AGENDA

HAMILTON TOWNSHIP FIE CONSOLIDATION SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING FEBRUARY 26, 2018 6:30 PM

DISCUSSION

 Ordinance Items – Budget, Manpower, Effective Date, et cetera  Current Budget  Current Manpower (Districts 2 through 9)

ASSIGNMENTS

 Budget increase for town inother departments (both S&W and OE; Maintenance; Personnel; Purchasing, etc.)  Budget for New Municpal Fire Department (S&W, OE, Health Benefits)  Manpower for New Municipal Fire Department  Volunteer Plan of Action  Wrap-up Costs i.e. Sick Time Payout, Building Repair Costs, etc. (DistrictS 2 through 9)  Start-up Costs of New Jersey Department  Building/Equipment Plan for New Department (new leases)  All other Research Areas

ADJOURNMENT

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MINUTES HAMILTON TOWNSHIP FIRE SUBCOMMITTEE

February 26, 2018 6:30 p.m.

Mr. Martin: Thank you everybody for coming tonight and for agreeing to volunteer for the subcommittee that the town Council put together to research and draft an ordinance for the fire consolidation. Obviously, this will be a lengthy process in terms of its not going to be one or two meetings. But I think it will be very good for all of us, the residents of the town, and for the people who both are career firefighters and volunteer firefighters. So I just want to first of all thank you.

What I envision tonight’s meeting to be is more of a brainstorming session to flush out the issues that we’re going to need to address, flush out the items that will be in the ordinance or we may even have to do multiple ordinances to amend other parts of the Township Code. And try to get all that flushed out now so we’re not taking time later on to the extent we need certain people here to research other things. Some of you may be our experts in certain things. For example, Joe (Monzo) is volunteering and he’s going to be kind of our numbers guy, finance guy. Obviously, we got volunteer representation, career representation, chief’s representation, the administration, and Ralph and I are here representing the residents from that end. I think this is a good group to really put this together and figure it out right from the beginning so we don’t have to go and address it multiple times. So really, like I said, from my view point, we’re going to be just kind of let’s brainstorm, let’s think of everything we can now. Let’s start talking I think a little bit on manpower numbers and budgetary numbers because I think those two items will really drive the remainder of the train. Once we have those numbers, those are your big spend numbers for the budget. So once we know what the budget is and what the manpower number is, everything else will kind of fall into place.

Mr. Monzo: Since I’m a late comer to this, this isn’t happening until ‘19, is that correct?

Mr. Martin: Well, it all depends. I anticipate it’s going to take us ninety of one hundred twenty days to draft the ordinance. Then it’s going to have to go up to Council. Then Council… my guess is Anthony is going to have one or two public hearings on it to figure out, give the public an opportunity to voice their approval or disapproval and suggestions, what have you. From that point, once Council has a good idea of what we want to do after the public input, my understanding is then it’s got to go up to New Jersey DCA Local Finance Board.

Mr. Kenny: I think you’re right Jeff, 2019 will probably be the target.

Mr. Martin: I can’t imagine we get any earlier than January 1, 2019. And the Local Finance Board, looks like they’ve got a brand new commissioner now. They’re going to have brand new people potentially in their different departments who are going to be swamped up to their heads and this might not be the first thing on their list, especially because we’re going to be giving it to them right around the time the budget is going to go for the towns as well.

Mr. Monzo: They have the budgets now. The Local Finance Board doesn’t have anything to do with the budgets. I don’t think everybody here knows who I am, my background. I’m the Chief Financial Officer right now in South Brunswick, Mansfield, and Rocky Hill. I was actually the Director of Local Government for a year. So I was the Chairman of the Finance Board for that period of time. They do very little with municipal budgets. It’s all done by the regulatory staff which is separate from the Local Finance Board staff. They may have some stuff to do for some finances for some bigger towns. By the time you get this to them, they’ll be through the budget process.

Mr. Martin: My goal is if we can get at midnight on January 1, it switches over, that would be ideal. But a lot of it is going to be out of our control whether that happens. So I don’t think actually everybody does know each other. I know most of us know each other. But just quickly then, just for at least Joe’s sake, get to know all of us. The following individuals were introduced:

Rich Kraemer, Fire Chief Joe Monzo, Chief Financial Officer Shane Mull, President of FMBA Scott Goldsmith, Volunteers Rep. Ralph Mastrangelo, Councilmember Jeff Martin, Council Vice-President Eileen Gore, Municipal Clerk Dave Kenny, Township Business Administrator Nick Buroczi, President of the Fire Officers

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Mr. Martin: So with that, Chief, I’m kind of going to turn things over to you as the subject matter expert in some of this. But what I first want to do is kind of flush out some of the issues you see. Besides manpower numbers and besides work chart and budget, we’ll get to those separately. But just some of the things… some of the issues we see that need to be addressed as we put the ordinance together.

Chief Kraemer: The big one is going to be buildings…when we build the firehouses. Most of these split, as you guys know, parts are owned by the districts, parts owned by the volunteers, and some are split ownership between the districts. So are we truly going to have the number of houses that we do now…that we’re looking to staff or are we going to be consolidated in the number of firehouses that we’re actually going to be operating out of because we can’t come to an agreement with volunteering. So that’s a big one. It doesn’t change the staffing level, it just changes the equipment.

Mr. Kenny: I think we have three (volunteer) houses; Nottingham, Colonial, and Whitehorse. The others are owned by districts and they automatically become Township.

Chief Kraemer: Fifteen is partial…it’s a split ownership.

Mr. Kenny: DeCou…I think that may be a legal question. Even the volunteer ones may become Township property upon dissolution.

Chief Kraemer: My opinion is they would, but I’ve been a minority on that opinion. I’ve made some friends with that opinion.

Mr. Kenny: There’s only one case out there on it and that specifically said the district ones. And all the assets of the volunteer association will become ours. Those are district owned houses there. Because the statute says any money they have becomes the Township’s upon dissolution. The court interpreted it saying all the assets become the Township’s, so it’s a little grayer area on the ones that are volunteer.

Mr. Buroczi: Does it matter if the money from the district…that rent went to pay the mortgage of the fire department?

Mr. Kenny: That’s an argument that the taxpayers would tend to own it then. So I don’t know, we’ll have to talk to some of them, and there will be resistance from them. You’re right, that would shape which houses we think we would operate out of.

Mr. Buroczi: I know there was an OPRA something out there with OPRA…they wanted to OPRA the volunteer fire company minutes. The volunteer fire company denied it and they took it to court. And they said because you pay the rent with taxpayer dollars, you have to give them the minutes.

Chief Kraemer: That would definitely change the charters. The charters are geared to provide fire protection to that district and if there’s no more district, there’s no more chart. So now it becomes a social club. Because I’ve heard a couple stations, I think they were going to be able to staff up a fire engine and staff up a company, and that’s not going to happen. I tried explaining that to them…but that’s one concern.

Mr. Mastrangelo: One of the concerns I have is the response time as we were saying before. About having something located closer to the hospital, which we discussed the land on Estates Boulevard possibly putting something small there. And maybe shutting down Nottingham, and possibly go… I mean, this is all things that….

Mr. Martin: Is that something we can put in the ordinance…how many firehouses and where they’re located? Or something to just leave up to the chief and the administration to decide subsequent to?

Mr. Kenny: Well, I think in terms of what we’re going to do, it may not have to go in the ordinance, but it will all be part of the plan that we have. If you put it in the ordinance, then you have to amend the ordinance when you get a new firehouse down the road.

Mr. Monzo: Is there a model where this has been done before in terms of fire consolidation in New Jersey?

Mr. Mull: Not really because Cherry Hill is... It didn’t go municipal which… They went to a fire district so there is no model out there.

Mr. Kenny: I think some smaller areas may. Didn’t Jackson go municipal?

Chief Kraemer: Yeah, Rich Braslow was the attorney that oversaw that, and he’s a wealth of information if you need to reach out to him.

Mr. Kenny: I think I spoke with him one time.

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Mr. Monzo: It’s definite you’re going to one department as opposed to one district? It’s been determined?

Mr. Martin: Yeah, I mean, it’s an unofficial vote we took, 5/0 to go to a municipal department versus one district. So buildings/firehouses…

Chief Kraemer: The other issue that I have is it’s going to be driven by the manpower, the budget, and all this other stuff is, and I’m sure the email will speak to it. I personally have some concern for our retirees because they don’t have a voice. And I know the ordinance will address that. We definitely have to make sure that they’re protected.

Mr. Monzo: In terms of their benefits?

Chief Kramer: Benefits, absolutely. Current employees, I mean, that’s a given. We’re concerned about what we’re going to lose or potentially lose. What happens with… right now there are five career chiefs. We know that there’s going to be demotions as part of this plan, and how are we protected, to what level? Where and how do we fit into the plan through the administration? Operationally, I can give you a plan. It’s clear cut and it’s clean… it’s understood. But just to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Mr. Mull: So I mean, you spoke to the retirees. I think the only issue they’re going to have… they currently have benefits under state health benefits. The township doesn’t offer state health benefits currently. So for them, we’re going to have to come up with a way… and I think it would have to be addressed in the ordinance, wouldn’t it?

Mr. Kenny: I don’t know if it would have to be addressed in the ordinance. I would assume we could probably come up with state benefits for certain people. We can’t do that? No, you can’t do that?

Mr. Monzo: All or none.

Mr. Kenny: Our benefits are actually better than state health benefits.

Mr. Buroczi: Equal or better.

Mr. Mull: And I don’t think they care so much about the benefit structure as long as they have health benefits.

Mr. Kenny: I would assume we have to do it for the retirees.

Mr. Monzo: All the employees of the districts, they’re all under state health benefits now?

Mr. Buroczi: Yes.

Mr. Mull: Just going off… we have sick pay current accrue time that we’re going to have to figure out. Some guys are less than others, some guys are more than others. But obviously, that’s not going to be done through the ordinance. At least I wouldn’t imagine it would be. Social security… currently all the fire districts pay the social security, the police department does not in Hamilton.

Mr. Mastrangelo: No.

