 Full attendance and it's seven o'clock So we're gonna open the meeting Call the order We have any additions to the agenda Bruce now for me Anybody else Under penalty of death Okay, we don't have any additions to the agenda Um public comment. I see it could be public here public comment. I don't see anything So I'm gonna turn the meeting over to East Montpellier fire department or let me let me call call us to order. Yeah Rick are you here Rick? Are you there? I was gonna introduce you to Rick. He's our a new board member and A couple other board members had some last-minute personal Stuff come up. So we don't have a quorum, but I'll still call it to order I just talked to Rick and he was gonna be Signing in so hopefully he can join us And I don't see is there a public comment or additions or changes to the callous agenda Yes, not. All right. Hi everyone beautiful day Oh There's Rick. Yeah, sorry to me a minute Yeah, I just called the meeting to order Rick. We don't have a quorum, but Katie's gonna take minutes okay, I Was gonna introduce you to the just gonna introduce you as our newest Board member. Is he going under an alias? Is it that Melanie? Melanie is Rick. Yes, I am I am I forgot that I forgot my mustache and plastic glasses, but Okay, so Melanie is Rick or Rick is Melanie. That's your newest board member. Yes, that is There's one and you have Rose here, too, right? No, Rose is not I am now Rose Excuse me. I think Rose is Rose. Nice to see everybody Rose is here Do you know who was on your select board just out of curiosity? Say what do you know who was on your select board? You have Rose and Melanie. No Rose is no longer on the board. Oh, okay. Oh, so you've got just Melanie then Yeah, just now Melanie aka Rick. Okay Sounds good Okay, everybody set for the East Montpelier presentation to the joint select boards Is that Toby? Yes, that's Toby. That's Toby. Okay So the agenda the first thing is financials I will put the financials I sent you up on the screen and we can have a discussion about it if there's questions step right up You're going over the balance sheet Yeah No Here we go Assets Seems like a lot in your checking account or not miss reading Yes, there's a lot in the checking account and we'll explain we'll explain some of that. Okay Any other questions on the balance sheet looks good Yeah Okay, this is a profit and loss by class. So this is the two the two budgets side-by-side Expenses and income. So the one thing that's new here is COVID So if you'll see here that we got a COVID grant for 17,995 to cover Unexpected expenses for PPE and other COVID related equipment in which which Number are you looking at? COVID grant for expenses under ordinary income 17,995 and there's also a COVID hazard pay in the amount of 42,155 dollars so That is gone directly to the paid staff as a bonus to them directly from the state for Putting up with a hazard of responding to COVID during the last year So that's almost $60,000 we didn't expect to have as part of our income Everybody understand that I know when you say that has gone directly to the paid members Is that that both of those lines or just the second one just the second one? Thank you And in this other line is to reimburse us for COVID related Expenses such as PPE and disinfectant and other materials of that sort How many did you have carries that were direct COVID emergencies or just you had to disinfect just to be sure Well, every patient we went to was a possible COVID person. So every time we went we had in 95s goggles scouts and stuff and Essentially, everybody was putting themselves at risk every time they went with an uncertain patient Okay, we did we did transport COVID positive patients as well as some that were potential COVID positive patients Okay All right, and so the hazard pay you just distributed among the Or did you just I'm not sure how you distributed that so Essentially anyone who responded during that period of time was eligible for us for a lump sum as far as Each individual and I don't remember what the total number was. There were actually two rounds of it There was one round for about 19,000 and then there was another round of 20 plus thousand So they you know, essentially everyone who worked during that period if you didn't work you didn't get the hazard pay It's only the people that were actually going out on calls during the period of time. Yeah, was that was that tax free? No, no Okay, so essentially that money is in our expenditure, but it's really also Covered by the state income that came in right so it's in and out So it doesn't really affect what we you know, it's not like we have $40,000 in our pocket. It came in it went out Yeah, and it doesn't have anything effect on them on the fire department or ambulance budget. Yeah Yeah, you just play in those two numbers, right? The only thing that that is effective is for expenses and as you as you get down here lower You'll see that there is COVID related supplies. Yeah 9,480 Yeah, so essentially we continue to have probably close to $7,000 to spend before the end of the year in that item because of the income right is 18,000 and we spent nine and a half. Yeah. Yeah I'm glad some folks got a bonus. That's great. Right. Well, they put their lives at risk for you. So They deserve it Um Everybody's looked at this. Do you have any other questions about line items? Essentially, it's just, you know, the end of February It's eight months in There's nothing that's really seems out of ordinary the only other Thing that we could look at is as of the end of February, we've already received 111,000 in revenue from insurance So I'm gonna say the insurance High Well, that's that's money coming into us right that's more than usual it is and it's right now. I'm looking I'm looking at expenses. Oh Well, and again just remember there's almost $50,000 of expenses that came in and went out right But it shows that they it shows that the insurance cost those I think