were, then obviously this would be a mechanism that would fund, because it's reoccurring, would fund a pay plan that we propose that has steps in it. So the obvious choice by this manager would be that it's funded by something that's a sustainable way to fund it, because I don't have another obvious solution for you on how to do that. And if this is something the county is looking at, then I'm not here discouraging them from doing it. Looking at it by any means, because that's their choice to make. Missy, for the revenue streams for the fire department, the hydrant fee, the service fee, the fire millage, do we rely on any other revenue streams, state, federal grants, what are the other revenues? So of course the city's portion of the fire department is in the city's general fund, so it's supported by property taxes and other revenue, but business license, other revenues of the general fund. Of course, the fire department does also seek and receive some grant funds. There are more grant funds that we're certainly be going after. Right. That's the good of that coming into play. There will certainly be something that we need to not only talk about, but to do. This is the information that we have for you regarding possible funding sources. And at some point we'll have to make our decisions about which direction we wanna go. And of course we're continuously in conversations with the county and sharing information with them as they make similar decisions. The last, do you have any questions about that? The 1.8, well if the county were to make the millage adjustment for 1.8 mills, it would generate approximately one and a half million dollars on the city side. Yes, sir. Me, Ms. Wilson, that there's, I think you're right in terms of how hard this decision is, can be, but it would seem to me that there are two essential priorities that I look at. One, of course, is, of course, the love of the city. The second priority, of course, is the man and woman power that's in the fire department. So it becomes a collaborative, and I can't say one over the other because both are important. The city's approach to this has to be, has to have attached to it a human aspect. And that human aspect is varied when you look at it holistically because it becomes a health, security, and safe issue. Yes, sir. I want us to really dive into the weeds as we discuss this thing, to make sure both of those things are both of those questions, and both of those concerns, while too prone, we can get at the very heart of this thing. I think it's how you narrate those three points, health, humanity, safety to our citizens. It's one thing to, you know, over time, which I think is very noble as policy makers, you know, even on the city side, to say we haven't increased taxes for 12 years and we haven't, we don't advocate. No one does want to increase mileage or fees or taxes. But when you narrate it based off and directly tie it to a service that is directly tied to humanity, health, safety, it has to be tied to what the cost is actually covered, which this is one of, the one or one of, I guess, you know, it's the fire millet. It's what it is for. But, you know, that's the manager interpretation. I get it. I understand the, you know, those are hard decisions to make. I think also we got, we talked about it before and I think it's time to have a real discussion about it. But I think this is where the state, the university and other folks who get this service are paying. It's not fair to continue to put it on the small businesses, the homeowners and everybody else when these larger institutions have the ability to, and if you think about it, you got basically six universities and colleges here. You got state government, others, if they would just, we're not asking them to foot the whole bill, but if they would contribute, it shouldn't be on everybody else's. And I think this is where we just need to have a frank conversation about that with everybody and find out a way that we can do that before we have to go back to the same people because, you know, if you put it on the water bill, yeah, the argument is everybody pays a water bill, but you look at some of the people who are paying all the other bills, it doesn't change that. So I do think this is a great opportunity for us to have just a frank, hey, here's the situation and you wanna keep having the coverage we need you to contribute. And I think that's a fair ask in today's atmosphere because the costs are everywhere. Yes, ma'am, Ms. Herbert. I just had a quick question. Ms. Wilson, you said that if there was an increase of the 1.8 mils, what would be the additional funds? Approximately one and a half million dollars took towards the city. Oh, I believe it. And so one last item, just because it'll show up on your next council agenda, and I know some of you've been tracking on the, which relates back to the contract negotiations, but the consultant that the chief has engaged. Yeah, so through previous conversations, we were tasked with trying to find a consultant basically to do a study of the fire service. Where can we make improvements? Then going back to that accreditation model, continuously improvement, how do we get better? How do we provide better service? How do we do it in equitable fashion that's also cost effective? So we found a consultant. We've been through the procurement process. I wanna, I guess it's appropriate to give a shout out, but I want to to our staff at procurement and budgeting. They've been phenomenal to work with as well as PMO keeping us on track with several major projects, this being one of them. So they guided us through the project. We went through a consortium, which means the city had to join a group of individuals. So it really cut down on the bid process and the time process and shaved out six months and made sure that we received the best value for cost. And so we selected a consultant. It should be on your agenda coming up in the next few weeks. So we'll just talk about the four phases. For one, it's a very in-depth study. Six months long is how long it's gonna take us. Phase one, project initiation and site visit. This is where they're gonna send their team here to Columbia. The goal of this is not only to study the, what we do as far as firefighting in the city, but holistically throughout the county. So Columbia, Richland, all of it. Is the contract that we have, is it appropriate? Do we need to make adjustments? We hear you at the table in regards to, we need to make some updates. Well, now this will allow us to have a chance to do that. And those suggestions will come from outside of this area. So it's a different look on. And then two baseline agency evaluations. So we'll study, do we need to improve here? There, I think there's been some talk of combining with EMS, what would that look like? This is all what this study is designed to do. Phase