Mr. Mull: So I don’t know if that has to be ordinance driven? We have the pension break in service. Obviously, we’re going to be working for a new department. One of the things that we discussed before and even a couple years ago now, we talked about setting up a department to start on a date so we can do the intergovernmental transfer. So there would be no break in service for the pension for those purposes. Because currently, most of us are Tier 1 employees. If there’s a break in service, we can go to a Tier 3 employee.

Mr. Martin: What’s the difference between a Tier 1 and a Tier 3?

Mr. Mull: A lot.

Chief Kraemer: Basically, in my case where I can retire in three years, you’re going to be stuck with me for another fifteen or twenty.

Mr. Monzo: In Tier 1, employees between police and fire, their pension is based on their highest single year. In Tier 3, it’s based on their highest three years.

Mr. Martin: Is that because of the 2011 pension reform?

Mr. Monzo: 2011 pension reform.

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Mr. Buroczi: Also, you can’t retire unless you’re fifty-five.

Mr. Mull: At twenty years… right now, we can go at twenty years with no age requirement. Unless you’re a Tier 3 employee, then you have to be fifty-five or twenty years. There’s a huge difference in Tier 1 versusTier 3.

Mr. Monzo: Has anybody spoken with the division of pensions? I mean, there shouldn’t be a break in service, you’re just changing…

Mr. Mull: We did talk. We met with DCA and pensions years ago, probably five years ago, and that was one of their concerns. But that was under a different administration with different people there, so they’re subject to interpretation because they wouldn’t put anything in writing.

Mr. Monzo: They’re notorious for that, pensions, I mean.

Mr. Mull: Civil service is the same way.

Chief Kraemer: What Shane is talking about is setting up the department on paper prior to January 1. In my mind, the ideal thing would be to set the department up in July or August, and start with a chief of the department and some administration. It’s all going to transfer over, then officially the department is set up on paper and you got minimum costs associated to it. January 1, everybody’s going to transfer over. At some point, we’re going to break from the district mind set and start thinking about the municipal government side of what we’re going to… This is going to be a learning curve for all of us. And I think that’s the way the transition will run.

Mr. Monzo: There should be someone in the governor’s office who works as a liaison for local governments and who could put you in the room with the key players at the same time. Even when Christy was there, he had a person. You got pushed in a room with DEP and DCA all at the same time. It shouldn’t really be that hard for them. It’s not like you purposely… It’s not like someone is going to have a break in service for months when they can say you weren’t a firefighter for three months and now we’re going to start you over in Tier 3. It’s not the intention of this.

Mr. Mull: I think the state wants to work with us to polish this.

Mr. Monzo: That has to be addressed.

Mr. Mull: Health care coverage, we already discussed. The organizational chart will cover most of what we need in terms of conditions. One of the issues that we’re going to have is the… we may have to petition for collective bargaining rights. Cause we’re going to work for the municipal fire department… we’re now working for a fire district. So we have to put some sort of terms and conditions of employment… what we would have in a contract into the ordinance so the guys are protected until we can establish the collective bargaining rate.

Mr. Monzo: All your contracts will be null and void.

Mr. Martin: That can go back to being a standard within the department.

Mr. Mull: Prior to that, that would make it even easier. I mean, that would take care of that.

Mr. Buroczi: That’s with the insurance.

Mr. Mull: Quite frankly, if the districts were too full contractually, we all have in our agreements that we’re owed whatever time we accrue. So it would hurt the township on many levels. One, they lose half the money that they’re going to be inheriting. It would look bad for everybody. It would look bad for the union if we’re taking payouts.

Mr. Monzo: You merge, so guys will get $30,000 boat checks.

Mr. Buroczi: We’d like to negotiate that into the new department.

Mr. Mull: But we couldn’t do that unless we stand up for… Transferring all of our UFD titles, not only do we have fire department, they’re civil service titles. So we have everything from fire inspector to fire official. Firefighter mechanic, firefighter, captain, lieutenant, a chief. Right, it’s all of them? So there’s obviously going to be some change in title work. It’s pretty obvious, the chief already spoke about some chiefs. You can only have one chief per department. We don’t know if we’re going to have a firefighter mechanic per say. There’s only two of them in the township, but we just have to encompass everybody and protect the guys as they are now.

Things like deferred comp, some do now, but most districts right now have valid... I don’t know what the Township offers. Do you know… deferred comp?

Mr. Monzo: No, the Township has MetLife. You could have more than one.

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Mr. Mull: Yeah, we’ll have to sit down with them because I think… don’t you have to do a resolution?

Mr. Monzo: I work for South Brunswick. We have five different deferred comp providers.

Mr. Mull: The majority of Hamilton is all valid. All fire companies are all valid.

Fire prevention, is an almost accidental, and I think… I don’t know… (inaudible) but it would be a subdivision fire department. And they’re separate from the fire department because they actually… they’re self-supporting and self-sufficient. They take in money that pays all of their bills. And I think we’ll address that under the organizational chart. Let me explain that in more greater detail. But we do have union members that are currently the fire official and fire inspector. Staffing, we’ll take care of that later. Obviously, negotiating a contract that equalizes the salary throughout, because right now, we have about twenty collective bargaining units.

I don’t know Dave if you know this, but one question that was asked to me and I don’t know the answer to is... the budget that we come up with that’s set in the ordinance, is that all-inclusive or is it like the police budget where it’s distributing manpower.

Mr. Kenny: My understanding is the budget we come up with for this department is going to have to go to the local finance board to be approved because it will blow our CAP out.

Mr. Monzo: Well, they’re going to make a CAP exception for the consolidation. They need to know every single number that you’re moving from the district into a municipal department, so make the proper exceptions.

Mr. Martin: But it will be like the health insurance costs, but that will be a different line than the salary.

Mr. Kenny: Counting towards number of employees.

Mr. Monzo: Going forward into ‘20, you won’t have to worry about that. But if it’s ‘19, you have to get the proper exceptions so they can look at the fire budget as one budget looking back in ‘18 so they can know what ‘19 is going to look like. You have to define every penny.

Mr. Mull: The rest of it, I mean. I think it’s going to be taken care of under the manpower.

Mr. Martin: Ralph, anything?

Mr. Mastrangelo: Manpower… I have a few questions on that. As far as right now, the volunteers, how many do we have roughly?

Mr. Goldsmith: I have calls out to all the stations on the company level. We just talked about it. Actively, throughout the whole Township of all the districts, we’re giving a big number of twenty-five that are active. But if you talk to DeCou, they list 91 as having members, but they refuse to…they didn’t give the number of active people.

Mr. Mastrangelo: What do you mean by active, physically going to a fire?

Mr. Mull: I mean, they all have ninety plus members, but that’s easy to find out.

Mr. Kenny: How many paid guys do you have? You’re adding eight as your start?

Chief Kraemer: We have with the eight that were just approved, we’ll have 130.

Mr. Monzo: This report that I ran, that isn’t up to date, right?

Chief Kraemer: It will drop to 129.

Mr. Mastrangelo: 107 we had before.

Chief Kraemer: Because of the way the fire academy was, District 4, we put an extra guy on because we have a retirement that’s coming in June, so we can get him in. They still would incur a lot of overtime. It will be 129.

Mr. Martin: So 129 will be like essentially the ultimate number, let’s say right now.

Chief Kraemer: Including the two veteran fire prevention.

Mr. Martin: That accounts for the eight.

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Chief Kraemer: That were just hired.

Mr. Mull: They’re currently on their way to getting hired, so they’ll be on the job shortly.

Mr. Martin: You talked about how potentially the fire prevention is different. Does that 129 number include fire prevention?

Chief Kraemer: It doesn’t include any part-timers.

Mr. Mastrangelo: I did bring it up at the meeting, I guess your brother was there. One of the questions that I had was we’re going through this whole process now. Was it that mandatory to put those guys on right away?

Chief Kraemer: So basically, what it comes down to is we’ve had manpower issues for a long time. A lot of districts, this was recorded, so this was great…they’ve been in denial about truly where they stood manpower wise. So there’s been a lot of apparatus that haven’t gotten out. And they’re both neighboring districts too. Six, they go everywhere, so we’re working short. This is what we had talked about before if you recall. We’re running eight companies, more in the day and we drop to six at night because DeCou and Colonial weren’t guaranteeing that they were going to get out. So to answer your question, if they felt the need was there, for those two boards to even put a referendum out, it says a lot because they have a real proud history. And to be honest with you, we couldn’t, because honestly, I thought we’d be done with consolidation. And unfortunately, we’re… however it works out, it’s not done yet. The demands and needs… the need to get a job hasn’t changed, those numbers are solid. They had to have it. It should have been done probably over five years ago if you ask me.

Mr. Mull: They tried to… District 8 for example… they dispatch another company on their runs because they’re not getting out. So for the longest time, I would go to Miller Avenue from East State street to handle a carbon monoxide alarm that should be a single engine response because they’re not getting out.

Mr. Buroczi: They would actually call the county central and tell them some of us were not in service so the surrounding fire companies would handle those calls.

Chief Kraemer: And that’s what you’re going to find as you move forward here is that…

Mr. Mastrangelo: It’s just that my concern was…I know we put it out there before… no layoffs, no layoffs, and I can only speak for myself not the rest of the councilmembers.

Chief Kraemer: The previous were…

Mr. Mastrangelo: That was only my concern. Some of these districts are just trying to bring people in because we weren’t going to… No, I realize you guys have been short. But like I said, DeCou area obviously, if they’re not running 24/7, we still have Whitehorse there and Rusling.

Chief Kraemer: But it still loses a company. So now because DeCou wasn’t able to run at night… Like in District 33 for example, District 3 would now become an engine. Where now… now we’re down to basically one or two ladders left in the town. So 17 will come across all the way from Nottingham which is a six or seven-minute response, or Ladder 14 would come in. So the consistency of the operational differences, it was glaring. More importantly, it’s now… we had talked about a response committee. Where is my backup coming from four minutes away.

Mr. Mull: That shouldn’t be there. That’s my…

Chief Kraemer: I’m sure we’ll talk about it. I might be involved in station locations too, and I can back them up 100%. So I look forward to talking with you about that.

Mr. Martin: When you say 129, and just for everybody, and you said 25, that’s just 29.