what Denise is saying is $30,000 30,000 750 right No 37,000 right exactly But that's combined. Well Yeah, that's the two combined. Yeah, and what's the budget amount for the year? Yeah, that's what I don't see is what was budgeted. That's the same as salary I was just curious to know what the budgeted amount was for salary. I Mean we spent 207 I guess that's an inflated figure because that includes the 42,000 So 207 is where we're at as as expenditure through February the budget. It's 273 786 right there We have 66,000 left to spend before the end of the year on Salary right It's a little bit high because we're staffing two people in the day and two people at night and some people overnight So we're doing what we had told you we were going to do and Telling you that we were probably going to be over budget on that particular line item because we're staffing very fully To have the ambulance go out and not have days when there's only one person on Right and that's why that number is higher and You know next year's budget you guys are going to put another 37,500 in there, which is really where it's going to end up Topping out at because that is a full staffing model Yeah So you'll be a little over you're thinking by June 30 Well, if you go in eight months you're should be shooting for your budget about 66% and that's our item is now at 75 Right, so it's 10% over budget right now Right, and it's not going to drop because that's where we're trending In order to in order to get you know daytime and nighttime two people on for you know Essentially from seven right until midnight. Yeah But isn't that 207 inflated because of the 42 or is that not included? No, if you look just below that there's the 42. Oh, I see it It's separated out as we did that intentionally so that we could actually yeah what the real real salary impact was yeah I got it. Okay. This is this just sits here all by itself. No, no, I got it. Yeah Any other questions on the ambulance budget Did the answer was the answer given for people to understand what the budget was for the insurance I Didn't hear that I didn't hear that figure. What was the budget though the the ambulance is 30,750 for primarily workers comp portion of payroll and then the fire budget is the 40,000 for insurance which is largely the operational insurance and the building insurance So we're talking right here. So the budget line for insurance is 30,000. That's workers comp That's a portion of payroll and that's what that's what's in the insurance on you have your work much cop Oh, yeah, so this is only workers comp on the ambulance side Okay, there's nothing else there just workers comp and that's the number. It's just what you pay based on your on your payroll, right? So our payroll at 273,000 there's a $30,000 workers comp premium Yeah, what why doesn't say salary marshal? because March we we started them separately and with this part of what they do so Essentially, it's going to be just what we get collect from our shield. It was just it's just another way to do that It's part of the total. It's just has a separate line by itself Any other questions on ambulance? So moving on. This is the fire budget We've received all the funds from the two towns And you can see here. We're at 53 percent instead of 66. So we're actually under budget right now on the fireside So wood pellets is really is that the right line wood pellets Right, so we took an extra load of pellets this spring because There's another community group that buys pellets and in order for them to get a full delivery of a truck. They have to share with us So we added a little, you know, almost another Five 15 tons of pellets in this fiscal year. It's it's just a timing thing So we had an extra delivery that we didn't have last year. So it's gonna fall in here any further questions We'll keep in budget way up that must because you're hiding it from bookkeeper Pardon me You're bookkeeping budgets way up, right? Yeah, that's because we have father Gil do reports for us every month And and we're actually starting to you know, because we finally developed this so it's easy for her that should essentially flatten out. Yeah It doesn't require that much time and you know when she comes to a An emfd board meeting now we can cover these things in five or ten minutes instead of an hour when we were trying to make decisions about how to display all of this Okay And your bank charges. I assume that's rubber checks or something. I Can't tell you what that is. I don't know exactly what those things are but it must be a small amount because it's only $13 over budget set right. I got it, but I say a hundred fourteen percent I know and that's the only thing you that's the only thing you look at is how Much over it. Well, that's that's one Parameter that we should be looking at right, but if you look down here, we're at 50 53 So I got it. Yeah, so you're averaged it out and you're only 53 Congratulations, right because we are we're managing the money for you guys very well very well, right? You took the words right out of my mouth actually Okay That's it on financials unless there's any other questions What's what's that? What's the vaccination contract? Oh So that's something that just came up. So essentially this state of Vermont it has reached out to ambulance and EMS services to be vaccinators So we trained almost 20 people to actually participate We have an open-ended contract with them for up to a hundred thousand dollars So essentially this is just like the hazard pay when people work to vaccinate they get paid and we get reimbursed directly from the state So it literally has no No impact on the budget. It just comes in and goes out and we're what we're doing is paying the people that Get called to be vaccinators at these state-sponsored point of deliveries So just on the insurance on the revenue side for the ambulance What's it usually at at two-thirds of the year? Isn't it under a hundred thousand? Oh, yeah