three, future opportunities for cooperative efforts. So that's actually the part about EMS. I misspoke, I apologize. Also, do we need to increase our staffing? What does that look like? What's that look like to the budget? How do we plan for those costs moving forward? And then phase four, development, review, and delivery of the final project report. I'm personally excited about this project and talks with Chief Jenkins and other staff members. I feel that after we get this study done, I think the next step we should then take is to work on our five-year strategic plan. Our current strategic plan runs from 2018 to 2023. So basically the goal would be we take what the consultant has suggested and of course we have to balance it. Some of it we may be able to do. Some of it we may not be able to do fiscally to be honest with you. But we set a strategic plan for the next five years. Some of its facilities or vehicles or staffing, whatever those recommendations are and we continuously improve as a fire department and work our way to the international accreditation model. Any questions on that? Yeah, as you ask questions about staffing, I think the other question we ought to ask while you have a group at your disposal is what if we don't get the staffing? What technology, what other programs, what's out there that help us fill the void? Because at the end of the day, we gotta ensure we have safety and service both to our firefighters and our constituents. And so I'm deeply concerned that there's such a trend right now of people not going into service like there was before. Both fire police in general, even government employees, we see it everywhere. Everybody's talking about shortness and why they can't get the service. So I think asking the question, what's out there that we're not taking advantage of that we should? And while you've got them here on the payroll, ask the questions to the experts. I think that is a very, very good topic to talk about. And some of these conversations we're already having, no Chief Jenkins, he's part of the Metro Fire Chiefs in South Carolina where they all meet. It's again, it's the same problems not only throughout the state but the country. Chief Adams, when he travels to conferences, when I travel, Chief Olson, that's why it's important for us to sometimes get out of this area and have those intentional conversations with other fire chiefs, with other individuals that are on our peer levels to say, hey, what are y'all doing? I speak to an individual at Richmond Fire. The city of Richmond in Columbia when it comes to the fire service are very similar in challenges. There's a peer there that's on the same level I am. Hey, how do we support the fire chief? What do we need to do here? What are some creative things you all are doing? So there's times with Richmond Fire, we're sharing policies. How do we update things? They're looking at stuff we're doing, we're looking at stuff they're doing. That's how you collaborate, I think, in this business to better your community as a whole. And I would ask them, the other question I would ask them is should we be making all the service calls that we are without being reimbursed or is that putting too much stress on our total system? Should we just leave it all to EMS? I think that'd be another question. In the fire service, and I think after this, UI and Chief Jenkins can have some further talks as far as when it comes to community risk reduction and some things nationally that are going on. We were on the Zoom yesterday at two o'clock talking about this very same topic. And we pointed out to some of the things you've said and how you're looking at things from a different perspective from most politicians. And I think we have something very unique here in Columbia from a staff level to a city management level to our HR director working well with us. We are in a very special place. How do we capitalize on this moment and project further into the future? Chief, it's... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The four phases, you said six months until we have a final study. How does this change the approach, strategy, timeline for the renegotiation of the contract for full services? I mean, have we thought about that? I believe the Chief was working on an extension. I think we want to... Another extension or just... An extension, we've already... Okay, so the extension that we agreed on for another year under the current... I mean, this should wrap up within six months. Yes, ma'am. So the goal is this should also help us to formulate the next contract. So the goal was to have this done before the extension is complete. So we go into those negotiations to help the county and the city make an informed decision. We will study the county's operations as far as the volunteer service. Yes, sir, this is a... So the way that this study actually is designed, we're a little bit ahead of it, it's actually designed to take two different agencies and figure out how do they merge together and start working better together as one. We're already kind of at that step, but this is, again, going to help us. The third party will help. Yes, sir, absolutely. Yeah, thank you. I agree with you, Mr. Brennan. Let me ask this question. I think this, when you look priority-wise at the four phases, where, and I'm sure it's embedded in one of those phases, where is that whole element of the loop here embedded in one of those, in either one of those phases? Because I think that is just equally important. I want to say it somewhere. You didn't spill it out specifically, but I'm sure it's embedded there somewhere. Absolutely, so the first thing they're gonna do is find out where we are. That's, I don't think we can recruit and we can even talk about that until they... Yes, sir, until they understand where we are as an agency and then what's the goals of council? What's the goals of city management and leadership? Where do you all see us being? And then we start talking about those individual topics. So I would say somewhere around that phase three, when it comes to future opportunities, even though we're recruiting now in the present, again, to use all point is, how do we continue to get creative? How do we continue to attract individuals to a business or a service that not many are attracted to these days with the new generation? How do we use technology to do that? Well, as long as it's been thought through, we get into that point that helps you. The actual scope of work, and we didn't put it in these packets for time purposes, and we can certainly get those to you, the actual scope of work is about five to six pages thick of a decent reading material that I think covers a lot more in depth than I went into. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, unless you have questions, okay. Thank you all so much. Thank you, team. Thank y'all.