Mr. Mastrangelo: That’s my main concern right now. What is your ideal number? I don’t want to jump the gun, but what is your ideal number as far as safe to protect this town?

Chief Kraemer: I know what the study has said and I understand what the presentation said. And what you need to understand about the presentation when Chief Antozzeski came, is an accurate number as it was depicted in the study. Because the study itself said we had seventy volunteers which we had said didn’t exist. That’s what those numbers were based on. You truly want to ask what do I truly think?

Mr. Mastrangelo: So you’re saying 120 paid firemen and 70 volunteers.

Chief Kraemer: Right. You’re right about that 120 number, which Chief Antozzeski got the uproar. If you take it out of context….

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Mr. Mastrangelo: You say we have 169 police officers, who handle some 50,000 calls per year.

Chief Kraemer: So ideally, like I had said… that the response committee in the documents I had given you, I think if we try and shoot for a target number of 169, that’s a solid number. And it matches the police staffing number. It’s numbers that you’re familiar with, but more importantly, it gives us a good solid base of apparatus. Once we go around, I’ll be more than happy to explain what I think with a staff of… actually what I know we can staff at 169.

Mr. Mastrangelo: So you’re saying comparable with the police?

Chief Kraemer: Police staffing number. What you have to remember is that we don’t have budget numbers yet. We don’t have a salary. We don’t have a contract, so I know it seems like a lot, but truthfully…

Mr. Mastrangelo: Especially with them handling some 50,000 calls a year.

Chief Kraemer: I understand. I don’t like comparing police work to fire work. But what I can do is explain these numbers as we move forward. I’ll be more than happy to do that. The target goal for me is 169 to staff up the rescue like the study calls for. We’re at 186 right now.

One of the things that this will do is that we never said we wanted to go below a four-person company. This plan has to call for reduced staffing on engine companies that are dual housed. There’s no way around it. Which means, three-person engine companies where there’s a four- person ladder stationed at the same house. And that’s a concession. I met with the union on this because when I ran the numbers, there’s no way around certain things, and you’ll see that. I would love for the staffing numbers to come up, but when you’re trying to cover 42 square miles… we’re not on patrol… we’re not roaming… we’re not doing things. We’re responding from a fixed position. The response times are what they are. You know, on the response committee, those maps were very telling. Those were 2:00 in the morning with nobody on the road with ideal circumstances. We all know that’s not going to be the case.

So if I may, I think one of the things that’s important is that we’re at 129 now. And I think there should be a transitional period. I would love to be at 169 from day one. Do I think that’s going to happen, no! But I think that if we shoot for somewhere around the 147-149 range in personnel, putting on another 15 in personnel, that’s a decent number. And then we’ll be able to get to 169, and we’re staffing companies to the four level except for those dual house numbers. And I have some charts that will show you that. I don’t like throwing numbers at people because I’m a visual person. I had to do these charts. So that’s your answer, ideally 169. 186 would be one step for the rest of the company.

Mr. Mastrangelo: It’s tough for me to look at that number closely. These guys are patrolling and going from job to job to job. And as Dave will tell you, I was just telling the Mayor… we just put two new cops in the budget this year, right? I mean, personally, I’d love to have more cops. Not because I came from there, but I just feel that the manpower situation and the jobs that they handle, or the amount of jobs.

Chief Kraemer: Well, the ordinance that was established for the police department was somewhere, if I recall, around 180 members,and it’s dropped to 171 now.

Mr. Mastrangelo: At that point, we were top-heavy. We had five captains, deputy chief. Now we’re down to no deputy chief, three captains. And then they went to 12 hour shifts too. At that time, we had 182.

Mr. Buroczi: You said 169 is too much or not enough?

Mr. Mastrangelo: For firemen or cops?

Mr. Buroczi: Firemen. Because you are saying compared to the numbers…

Mr. Martin: We’ll get to the manpower.

Mr. Mastrangelo: That’s just my opinion. You guys do a great job. Like I said before, we’re comparing apples to oranges.

Mr. Buroczi: One thing too that’s hard to understand is that we’re so segregated with departments. You know what I mean… we actually don’t have a department. The hardest thing right now to do is to build this department. That’s basically what we’re doing is we’re going to have a department. We have five chiefs, captains, and firemen and stuff, but there’s no organizational at all, if anything. It’s way overdue, and that’s the hardest part to look at. What the chief shows you all the organizational charts and stuff, you’ll see the breakdown.

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Mr. Martin: Dave, any issues you see?

Mr. Kenny: Well, obviously manpower is going to dictate the budget. It’s 70 or 80 percent most of the time of every budget. So that’s going to be the driver. Do we know how much to be raised by taxation after this last election?

Chief Kraemer: Yeah, I have budget numbers.

Mr. Kenny: We can probably get, Eileen, you have them all, right?

Ms. Gore: I still don’t have them all, I only have four districts in.

Mr. Kenny: Oh okay.

Mr. Monzo: They’re still voting on it (laughter).

Chief Kraemer: I have some paperwork that I can give you. Right now, off the top of my head, without pulling it out, is like $27.7 million.

Mr. Kenny: It’s $27.7 million?

Chief Kraemer: It doesn’t include the unrestricted funds. And keep in mind, it is those unrestricted funds need to be considered part of our budget. We don’t get money from the town the first quarter, so those unrestricted moneys carry us through the first quarter.

Mr. Monzo: Why don’t you get money from the town for the first quarter?

Chief Kraemer: Our elections aren’t until February.

Mr. Monzo: Yeah, so?

Chief Kraemer: We still don’t get a check until the end of February, the beginning of March. So we’re basically working short.

Mr. Kenny: Until your replenish your…

Chief Kraemer: Correct. It replenishes and that’s what that is. We get beat up a lot for having…

Mr. Kenny: You’re giving yourselves a short-term loan.

Chief Kramer: That’s exactly what that is.

Mr. Martin: We’ll get to the budget…

Mr. Buroczi: Some of the stuff on what Shane had was like personnel files, disciplinary records and stuff like that. I don’t know if that has to be handled in the ordinance or not? Medical files, layoff procedures.

Mr. Martin: It’s going to take with that things like worker’s comp insurance, stuff like that too.

Mr. Buroczi: Workers’ comp and all that stuff. If there’s any worker’s comp cases or anything like that.

Mr. Monzo: You’re in the Garden State JIF, right?

Chief Kraemer: Not everybody.

Mr. Monzo: The town is. Anybody had a conversation with them yet about adding 170 employees?

Mr. Kenny: No, we haven’t at this point. We gave them a heads up, but they know it’s going to be coming. And some of those comp claims must be handled by your current insurance carrier.

Mr. Buroczi: Well, I guess any current

Mr. Kenny: Yeah, because they should account for those.

Mr. Buroczi: Seniority rights? Right now the volunteer points… they get volunteer points on the firefighter exam. So I don’t know if that’s anything that has to be carried over. We have a list now, a firefighter list, but it’s by districts, so somehow, that has to be combined before the list comes out. Terms and conditions of employment…that needs to be set in the ordinance.

Mr. Kenny: No, I don’t know that falls… as you said, that can be negotiations.

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Mr. Buroczi: But for the existing members though, we would still need terms and conditions from the town itself into that ordinance.

Mr. Kenny: I think everybody is protected by civil service…you have your civil service rights, so you can’t just say hey, your off the list. We’re not hiring you, but we’re hiring Shane. You maintain your civil service rights so long as we’re hiring 1229 people.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, but with having a new employer, if we don’t do an inter-governmental and stand up the department like the chief was saying and at that point, you would need something in there for conditions of employment.

Mr. Mull: He’s talking about drug testing and stuff like that because say we do get… Say we start January 1. We don’t have a contract and there’s been no negotiation yet. Under civil service protection, we’ll work for Hamilton Township. But then a guy makes a mistake on the job, and then there is no terms or conditions or protection or anything for that employee or for the township for that matter.

One of the things when we met with civil service and DCA way back is they talked about… even in Cherry Hill’s it says about putting term and conditions of employment into the original ordinance to not only protect the Township, but the employees themselves. In fact, I think we got paperwork on it that we can find.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, I had sent this whole list that I had. I know as we move forward too, with negotiating contracts and stuff, it was recommended by our attorney to contact somebody from PERC to have them kind of sit in on some of it, if there was any issues with it. It can get resolved right there so it’s not a long-term issue or just to have a contact person to contact really quick, so you have a phone number to call.

Mr. Mull: This way, we’re not negotiating a contract for two years.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, so we’re sitting stalemate for two years or something like that. This way, we have someone at PERC that we can talk to. I know when we did sit down with civil service, they said if the town came to them with a plan and it was a decent plan, they were okay with it because less work that they had to do.

Mr. Mull: Her words were… I forget the director’s name. But she told us if the union agreed, the Township agreed and it was legal, they would basically rubber stamp it.

Mr. Buroczi: It’s less work for them.

Mr. Monzo: I have some questions. So apparently, all the budgets passed I assume, right? The surplus that’s in there at the end of the year… Let’s say you start 01/01/19, the surplus that’s in there at the end of ‘18, that’s going to absorb into the Township as a payment fund balance?

Mr. Martin: Yes.

Mr. Monzo: Is there any need… you see to holding that money restricted for some sort of purpose that hasn’t been determined yet?

Chief Kraemer: Well, we’ve identified the need to build a couple new firehouses possibly. We still haven’t talked about a fleet plan. The study numbers are inaccurate in so many different ways. Given the apparatus for example, I mean we’ll be lucky if we have four reserved engines. We have no reserve ladders. So there are issues moving forward.

Mr. Monzo: I just caution you not to just take all that money. There is only one governing body member here, but they love fund balance. So I would possibly put some restriction on the money that comes over to be used for future use. Whether it be capital or something and not just absorb all that money into the municipal budget at one time.

Mr. Kenny: I don’t think we want to Joe. I agree with you because that it just a one shot revenue.

Mr. Monzo: I don’t mean to use it per say as a revenue. I meant I wouldn’t even want to absorb it all it in there and have it available as fund balance for the town. I would have some sort of plan to restrict the use of some of it for something, whether it be for apparatus or for maybe for worker’s comp claims. There’s going to be workers’ comp claims that come through from the prior JIF. We used to belong to Garden State JIF in South Brunswick. We’ve been out for seven years. I still have claims coming from the Garden State JIF, seven later. Because they just keep them open. Is there currently a LOSAP for the volunteers now?