It's it's it's very high right now, which is great You know last year the total last year the total at the end of the year was a hundred and forty thousand dollars Right, and that was why we have four months left and we're at a hundred and eleven already Yeah, it's a lot it is we work hard to make that to bring those those into the town Okay Careful your arm is getting sore from pat yourself on the back, but that's okay. Well, I want you to hear the good news Okay So that sounds good Anything else? No, it looks good. All right. I will turn it over to Chief Okay, all right So you guys received in your pocket the transport statistics Yeah Yeah and You have on there on your first page on the two ambulance transport statistics, we have a total of 348 up to date and 130 of nine of those were no transports with 209 transports And then you can see by town What the category totals were by town for transport versus no transports? Yeah Any questions on that page? hearing none Your second page is the cost statistics total and even though it says 2018 on the top These are the current year You can see on the bottom Fire and medical the grand total of the date is 468 Where we are currently That puts us on track to be in that 650 700 calls a year range So these are all the calls that you got These are all the calls yet Okay, ambulance and fire ambulance and fire all right And I assume a lot of these are mutual aid Berlin very city But yes, those are Northfield we've been to Northfield a couple of times Peachham for fire So yes Those aren't on here, but they are down the bottom Where it says other the other is actually Northfield and it's just not in our system because that's not a regular and then Peachham is the one on there That's an ambulance, right? No, those are The Peachham is a fire and then there's a medical one as well. Yeah. Oh, there's two separate ones. Okay very cities had quite a few fires since The end of the years we've been going there frequently Yeah, there's been a couple I've seen on the news pretty Pretty wild They've had some very fortunate ones with people trapped that they've been able to get too fast enough to save them Yeah, right Any questions on the call logs? I just have one question. I thought I thought you were issuing burn permits and there's 49 visits to people's homes for Burn permit so burn permits that is through the start of the year till now We are not currently issuing burn permits over this two-week period Then we started on Monday until two weeks from now and then we'll reevaluate based on weather conditions and how dry it is But don't mind a COVID pandemic. I believe that there weren't burn pits of burn burn permits allowed, right? There was a period of time last year where we didn't run burn permits because or open burning because of the again primarily because of the weather conditions and how dry it was with the drought and as you can see as we start into this spring It's early, but we're already in drought conditions now that we need significant rain So even though the snow just melted everything is dried off with the breezes we've been having Right. Yeah, I'm just surprised there's 49. That's all Yeah, that's kind of surprise. Well, that's that's year to date. I mean there was times last year when they issued permits They're not issuing now if it's too dry and there's times last year they didn't issue because it's too dry But there's other times they did issue permits so right here today 49 I mean they added a large brush fire into it right now in Northfield Berlin over in the town over there They've got five or six agencies out and that we had gone to Northfield for structure for a second alarm structure fire Week and a half ago and add brush fire as part of that as well so Yeah goes will hold the permits and check for right now and you know We're gonna see a little bit of rain over this weekend, but it doesn't look like much Now we need rain bathy Yeah, dry in Florida to wicked dry Any other questions on the call logs or types of calls or where we've been for calls? Nope Community programs We do have masks available from the Ford mask program. We were able to hand out if people need masks We've gotten rid of some out there to the community, but we still have some left So people need them or you want some at the town offices. Let us know we have some bags available They can be handed out. We cannot use them on our ambulance because of the Specifications for them and can find space don't meet the standard for that, but they meet the standard for general use Just a update kind of quick on the holiday programs again even in the downturn of the economy and everything through the Colbert We had an exceptional year through the holiday program we had 38 families combined between Christmas and Thanksgiving with 38 children at Christmas time But we also had additional donations that it come in so we were able to make donations to The food shelves at the brick church here in Eastmount Bayer the senior center here in Eastmount Bayer and the Woodbury callous food shelf The other one is our smoke detector CEO program We've been able to finally reinvent or our smoke detectors During the the Colbert struggle of getting supplies and things we haven't been able to get the ones we need for our program where if we go out to residents whether it's for a faulty detector activation or for other reasons and It's determined that people need a smoke detector. We will leave one for them Their battery operated smoke CEO combos with that 10-year lithium battery in them Any questions on any of those or comments? Okay hearing none We did receive a callous notice of non-renewal And just a couple of things that ain't going forage with that is we'll have to have some determination of agenda in Timeline and how we accomplish this with the three parties For the interlocal agreement which has been in place since 2009 Any comments or questions on that? Okay Hearing no comments or