Chief Kraemer: One fire district has it.

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Mr. Monzo: It’s a length of service award program that basically a deferred compensation program for volunteers. They earn a certain number of points and then the Township or the district in this case, makes a contribution into their deferred comp program based upon how many points they have.

Mr. Buroczi: District 2 used to have it and they kind of gave money back.

Mr. Mull: Yeah, they paid out their claims so to close out their… District 8 has it. I think they were the only ones.

Mr. Monzo: So when you merge into the department for the Township, is there thought to have a LOSAP program for the volunteers now?

Mr. Goldsmith: Yeah, it’s possible. I think that’s what some people want but it’s an idea.

Mr. Monzo: (inaudible) and MetLife, they run those programs too. Having one to do your deferred comp and then having the same one to do your LOSAP is okay. Employees of the district, they pay Chapter 88 health care contributions now?

Mr. Mull: Yeah. All but two or three pay Chapter 78 contributions.

Mr. Monzo: Two unions?

Mr. Mull: Two districts.

Mr. Monzo: They’re still inside the grid?

Mr. Mull: Yeah. District 2 has one year left or they’ll be done by the time the Township takes over and District 8 has two years left; it has one year left on their requirement.

Mr. Monzo: Except when those contracts expire, they’re considered Township employees now and they go right to Tier 4. Even when the grids were in effect, let’s say when this first started out, grids were in effect for a union. Then they start out in year one. If you hired a new employee into that union, they went right to year four. The same thing is going to happen if you dissolve all those contracts, it should.

Mr. Mull: It would be year four anyway.

Mr. Monzo: Except the one won’t be, it wouldn’t go until 2020 you’re saying, right?

Mr. Mull: No, no, no. They have this year and next year.

Mr. Monzo: So if they’re in three now, they’ll be in grid four next year. So it won’t be a problem.

Mr. Buroczi: And still work out that way even if was an inter-governmental thing?

Mr. Monzo: Um-hum. When this was all being dealt around in the public, was there a number that the public was told this was going to be? Like when Princeton merged, they had… it was an expected savings from the merger of the two Princeton’s. Is there a number the public thinks is going to be a pot of money that’s going to save them taxes because of this consolidation? Do they have an expectation of anything?

Mr. Martin: I think the state report came up with 2.5 million, but that’s the only number that’s ever been really studied. And I don’t even know how much that factored into people’s decisions or anything like that.

Mr. Monzo: That’s all I have.

Mr. Martin: Scott, what do the volunteers have to…

Mr. Goldsmith: So, three main things was course of action for active volunteers… what’s going to go on with that.

Mr. Martin: What do you man course of action?

Mr. Goldsmith: Whether it was going to be with a combination of the department of running out of certain different houses, going out of one house, as like an all-volunteer house. Buildings themselves, which we kind of talked about. The main thing is the stuff that’s currently in buildings that are owned by districts, that host companies in there, like Rusling over at District 3. We have a Stutz engine and memorabilia that we’re looking to put somewhere, whether if it went to not the municipal way, but if it went to district way, we would be able to possibly lease something with District 3. With it being in the town now, it’s whether do we lease it from the town now to store stuff

11 there or all of it goes into a volunteer house. Which I don’t know if you could move everything from every house into one house, which is tough. And then the relief association part about it which I believe there are currently three relief associations in Hamilton (Broad Street Park & Whitehorse). In speaking with Gil Lugossy, he has a meeting with Frank Gunson regarding that stuff. So they can kind of give us a better idea of what they can do if it does go to town, which they think they could accommodate everybody. I think that was it from our end.

Mr. Martin: Now the volunteers, are there like volunteer firefighters, volunteer lieutenants, volunteer captains right now or is everybody just like a volunteer?

Mr. Mull: There is a volunteer chief.

Chief Kraemer: There’s still a couple volunteer deputy chiefs and one or two captains. I mean really, when we come down to a restructuring is to see if the numbers justify having those command structures. And more importantly, just seeing how the deployment model folds in and see who doesn’t…. You know, when we were talking about before we came over is, we still don’t know what the fallout is going to be. If this stayed as a fire district, it would be merged into an existing district or create a new district and you have personnel that would probably stay. There are some that just don’t want to be part of the municipal fire department.

Mr. Martin: Volunteers you mean?

Chief Kraemer: Correct. So we don’t know how that’s going to shake out.

Mr. Monzo: Think the same thing applies to the paid?

Mr. Mull: Well, you got guys…there’s only a certain number of people that can retire.

Chief Kraemer: I think with paid… if guys have time, they may go because their concerns were that we have the potential to lose a lot. I have family health care in retirement with Chapter 88. If I lose that, that’s a concern.

Mr. Monzo: The town has Chapter 88 too.

Chief Kraemer: So would we as employees, be brought under that and maintain that? I mean, that’s a concern. Would they try and not do that for us? I don’t know, maybe I am talking in circle.

Mr. Buroczi: We have some districts that are Chapter 88 and some are Chapter 48.

Mr. Monzo: Well, the township is Chapter 88 from my recollection, right?

Mr. Kenny: Yeah.

Mr. Mull: All of our employees, every one of them gets health benefits for life. I don’t know how the Township gets…

Mr. Manzo: That’s because they’re Chapter 88. If they’re Chapter 48, they have certain criteria to meet first.

Mr. Mull: Well, I don’t know what the requirements are for a Township employee. Do they have to work 25 or 30 years?

Mr. Monzo: That’s why they’re Chapter 88, they can come work for Hamilton for three months and retire from Hamilton.

Mr. Kenny: You need 25 years of service…

Mr. Monzo: Pension service, but no years of service with them.

Mr. Kenny: You could come here for your final year and then retire…

Mr. Mull: See, we have it all in our contracts where you have to work 20 years within that fire district in order to get health care in retirement.

Mr. Monzo: That’s almost not even Chapter 88 though.

Mr. Mull: Well, no. But you can have 25 years in the pension, but only work 20 years in that fire district. If you transfer fire districts, you have a (inaudible).

Mr. Monzo: But Chapter 88 means you can have 25 years of service, it doesn’t matter how long you work here. Your plan, is almost a Chapter 48 plan, where you have a requirement for pension years

12 of service and for service to the organization. That’s different from what the Township does. The Township’s is more beneficial to the employee and less beneficial to the Township.

Mr. Martin: So some things that… because the budget I think is going to be a big thing and again, with the manpower, to account for as many pennies as we can, wrap-up costs.

Mr. Monzo: Your staffing numbers should be first, I mean forty new full-time members is 5 million dollars.

Mr. Martin: The manpower is the first thing we’re going to talk about. But we’re also going to have to address the wrap-up costs. I’ve already kind of alerted Wayne DeAngelo and Dan Benson to see if we can get any assistance. I know Princeton got some money when they did their consolidation to see whether we can get any money from the state to help with startup costs and things like that that we’re going to have almost to go into like an unrestricted fund. Because I know the Township is also going to have, and this is the number we need too….maybe hire additional mechanics, that don’t fall under the fire line item… personnel and all of that too. And I think John Ricci did, I think he did like a back of the napkin kind of…

Mr. Kenny: Yeah, I think it was $1.1 million.

Mr. Martin: But that was kind of back of the napkin stuff. So we’re going to have to actually...

Mr. Buroczi: Plus you’re going to have building maintenance guys to take care of that.

Mr. Kenny: Well, that would be something that since you guys took care of the buildings in certain ways, that would be negotiable down the road too as far as duties.

Mr. Martin: Yeah, the ordinance can be broad in some ways. And I really like the idea that it’s something maybe we can even bring up to Council early. Standing up a department early on with maybe a chief and one or two employees kind of thing on July 1. We can create our own municipal department without technically abolishing any of the districts at that point. And then that allows for more inter-governmental transfers. That allows for maybe some potentially labor negotiations to go on, things like that while we’re still waiting on the local finance board and then some of those things to happen. So once we get all the other (inaudible) lined up, we can have that stuff. So, I really like that idea, and I think that’s something we should pursue early on too as we’re putting the rest of the ordinance together. But with that, I think talking about budget, talking about manpower, are obviously going to drive 75% of this. So Chief, do you have anything you can hand out or anything you can just kind of go over with us?

Chief Kraemer: Well, what I did was I put together… those are from what I finally got from everybody on their budgets. So basically, hopefully this will help you in some ways. I gave you the rip-off sheet where it was available rather than the whole budget so I don’t have a surplus number. But, I put a manpower number next to it so you see where these numbers came from and then if there were any questions as to where some of the staffing numbers were. So, we’re at $27.734.

Mr. Martin: And these numbers, the manpower numbers on the right, those are the numbers as of today?

Chief Kraemer: They’re the 2018 approved budget numbers. So, we’re going to drop to 129 in June. It’s almost more financially responsible to get the kid through the fire school now at $20,000 a year as opposed to paying overtime for three months.

Mr. Martin: This $27.7 number, that’s an all-in number, right?

Chief Kraemer: Correct, that’s what I have.

Mr. Mull: Just not including the unrestricted fund balance.

Mr. Kenny: So, does that include the amount that the fire districts raise on their own? Do the volunteer contributions or is that just services alone?

Chief Kraemer: No, it has nothing to do with that.

Mr. Kenny: This is just raised from taxpayers?

Chief Kraemer: Correct, this is district responsible.

Mr. Mull: Do they get that money? Could the township get that money?

Mr. Kenny: No, we don’t get it.

Mr. Mull: No, no, no…could they? I know you were talking about it earlier.

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Mr. Kenny: Well, yeah, if it’s in the fund at the end of the year then we transition it over.

Mr. Mull: There’s only a couple of them that do it. And some of them make…they do pretty well.

Mr. Monzo: These numbers aren’t just taxation, they’re your whole budget. So, you have revenues, surplus designation, sale of equipment and stuff like that. This is the spending side of the budget.

Chief Kraemer: Yes, it just doesn’t have the unrestricted funds. Joe Marcucci is the accountant for most of the districts. We recommend that if you reach out to him, he will be eager to schedule any type of meeting.

Mr. Kenny: We don’t have the number tonight as to what’s being raised in ’18 for taxation.

Mr. Mull: Yes we do.

Mr. Kenny: Is it in here?

Mr. Monzo: Every page has a taxation. District 2 for example is $3,974,535.

Mr. Mull: He added them up on the front.

Mr. Monzo: This front page is the budget, not necessarily just taxation.

Mr. Martin: Because we have grants and things like that.

Mr. Monzo: For suspending, you’re going to absorb into municipal budget, not just the taxation.

Mr. Martin: Do you have anything on the manpower side on the chart?

Chief Kraemer: So, basically what I did because this can get confusing. First of all, I made a copy of the job descriptions for you. I didn’t make copies because they were like five pages each. If anyone wants to know the difference between the chief, the deputy, battalion, all the way down to the UFD title, it’s there.

Mr. Monzo: Pardon me, I have a quick question, who are people in PERS in these districts?

Mr. Mull: A lot of fire commissioners are in PERS. And we have some employees that are in PERS because of their age.

Mr. Monzo: There’s only three districts who pay… I went through the pension bills the other day.

Mr. Buroczi: There should be one employee in District 6.

Mr. Monzo: There’s only three districts that pay PERS.

Mr. Mull: There’s a couple firemen that are because they got hired after 35. And there are fire commissioners in District 7 that pay and District 4, they all get a pension.

Chief Kraemer: What I’m handing out to you is what I have titled as current stats. So what you see and what could be confusing is the 122 number. So basically, I just want to provide an explanation as to… you asked me with straightening up the department tomorrow, what can you do? So the first page was the 122. This was done prior to the referendum being approved. So, what you’re going to find in working with the chiefs and the union, is that at the 129 number which includes two from fire prevention within that number. I just want to be clear on that. We were able to staff eight pieces of apparatus. So, there are three fire engines that would be staffed at three. There would be one staffed at four. Two squad companies which are basically engines that can handle and take more equipment; they’re like a specialty rescue almost. Two ladder companies, a battalion chief and a deputy chief on shift. So this would provide 24-hour coverage and basically would have the same contingent in North Hamilton, one side of Kuser Road as the other. So you would have two engines, a squad, and a ladder. So eight pieces would be staffed up. And what I’m going to tell you is this number does not account for volunteers. And I’ll explain why that is. But with the additional personnel that we were able to hire, the big difference that you’ll see is that we’re able to now staff a training division with at least a battalion chief. Whereas with the 122 number, we wouldn’t have been able to do that. It would have been more duties thrown on that administrative deputy.

Mr. Martin: You’re talking about the old chart, the bottom there?

Chief Kraemer: So, what I tried to do is put numbers at the top, because some people like numbers. Me, I’m a visual person and I want to see how this is going to lay out. And if there are any cut and paste errors or excel spreadsheet issues, I apologize. But again, this is day one, what we could do staffing eight pieces.

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Mr. Martin: So this means, you have a deputy chief and a battalion chief on 24/7?

Chief Kraemer: That’s correct. So from the outside, it may look like we’re top heavy, but we’re not. Truly, we have five career chiefs right now. So, not knowing what’s going to happen, those chiefs are going to have to go somewhere. The easiest thing because we don’t know about civil service, and more importantly, this plays into the numbers that I’ll show you shortly. The deputy chief and the battalion chief, you got one person that you know is calling the shots. It’s similar to the police department where the lieutenant on desk is the one saying this is how things are going to run, and the sergeant falls in line. That’s the whole idea of why the deputy chief is on shift. Plus, the other thing that this does is as we build the model out, everybody knows about span and control. Optimal span and control is four to seven. Even if you were to put a single operations deputy chief, the span and control is eight plus. So that’s why….

Mr. Martin: What are you talking four to seven?

Chief Kraemer: Four to seven is…

Mr. Martin: Around the clock?

Mr. Mull: Four to seven people; one person can supervise.

Mr. Martin: Oh okay.

Chief Kraemer: So Chief Antozzeski in the PowerPoint, talked about efficiency and resiliency. And that’s what you’re going to see in this model as we move forward to the 169 number. It makes sense. It makes clear sense. It models what the town already knows and what has… I came from the police department, I worked as a dispatcher over there. I know how that department works not as well as he does, but you see the structure. They’re paramilitary. It works for a reason. There’s a clear defined span of control, there’s a clear chain of command. That’s what going to define a department. We need to stand it up right from the top down. And this is what we’re trying to do, and that’s where this comes in. So day one, you decide tomorrow we’re a department. With the numbers we have, once we get these people trained, this is what we can do. And you’ll see that they’re short staffed numbers, and again, that’s a concession. That’s something that we’re trying to do because we believe in what we’re doing.

The volunteers, since we have a second, we’ll talk about that. The way that I envision the volunteers is that we’re a combination fire department for long as the volunteers want to be part of the system. I talked with Scott just prior to the meeting just to reinforce some things. Short staffed companies. We want everybody to be staffed at four, so we run as a duty crew. We offer the volunteers two folds. We offer them an opportunity through, what I would recommend is like an e-Pro or scheduling software where we could send a blanket shot out to say that we have an opening on Engine 6 and we fill that shift if necessary. So, the volunteer manpower, 25 is not a big number. It’s not going to go far. So if we can staff up one of the three-man engines at four that helps us. Ideally, what I would love to do is would be to run volunteers to fill that fourth person. And then also staff a standalone volunteer company. Because we’ve already showed that the town needs certain numbers based off the response areas where they’re responsible for; it’s forty-two square miles. It takes time to get places. Time kills in what we do. And I’m not trying to be dramatic, but the truth of the matter is, we get a bad dispatch or missed dispatch, the next thing you know, you got a single company fighting a basement fire which happened three, four weeks ago. So those are things we’re trying to… You have any questions on that, I’ll just…

Mr. Martin: So when you say the volunteers, you mean, right now you’ve got I’m just looking at the second page the post referendum page. Number of units, three. Number of personnel, three. So ideally, you’d like a volunteer to become that fourth person on each one of those?

Chief Kraemer: Correct.

Mr. Martin: And then at the same time, potentially as well, have our own volunteer fire company?

Chief Kraemer: Volunteer fire engine that is within the department. Because there are special service units that aren’t accounted for in here that we can’t staff which would mean we would take somebody off one of the companies and move them to drive the air accessible bottles. We go to a fire and run out of air, that’s a problem. You know, having extra hose. The rehab unit is something that right now is handled by Squad 12 and Robert Wood Johnson with volunteers who are supplementing that; those are functions. Truth of the matter is, I think and I’m not an alliance guy, but I think the volunteers are concerned that they’re going to be remanded to secondary duties. And in this system, the way we envision it, does not do that. It provides for everybody. It stands up for fire police if they want. If you no longer want to fight fires, but you want to be part, there’s an ancillary job that you can perform. Bring in the SS Unit, filling bottles. There’s a place for everybody as long they want to be here. But this also defines that when those deficiencies exist, we have to have a mechanism to correct this, and that’s what this does. It kind of allows you to plan for the

15 future should the volunteer numbers drop off and we staff at 169, or attempt to staff at 169, that’s the goal. Then we know what it’s going to cost us.

Mr. Martin: So let me ask you guys something from the volunteer side. Pretend I’m a volunteer, there’s a fire down the street that I’ve got nothing to do with. I’m just mowing the lawn, I want to go and respond to, how do I get a notification or whatever so I can help out with that?

Chief Kraemer: Active 911 would be the best way to go. We found we found pagers to be unreliable, plus they’re cost prohibitive. So an app on a smart phone sends a message to you. I have it for almost every district that I have. We know as chiefs when there’s when there’s a structure fire. So that’s how when everybody reads the newspaper, they want to know why did all the career chiefs come back? How did we provide the coverage that we did when we had the multi-alarm house? That’s how. We are never off. We know what’s going on, every day at every station; otherwise, it’s a liability.

Mr. Martin: Is that something that a lot of the guys…

Mr. Goldsmith: Yes, that’s the way I have it on my phone is Active 911. My station that I’m currently at is different than other stations currently.

Mr. Buroczi: And Shane and I as union presidents, we get them all. Because this way, if we know a fire is going on, if a firefighter gets hurt or somebody goes down, we try to go there and…

Mr. Mull: Well, we always send somebody to the wife, to pick them up to take them to the hospital. But they’ll send a notification then. It’s the easiest way to do it and it’s cheap. A pager is going to cost you a couple hundred bucks. That’s going to cost you $1.99 a year or something.

Chief Kraemer: A pager is about $550 a person. And by the time we buy the pagers, it’s already outdated.

Mr. Buroczi: This all comes right through the dispatch center, so as soon as that call is going in, that’s going out. It goes right to the station, it goes right to the phones, goes to everybody. It’s like a mass dispatch.

Mr. Martin: So your vision, there’s guys that can get it this way, but there’s also guys, well, I got Friday off, yeah, I’ll volunteer for a shift on Friday kind of thing, so I can be the fourth man.

Chief Kraemer: Then we get notified, maybe there’s a township all call. So everybody knows that there’s a reported house fire in South Hamilton. If everybody’s alerted, then what that’s going to tell the volunteers that are deciding to ride right now, say let me start making my way over at the station, and staff up a second piece of apparatus. When we start doing that, then what we’re going to have to do as far as potential call backs, it now reduces that number. So they’re calling back two paid crews to staff up to cover the town and then we only need to bring one in. So, if we use the volunteers more efficiently, then that’s where your potential cost savings are. Volunteers, I know it’s important. It’s important to me as what it is you. If they’re used right and they’re treated respectfully, then I think it’s a win. And they want structure just like everybody else.

Mr. Goldsmith: That’s the main thing, that I have personally stayed over at Rusling just based on the experience and training. It’s not just a free-for-all for some other back in the day firefighting and volunteer style.

Mr. Martin: Do you have anything like this for the 169 number?

Chief Kraemer: I do.

Mr. Monzo: Have the districts over the years tried over the years to get to that 169 number? Where all of the sudden now with the Township going to a paid department, you’re going from 129 to 169.