things on that we'll have to work to establish a program going forwards or not the final item on the agenda was Capital West and that was a question from callous. So we'll let callous ask that question Yeah, you know, I don't know if everybody else receives these very long emails from Steven What's his last name? Whitcomb or Whitaker or something Steve Whitaker. He periodically sends out these emails And it's hard to send it's hard to I don't know who they all go to because most of the time It's all BCC and he's been raising all kinds of issues about Capital West and Money and all this stuff. So I just wondered if you guys had any insight and can help us understand What he's talking about does that does does he's not clear do you get those emails from Steve Whitaker? Yeah Yep Yeah, I don't I don't respond but it's just every little while, you know, he'll bombard us with a couple of Very long detailed emails So I just wanted to see if the fire department's getting them and if you have any insight into what he's talking about Well, he doesn't sound unreasonable with his Observation so no, he doesn't that's the thing. He doesn't sound unreasonable. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about Right, and I know that Bruce has been forwarding them on to the rest of select books. I think he gets them But we don't really know You know what the plan is with Capital West because it seems like that's what he's alluding to right what's gonna happen in the future I don't know. Have you been getting those? Toby or Ty So what's going on currently with Capital West and the CVPS a Group is there's currently a survey survey being done of all radio Equipment what including towers. There's going to be a survey sent to all the fire chiefs to Inventory all of our mobile radios all of our portable radios basically taking an overview look of what the current capabilities are of the system for each agency as well as what the problem areas are for each agency in terms of communication Some of the other things in terms of Capital West that we're working on is part of this is the Looking at the upgrade to tower capabilities If you it was simulcasting which means that all towers can talk to each other in dispatch at the same time If you think of yourself standing in a circle right now you talk one direction and talks to one tower If dispatch needs to talk through another tower to reach the farther region They actually have to manually switch to another tower to be able to transmit So part of what the survey is looking at and part of what the future estimations are on equipment is to Create the ability for each tower to talk to itself independently all at one time So when there's a broadcast on it would go through the whole region The other which will enhance our capabilities of communication in the field The other thing that's being worked on that's been worked on for a number of years To get full resolution to is Changing our frequency that we're on currently because of the traffic overfeed We receive a tremendous amount of traffic overfeed Explain you gotta explain what that is. I'm working on that. So from Canada They can talk from Canada and they can override our radio systems down here And so it can cause a lot of additional traffic and may not all be emergency traffic based on how they use the frequency up there and What happens is it gives us a lot of background noise or override where? dispatch has to sort through all of that additional communications through on the frequency and May or may not be able to hear us at times when we talk because the channel may be locked out by the overall communications going on So we've been in the process of getting new frequencies through the FAA And that's coming or not FAA sorry FCC And that is in the works. We're very close We have one more tower in Walden that we need to get approved to get the frequency change And once that happens then we would we would have to go through all of the agencies change all of our radio programming To be able to switch to this other frequency and that includes pagers portable radios mobile radios truck radios base radios Where's all the money going to come from? So part of this survey and part of where this would come from Is there is potentially federal grants that are available to pay for part of this There may be other revenues that need to come from Financing long term for some of the purchase of the equipment that would go into place as well Those answers are not in place currently. There's been nothing finalized and established The final quotes for all of this are not complete And that's where everything is at within the capital west system currently So and when he keeps and then in some of the emails he talks about the people on this capital west border Whatever, however, it's made up and who makes those appointments. How does that? I mean, are you're somebody for me some familiar and for callus woodbury Serves on some committee there. Is that the way I understand it? the capital fire and mutual aid which is made up of Towns all has representation On the committee or on the in the board We meet regularly and then they within that there is a communications committee. That's a subcommittee four people that participate And review pieces like this. They're working with the cvpsa what I can tell you is that I'm not going to Get into the semantics of the emails you're receiving what I would tell you is when There is official information to be released in an official capacity. It will be released Other than that, this is non official information You mean release to the towns or how what do you mean release to the towns when everything's finalized for the surveys? Again, this is a work in progress. It's not complete and when it's time for an official report to be done There will be an official report to complete it It's tell me what cvpsa central vermont public service What does cvpsa stand for? It's a public service group. It's