Chief Kraemer: Basically, what we had are a bunch of districts that have either been afraid or unable to believe that they would be able to staff up properly. So, as it sits right now, back when the hay day, Whitehorse for example around from District 6, everybody would stand alone we could get a piece of apparatus out. We didn’t need anybody. Those days stopped. So now what we’re doing is we’re sliding the floor. So, the downside to that is… let’s use District 3 for an example or station 14 because Shane works over there and he can support this. On certain calls there’s an engine and on certain calls there are a ladder. Well, when you only have six companies at night, that changes the response time dynamic. So, we essentially are losing companies faster than what we were during the day. And that’s when the fear comes in. So, what this plan does basically, puts in dedicated engine and ladder companies so that they can do their job. It designed so that we have proper coverage, quicker responses, and that’s truly where the resiliency comes into the department and efficiency.

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Mr. Mull: One thing you have to remember about our companies currently today is, when that engine goes on a run, they’re going to Bradford Avenue for an apartment fire. So then you’re sending Engine 15, Engine 16, Truck 13, and Engine 19 and the chiefs and they’re all going to that run. Well, Engine 13 is now out of service because their staffing is on the truck, and they’re not on the fire. So, if a house fire comes in at District 3, they don’t have an engine company, and then 15 and 16 are also at our other apartment fire. So, we can’t be at two things at once with four people. With volunteer companies, when we used to get a fire say on East State Street or Park Lane, fifteen, twenty years ago, you would call maybe Mercerville for an engine. But the rest of the companies, we would get three engines and a ladder from just that fire house. Staff with four people on each rig in five minutes. But now we don’t do that. So as soon as you take a company out of service, that million-dollar truck is sitting in the fire house, no good to anybody.

Chief Kraemer: The fact that I believe that I just gave you should have a 167 number and a 169. I want you to pay attention to the 169 number because that’s truly the one I think is the important number. So the 169 number, what that provides for is five engines, two squads, three ladder trucks, one special service which we talked about, a deputy chief, and two battalion chiefs on shift. So I know the 169 may seem high but when you look at this, what that allows us to do, and 169 does not include fire prevention, I took that number out of there. One chief for the department, you have the deputy chief and administration, it stands up the training division with a battalion and a captain. And it puts a captain and logistics for services, fleet maintenance coordination, IT, scheduling, something along those lines. Coming from the police department, and what exposure I had to it, again, not anywhere to where Ralph had it, I saw the scheduling officer and how efficient that was. I saw the lieutenant on the desk with two lieutenants. And this model allows for a couple things. It allows for operational uniformity because now we have one deputy chief that is responsible for overseeing two battalions on shift. And I know for some and we’ve had this discussion, may seem top heavy, but the span of control is good. It allows for the chief to have span and control of five with deputy chief reporting to the chief. You have two battalion chiefs that are reporting to that deputy chief on that platoon. So multiple alarm jobs, jobs where we’re sending mutual aid companies out where we should be assigning a chief. Because for example, the City of Trenton, our communication systems don’t mesh well. That’s a concern for us. That’s a safety concern. The chief has to go with that. Shared services with the town of Robbinsville, where mutual aid is truly reciprocal. We’re one for one and anything beyond that, the town may have some leverage. We failed miserably because we just can’t levy a mutual aid agreement with them when they’re actually paying for a fee. But again, those are things to talk about. So, you’ll see here that this plan at 169 still calls for three three-men engines and it still needs the volunteer engine and the volunteer staffing to fulfill that.

Mr. Martin: We jump, under your ideal, from two ladder companies to three?

Chief Kraemer: Correct.

Mr. Martin: So more than just one in the North and one in the South? And I keep saying North and South, but…

Chief Kraemer: Ideally, what we’ve identified was that we need station 10 which is the one on Kuser Road to better locate the third ladder and that fills that void.

Mr. Martin: Is that also the one that Ralph talked about on Estates?

Chief Kraemer: Well, Estates Boulevard truly is not… I know the town owns property, but it’s not an ideal situation. Nottingham is a far less ideal situation given where they’re at on Mercer Street. But to speak to that, District 2, if you look at the town map… District 2 is basically covering all the way out to Hughes. And I have a couple maps that I brought that are just some ideas that I had thrown out to the chiefs and to the union on different deployment models. If I take District 7 and just wipe them out, from here you can see that they’re not covering all the backup positions that they would need to cover for District 2. Which now means, either 8 or 4 are the primary backup engines for that company. If I move them down here, then I further remove them for this section of town.

Mr. Martin: You mean, moving 7?

Chief Kraemer: Exactly. So if everything else was to stay the same, and 7 moved down to here, it now doesn’t look like a far move on the map, I may be adding another minute in my response times. But until we had ISO remap that, we wouldn’t be able to know. I absolutely agree, one of the things that I think may be important to look at may be the Nottingham Ambulance Squad. That may be owned by the town. If you could convert that possibly, just speaking out loud, and I haven’t talked to anybody about this, making that an engine house. And then still need to build that other fire station, that would probably help. That gets them off of Mercer Street and opens up some…

Mr. Kenny: I’m not sure we own that.

Chief Kraemer: It may be worth looking at.

Mr. Mull: You pay for it.

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Mr. Martin: I think we just did a resolution giving them money a year.

Chief Kraemer: What it does by moving them to that location, that allows them to run Paxson Avenue all the way up to Edinburg. And it cuts that response area that I was talking about almost… you know, it’s a more direct route. Let’s be honest, District 2 which is Mercerville and Whitehorse, you see those trucks all over the place because of our access to the highway system, because of our access to the main arteries in the town. When they built these fire stations, they were built in rural areas that just developed.

Mr. Martin: So right now, if we kept the number at the 129 number, that calls for I guess a ladder, and I keep saying the North and South. One ladder in the North and one ladder in the South? How would you deploy if we did three?

Chief Kraemer: If we did three? Well, ideally, what we would have to do is look at is there potential to build a new fire station. If the potential is there, and we could staff up to three ladders right away, then I would truly look at District 3… District 2… and then possibly even District 9 or District 7. I have some maps that I can show you that have some of these things.

Mr. Martin: I mean, I don’t want to get too in the…

Chief Kraemer: No, I understand, but I want to have an answer for you. So just give me one second. I don’t want to keep you hanging.

Mr. Buroczi: Wouldn’t 6 have more access?

Chief Kraemer: Well ideally, the ideal location to provide the best coverage in the town are 2, 3, and 10; 10 is the brand new station that we’ve identified in the response committee.

Mr. Martin: Ten being the one on Estates or Kuser?

Mr. Mastrangelo: I thought that would be perfect because you got Traditions right there. How many times you get sent over there for difficulty breathing calls?

Chief Kraemer: So the scribble at the top is pretty much my assessment of what we’re staffing daytime based on conversations with chiefs. So if you were to go to page… probably second from the back, that basically shows what those new ladders could cover at those locations.

Mr. Martin: Is that the one that says 269?

Chief Kraemer: That one, 2, 3, 10. So now if you come another page up, and you show 2, 6, 9, you can see that we can still provide good coverage in those out of existence stations. So, to answer your question, one of the possible models, again, the chief of the department would have to figure this out based on this deployment model. So I don’t want to say this is definitely where it’s going to go. Because that’s really… the chief has to buy in for this. So 269, my concern with 9 is the roadway. Chief Antozzeski knows my concern with that roadway but 2, 6, 9 are definitely areas where you see we can provide decent coverage. And then if you come one more page forward, you’ll see ladders at 2 & 6. So, to answer your question with two ladders, that’s the areas that we can cover and you see the deficiencies. So 42 square miles requires three ladders. Otherwise, we’re going to need one heck of an aggressive fleet replacement plan because you’re going to have a lot of wear and tear on two aerial pieces.

Mr. Buroczi: I think the Mayor said we’re getting two new hotels coming?

Chief Kraemer: That new station on Kuser Road would be ideal for the hotels. Your response times would be incredible to that area.

Mr. Martin: The Homestead and things like that?

Chief Kramer: The Homestead, the Home Depot, the big box stores, anything and everything it would probably reduce that. Off the top of my head, probably reduce the response time of an aerial at least by two to three minutes.

Mr. Martin: What’s the SS?

Chief Kraemer: The SS is a special service unit. That’s that air unit that allows us to fill our SCBA so we can continue to fight a fire and go inside a building. That’s what that is. So, although it’s been always viewed like an ancillary service, it’s critical for us to support firefighting. So that’s why it’s in there.

Mr. Martin: So, that’s why you keep… I’m looking at the 169 number sheet, where it has three engines of three, to those dual houses. So that’s where the ladders are as well?

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Chief Kraemer: Everybody else is staffed at four, except for the SS because that’s a single person.

Mr. Martin: What’s a squad?

Chief Kraemer: A squad is basically a rescue engine. So, because we don’t have numbers to support a rescue company, and the studies identify that we need a rescue, we use a special operations command right now that I oversee for the town. So we have two squad companies which are basically Squad 12 and Engine 16. We have Truck 13 and we have Engine 19. So, that’s how we handle all technical rescues in the town. The two crew rescues that we have that respond to extrications, although we were using three, are Mercerville and Rusling. So 2 and 3 are the primaries by ordinance from the town, 19 has gotten into it and 16 is essentially a backup. When it comes down to the proper compliment of equipment, you know, bring the right tools to do the job. If we don’t have a dedicated rescue, then we’re required, in order to do a job, we have to ensure that we’re able to send the appropriate response to them. So what may be a two company response, may be a three or four in order for us to bring one the right equipment and the right number of skilled personnel to perform the task.

Mr. Mull: And a squad is basically a master of all. So, a squad can be truck work and do engine work, they do hazmat (high and low angle) and all of that. Technical rescue vehicle extrication, all of that. Where an engine company puts water on fire, truck company search vents. They’re specialized to a task, but the squad does it all. They’re the trained, the highly trained members.

Chief Kraemer: And this does not take away from where the volunteers fit in. I still envision, when the new fire station is ever constructed, if we’re able to get to that point, then an engine is going to go there with a ladder truck. Wherever that other engine was housed temporarily, which was probably a dual engine house, one volunteer and one career, then the volunteer will remain in that house and they’ll staff up. And if they can’t staff up, then at least you know what potential budget pitfalls are gonna be.

Mr. Martin: Do you have an idea of a budget number that this 169 will come to?

Chief Kraemer: That’s kind of a loaded question. I can give you a preliminary number in my head, but until you negotiate a contract, I mean you don’t know if it will be simple enough for me… There’s several new positions that we’re creating. I know that there’s a fear and things have been thrown out that all we want is from a contract standpoint, is some parity with the PD. Now, I can’t speak for anybody and I know that wholeheartedly for me, that’s not true. So, until we get guidance on the contract, no, I really can’t tell you. I can give you some ballpark numbers of where I think it may be, but I don’t want to shoot myself with…

Mr. Mull: I’ll say it. A patrolman makes about $30,000 more than a fireman, right. So, if you take their numbers at $22 million…

Mr. Martin: Two guys with seven years’ experience kind of thing?

Mr. Mull: Well, we’ll take top salary. We’re at $85,000, they’re at $122,000.

Mr. Mastrangelo: How many steps do you have?

Mr. Mull: We have nine… in that area. But still it’s about $40,000. So if you take the police numbers, at the 169, they’re at $22 million roughly? So, if you take that same number and reduce that number by what our current contract is, what’s the savings on $40,000?

Chief Kraemer: Somewhere $17 million and $19 million.

Mr. Monzo: Forty guys if you use $90,000… just use $90,000. You’re talking $3.6 million in salary. You got $40,000 a person for insurance. You got 8% for social security and 25% for pension. So forty guys are going to run your about $5 million or more.

Mr. Martin: And that’s in the salary, benefits...

Mr. Monzo: That’s salary, social security, pension, and health benefits.

Chief Kraemer: Under the current contract, the highest paid contract… Unfortunately, I’m not trying to say anything out of turn, but we don’t make what the patrolmen do. They earn every penny what they have just like our personnel do. Our 169 doesn’t match up the 169 budget-wise.

Mr. Monzo: I wasn’t using those numbers; I was just using… your average is about $90,000…ballpark.

Mr. Mull: There are some that are different. I would say $90,000 would be the …

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Mr. Monzo: Good way to calculate it.

Mr. Martin: What questions do people have? I know I’ve kind of gone back and forth and asked a lot of questions.

Mr. Kenny: The squad… you said that’s a rescue operation. Do they go out and fight fires too?

Chief Kraemer: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Mr. Mull: They’re an engine company.

Mr. Kenny: So it’s an engine that can fight fires and…

Mr. Mull: And do truck work and do vehicle extrication. So, they actually have the tools to do the…

Chief Kraemer: It’s a training skill set and a little bit of extra equipment. So, in the initial where even though I tell you that we can only staff two ladders, one of those two squads is going to have to function as a third aerial in terms of its jobs on the fire ground.

Mr. Mull: Because the study recommended a rescue company, and instead of staffing that and taking an engine out of service, I think it’s better to keep an engine that can put fires out, rescue cannot.

Chief Kraemer: The only thing with the squad difference is that we stand up, there’s a special rapid intervention crews. The squads are trained to go in and rescue downed firefighters. Not to say if a firefighter went down in front of Ladder 14, they’re not going to try and grab that person, but we have specialized training and extra numbers in order to facilitate that rescue. It’s an advanced skill set.

Mr. Martin: Chief, this 169 sheet, does that assume we have 2 through 10 in terms of fire houses, or it doesn’t matter?

Chief Kraemer: It doesn’t matter. No, because like I said, this accounts for putting five engines, two squads, three ladders, and an SS on, but it doesn’t take into account that the volunteer engine we talked about with the supplemental volunteer staffing. So, if we’re able to get the new fire station built to better locate an aerial on an engine, it doesn’t matter if it’s the volunteer engine that would be located out there with the ladder. I would recommend it be paid just because of its proximity and especially to the Homestead.

Mr. Martin: The hospital?

Chief Kraemer: Exactly, whereas if let’s say for example, we use Station 18 as the volunteer hub. At least if that engine has trouble getting out for whatever reason, there are enough other close paid companies that could respond. It wouldn’t be that cost deficient to hurt the operation.

Mr. Martin: Do you have any idea… So I thought about moving Station 5 out to be the new 10 versus just building a new 10.

Chief Kraemer: We would lose a company, that would be the problem. So if you look at… forget about what you know about the fire stations right now in the sense of what their functions. So, you want to move 5 for example, 3 is a ladder. If 5 is now longer there, 3 is now an engine.

Mr. Martin: Say that again, I’m sorry.

Chief Kraemer: So, during the daytime, Engine 15, Engine 16, and Truck 13 are an immediate response on alarm systems and structure fires. If Engine 15 is no longer in that location in South Hamilton, it’s now Engine 16 and the ladder truck. So, we in essence, would lose a company. So, that would force that ladder to be on an engine. So now we don’t have a ladder in South. It’s kind of that trade off, that balancing act which is why it’s so critical for us to say… and if you look at this, there’s three engines in the South, there’s three engines in the North, there’s a squad, and there’s a ladder for each. And once we build up the third, then it kind of changes that response parameter a little bit; it makes it more efficient.

Mr. Martin: What other questions on manpower does anybody else have?

Mr. Mull: Did you guys have any idea about an organizational chart you guys want?

Mr. Martin: You see; I am flying blind here. Ralph has at least has an advantage over me, he’s done the police department stuff.

Mr. Mastrangelo: Like I said, I agree with everything you’re saying, I’m just having trouble with that number… justifying it.

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Mr. Mull: Well, what’s your number?

Mr. Mastrangelo: I kind of was thinking where Jeff was. Let’s say we shut down 5, we opened up the new firehouse and let’s say we shut down Nottingham. Now you’re going to add manpower to the other houses, right? But I understand what you’re saying as far as the ladder truck…

Chief Kramer: The proximity is the issue. Although it may look like we’re on top of one another through their distinct functions, that primary engine is a critical function. The location where that backup and third engine is coming from is critical. A chance for a failure or a firefighter go down is going to happen in the first less than five minutes of an incident. Right now, our rapid intervention company in the south part of Hamilton where I primarily work is Groveville. We know how long it takes from Groveville, but they’re one of the specialty companies that comes up. So it’s a trade-off between them and Squad 12. So, we’re already working short. Not everything stops when those emergencies happen. So, although it appears it may be overbuilt, I assure you it’s not.

Mr. Mull: Let me ask you a question. If we took an engine, even if we took 15’s engine, we’re just diverting to Truck 13 at 16 with Engine 16. You got the same amount of companies with one…

Chief Kraemer: You’re the reducing the staffing number, that’s the problem.

Mr. Mull: No, you’re not.

Chief Kraemer: No, but what I’m saying though is if you were to take… in order to cover forty-two square miles, and I understand about you want to close a fire station. If that happens, then that truck, Engine 15 needs to go down to 13 and 13 would now come to 6 as a ladder. They would centrally locate. The problem is if you totally move that out, it changes the response time dynamic. So, I mean, if you wanted to reduce the staffing number… the 169 is a solid number. If you wanted to reduce the staffing number by any way, it would mean that any of the three-man or four-person engines would now go down to three. But the one that can’t is Station 19. That’s too far, it’s too remote.

Mr. Kenny: You keep saying forty-two square miles, how big is the Groveville district? It’s like twenty square miles?

Chief Kraemer: It’s not quite that big.

Mr. Buroczi: District 6 is as big as the City of Trenton, so 7 some square miles.

Chief Kraemer: No, we’re bigger than that. The City of Trenton is 8.5 square miles. So, Groveville is probably about eleven.

Mr. Kenny: Because let’s be honest, a lot of Groveville is rural.

Chief Kraemer: It is, but a lot of the life hazard has changed.

Mr. Kenny: There are exceptions out there, but some people are just so remote, it’s very difficult to provide coverage. Look it, we’ve got to use the resources that we have and what the taxpayers can afford.

Chief Kraemer: I understand that, I’m not trying to be cynical.

Mr. Kenny: It’s not a perfect world.

Chief Kraemer: I understand that. But here’s the issue that I have. And the issue that you’re going to have as government is when that acceptable loss of the local government occurs, are you prepared for the ramifications of that? You’re gonna get sued if you identify a need and make no adjustments or attempts to correct that problem. We’re setting up a new department. I understand you don’t like the numbers, but the truth of the matter is, and I have a quote directly from Chief Georgio which is basically saying that if you staff up the levels based off of your needs exactly what you’re saying, you can’t just devalue the people that live out in Groveville because of where they live. But what I have seen is that you have a build-up in the 130 track that we are not properly providing that level of fire protection to. So, I understand that you want to move… 19 in my opinion is not in a good spot. It’s not. And I’ve argued with Tom Flanigan about this, but the truth is in my opinion, it’s not in a great spot, but given the way the district is laid out, it’s more centralized than what it was. So, all I’ve tried to do with the chiefs and with the union is to put out what I thought was a model document that I thought would be understandable in the terms of numbers that we’re familiar with, where those numbers play in, how can they efficiently create a department that’s resilient and efficient. To reduce the staffing number down in any way, would resort to lower staffed engine companies. But to take companies away and close or move companies or re-allocate closing stations for the sense of just eliminating a unit, then no. I think that’s going to hurt us long term. I’d rather drop us to a three-person engine in order to maintain that extra engine in a remote area. It’s still a big area.

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Mr. Martin: Pointing to the unions guys and you chief, have you guys identified other than the commissioner’s salaries that will come off the books, have you guys done any, and I don’t mean numbers, but any areas, reduced training costs, reduced maintenance costs?

Mr. Mull: Well, a lot of that stuff if it’s done correctly, will save money. For example, apparatus maintenance is done now through private companies and they’re bid. We talked about fire trucks about what we could get rid of, that study shows… it’s a couple years old and we’ve already gotten rid of a ton of stuff that’s already on there, so apparatus is going to be tough. A lot of stations only have one engine now where they used to have three on that study, so I mean, that’s going to be tough.

Mr. Martin: You mean we’re going to have to increase apparatus costs versus decrease?

Chief Kraemer: No, I don’t think so. But what can we get of?