been meeting for years Working on looking at dispatching services where they combine some of the things for dispatching How to make improvements to that And our dispatching is still done through month killer Our dispatching is done through capitol west which is based out of Mount failure police department. Yes Okay, that's what I thought that because he's mentioned that a few times something about that And there's no intent to change that we Okay Any other questions on capitol west? I'm sure they're I'm sure I will be sometime But it's just all of a sudden you get these very long emails and I read them But I don't totally understand it. So Katie, did you have a question? Can I ask a quick question? I'm sorry. I kind of missed like does capitol west mean And I wanted to kind of summarize it and I caught the details. Is capitol west itself Corporation or is it an organization like you're talking about with all the all the towns that participate? Capitol west is an organized group. It is an official organization. Yes So are those those meetings you have? Are they open to the public? Are there minutes? How does that work? They are open meetings. They are open to the public There are minutes Okay, so they must have a website then with all that information Um, I can't actually answer that for you. I've never been honored if there is one We received the information directly because we participate in the meetings. Yeah Well, I really I really appreciate your given us a little bit of background. It's very helpful I had a question Yeah I just wanted to say that um Towards the end of my term on the select board, which would be the end of february beginning of march Um, I was getting those emails too from that guy and it sounded to me like he really just wanted to stir the pot And he really wanted to bring up old old stuff like history Um, he asked me what my connection was with the fire department He asked me for documents if I had this or that or if I had minutes um, and so you know It it was just um, I don't know. I just got a bad vibe from him and um, You know, I just said look at I gave him the callus website And I said you could find, you know, the minutes there. Um, but it just seemed to me like he was really just Looking to stir the pot or stir up trouble And I wasn't really clear on what his intent was in the end Yeah, that's what I'm not that's what I'm not clear on is I don't know what he I don't know what he wants Yeah Yeah Yep, exactly Okay, any other questions on that Any other items that anybody wants to add to the agenda for discussion tonight? Can't think of anything Um, I guess I had another question. It's rose here. Um, when the Discussion about reopening the interlocal agreement or the contract and whatnot are those meetings going to be open to the public Since I'm not on the board anymore I think when callus when callus has those discussions um I'm not sure yet rose, but if it's it's about contracts. So we would probably go into executive session Okay And I don't I don't you know, I don't know. I think it's I just think it's a good opportunity for you know, everybody to Look at things and review documents and Just think about it Yeah, well if I could provide any historical perspective, um because I helped write that contract with everybody so Yeah, I Interested in helping. Yeah. Thank you rose. I remember one. We did it too. Yeah. Yeah, doesn't that um When is when does our agreement end that we have at the moment because we I don't think we have a lot of time to Get this done. I think that's kind of what um, ty was saying is Kind of want to get the ball rolling because it takes quite a lot of time and effort to redo these things I think well the contract ends on september 1st That's why and we're and we're required to give five months advance notice We want to reopen it to discuss any issues. So that's what we did Yeah, I assume you have issues identified and that'd be great when you can share them with the rest of us So we can get to work on this It does take a lot of work to hammer out the new ones with lawyers and all But that's just the my concern is the busy time of year and It will take a few meetings to get The issues resolved. I assume Yep so Does callus have a timeline for presenting issues to the other two parties in the agreement? I'm not at this time. We don't but we're going to be working on it Okay So I don't have anything else to say Uh, does anybody else from the east monthly or select board have anything to offer? I mean it's great that we Everyone attended from the east monthly or select board. Thank you really thank. Thank you so much it shows um It shows that we have interest in what's going on with fire department And it's important that we participate in these meetings. So it was really nice that everyone showed up I really appreciate it Uh, but I think that we can adjourn our part of the meeting perhaps Thank you everyone. As I said, we had a couple of select board members who had some last minute Personal issues come up. So we usually have a forum I apologize at this time. We didn't and thank you so much fire department and the ambulance for everything that you do Yeah, thank you for educating me tonight too. I'm gonna take a little while to get up to speed on all of this. So I really appreciate it Nice to meet you rick. Welcome aboard. Yeah looking forward to working with all of you guys. I appreciate it I think it's melanie, but thank you melanie Thank you toby and the rest of the ambulance crew for the presentation We always appreciate knowing what's going on and toss the numbers around etc. So Look forward to the next meeting and I think that's it for us Yep, I guess rick. We can adjourn That sounds good Thank you. Thank you everyone. Have a nice night Thanks. Thank you melanie That's our adjourn our meeting too. Yeah, no, I'm leaving. Good night everybody. Good night. Thank you Thanks for participating Thank you So, kyle you made the motion