Mr. Martin: Other than getting rid of commissioners, where can we start to realize some efficiencies?

Mr. Mull: Insurance costs. I think attorney fees.

Mr. Martin: Insurance costs meaning like just comp type claims?

Mr. Kenny: They’re all separate policies.

Chief Kraemer: So AmeriHealth from my understanding is a little bit cheaper than the state health benefits plan for the same level of coverage.

Mr. Buroczi: Human resources department. That will save a lot because we’re going through some headaches right now, that guys with retirement and stuff like that, and paperwork hasn’t been properly filed. So, it’s costing more in fees than anything else. So, it would be more efficient to do it through the Township. Most of the companies already get gas through the Township. So that’s a shared service we already do through the town.

Mr. Mull: We’re paying a ton of money is just contracts and attorney fees and everything else. You got audits. Our audits are how much per district…ten thousand dollars a year a district in audits.

Chief Kraemer: Proper fleet maintenance is going to cause big dividends and cost control.

Mr. Martin: Does that go back to the apparatus maintenance?

Chief Kraemer: Well, in part, because you have the maintenance on how if the town is going to have mechanics work and do the oil changes, but they have to be pump certified. They need to have additional training, maybe hire one or two specialty people.

Mr. Buroczi: Aerial testing.

Chief Kraemer: Our host testing aerial and it’s all done, it’s outsourced. So we get a better price on the volume of clothes, the volume of the ladders that we test, so there’s some savings there.

Mr. Monzo: Is there a way to draw down some of those numbers? Like you just talked about the auditors and the attorneys. Most of these budgets just call it professional fees and they’re between $25,000 and $40,000 together.

Mr. Mull: …auditors, attorneys… some people have accountants and things like that. They also pay for subscriptions, commissioners belonging to organizations, they pay money to go dues.

Mr. Buroczi: The newspaper.

Mr. Mull: To advertise.

Mr. Monzo: They have advertising in the budget, I’m just talking about professional fees, it’s like $35, $36, $37,000.

Mr. Martin: Any savings in bulk uniform purchases, equipment purchases?

Chief Kraemer: We actually changed some of these purchasing. We’ve found there to be a more efficient tool to allow us to maintain our NFPA compliance every five years we’re getting them new turn-out gear. We have reserved years so that when we have a fire, it’s doing a couple things. First of all, it’s allowing us to make sure that we’re in NFPA compliant when the guys and girls come back from fires they now take that gear out of service so they’re not exposed to those carcinogens. They have to wash the gear, so they have a spare set. So, actually what we’ve seen and I’ve seen in

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District 6, is you don’t see as illness as related to structural fires afterwards because they’re not being exposed to the same carcinogens as what they were.

Mr. Buroczi: Cancer is a big thing in fire service right now. A lot of departments are changing their gear. They get back their gear goes in a bag, it gets cleaned out. Because what they’re finding through studies is as soon as the guys get back, they don’t wash their gear, they put it on again. You still have all those harmful chemicals in there from on the job. The hoods that they wear, the guys don’t wash them, so they get cancer in the throat. Cancer in the groin. So that’s a lot, with the lease purchase program with the extra gear because it flips through, so the guys have an extra set to do all that.

Mr. Mull: That’s a fixed cost every five years.

Chief Kraemer: It would be the same thing even with apparatus. It’s like the police have budgeted $325,000-$350,000 for patrol cars. If we did lease purchasing on fire apparatus, we would be able to maintain a fleet, probably like a five-year turnover. I couldn’t guarantee you what that would buy, but my guess would probably be two engines and a ladder or at least one and one when you have to replace the ladder.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, after five years, that rig would go into a reserved piece. And then a new rig would come in and you have the extra… And then after ten years, it would be out of service.

Mr. Martin: Scott, who pays for all the volunteer equipment?

Mr. Goldsmith: I believe it’s the district.

Mr. Martin: Even with like a separate volunteer company, the district still pays for them?

Mr. Mull: They all raise their own funds.

Mr. Martin: Any training the volunteers need, that gets paid by the district?

Mr. Kenny: Would there be savings on overtime?

Chief Kraemer: There would be some savings on overtime. But that would be through… some of it would be policy driven, some of it would be through proper staffing, because the chance of injury is less which isn’t going to result in overtime from those injuries. There is a distinct difference between us. And overtime is inherent because we’re working among staffing members. And again, that would be a policy and something that the chief would have to negotiate to determine what’s going to be a safe number. To go down to a minimum staffing number similar to the police department, say twenty on the road at a given time, we just don’t work that way. Ours is based off per apparatus with that given number. Now, what we’re saying here is a three-person engine, that’s the minimum for that company. Anything that I have written down here these are minimum staffing numbers. Because the squad, the ladder, those are specialty pieces that allow for those crews to separate and do multiple functions at the same time.

Mr. Mull: We also have an overtime issue because in the fire districts, it takes a long time to hire. In the municipal department, it doesn’t work that way. So like in District 4, we had a guy retire and it took over a month to get a guy actually hired. So that’s a month of overtime that they paid out. It would be different in a municipal department.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, if you know a guy is retiring you’re not going to sit there and wait three months and pay somebody overtime.

Chief Kraemer: Savings in the training division being stood up; we run our own fire academy. That’s a big deal. EMT certifications, the CEU’s that’s all done in-house where we’re not sending people out. A lot of CEU’s that we’re doing, we’ve been using online, EMS 24/7 and programs like that. So we’re taking measures to reduce and try and stabilize our costs. But at the end of the day, costs have still risen that you can’t control. Fuel costs go up. Other things go up.

Mr. Monzo: How do each one of these companies budget for overtime? I’m looking at each one of these budgets, just the salaries number. Is that base salary plus overtime?

Chief Kraemer: It’s an overtime number that Joe Marcucci uses. So for District 6, he tries to ballpark what the sick hours may be based off an average of what we’ve seen used. Vacation time, he tries to budget 100%. Joe would be the guy that I would call.

Mr. Monzo: They’re almost all the same, so I’m looking at the 9 for example. Salaries is $1.65 million. Then there’s a cost for commissioners. And then there’s a category for holidays, vacation, sick, and training. The way it looks to me is those are the overtime costs based on those categories, is that fair to say?

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Chief Kraemer: That’s correct.

Mr. Monzo: So what you’re saying is in terms of because of holidays, you have $76,000 worth of overtime. Because of vacations, you have $216,000 worth of overtime.

Mr. Mull: Well, $76,000 is holiday pay, not overtime.

Mr. Monzo: Sick time; they use a rate of $61.42 at 2,000 hours. So what he’s saying is $122,000 of overtime is an expected cost due to sick days?

Chief Kraemer: Correct.

Mr. Monzo: So all those numbers are really the overtime other than the holiday because that’s a payment. Those are the overtime costs based on the reasons why there’s overtime?

Chief Kraemer: Right. So depending on for example, the vacation time, the sick time, and the personal leave time, even training … Training may not, it would depend on the specialty stuff that we have. We may be able to address some of that and reduce that overtime number.

Mr. Monzo: But that’s the areas where you’re looking to say, these are our generated or budgeted overtime numbers for specific reasons. And if you’re looking for efficiencies and places to save, you’re going to try and save money, it might be there because of that.

Mr. Mull: And not only that. District 9, for example, has overtime for training. Not all districts have that.

Mr. Martin: So District 9 budgets about 7,000 hours a year for overtime? If I’m reading what Joe’s pointing out.

Mr. Mull: It’s probably true, they might bank… They have in the overtime budget accrued sick hours.

Mr. Martin: Yeah, cause it looks like the $40.95 is just to separate $61.42 seems like…

Mr. Monzo: That’s what they get paid for working the holidays, so they get a separate payment.

Mr. Mull: No, it’s in their pay. It’s just contractual.

Mr. Monzo: Is it pensionable for you guys?

Mr. Mull: No.

Mr. Buroczi: Some are; ours is in District 6.

Mr. Mull: 9 is not.

Mr. Monzo: They don’t get it every pay, they get it once a year?

Mr. Mull: They get it once a year in December. Because they rolled it into their base, it would pensionable.

Mr. Mull: Yeah, but then the municipality will be on the hook for a pension. Some districts do have it, some districts don’t.

Mr. Monzo: That’s going to have to be a consideration. You can’t roll all those employees into the Township and have some employees who are going to have…

Mr. Mull: That’s all going to be one contract. It’s going to be negotiated.

Mr. Monzo: So, it can’t be some employees coming from one district who didn’t have their holiday pay.

Mr. Mull: I also can’t be making more money than the guy working next to me. That’s part of the…

Mr. Buroczi: And even with training, you could reduce costs on training because you have the deputy chief in charge of training or a captain. They’re going to have all them specialty skills that guys go to different schools to do. And we have our own little training academy that the chief can say, alright, Engine 6 and Ladder 3 whatever, go to the training academy today. You’re there for a half a day and you’re getting your training done. This way, they have all that training, and it’s all done on duty. So that’s where a lot of them costs could be…

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Mr. Mull: And a lot of times now, some districts pay guys off-duty to go take their classes. And District 9 for example, they call back an entire shift to go burn at the fire school because we have to do two burns a year. So there’s overtime there. I mean, that stuff we would be able to do.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, by law, we have to do two training burns a year. So they call an old crew in to go and do that.

Chief Kraemer: I didn’t bring it with me, but just so you know, I took a look at the Trenton Fire Department and the 224 personnel. They have roughly budgeted five or almost 6 million dollars which was the equivalent of what their police overtime budget was. I don’t foresee us being… ballpark probably three or four million dollars for the overtime which I think is a reasonable number. The unrestricted money is there beyond the other budget numbers. Unfortunately, our staffing numbers are different.

Mr. Buroczi: Every district is different because of the rate of the contract.

Chief Kraemer: But to your point, I think that there’s control mechanisms that we can put in place that would control certain things. But overtime needs to be built into it.

Mr. Martin: The District 5 budget, that’s one that just is going to be hiring some additional people right? So, the numbers that they have, is that with the… Like they couldn’t hire people until last week. So is that a prorated number?

Chief Kraemer: So, what will happen over there is that the total budget numbers reflects the hiring of the personnel. But Joe probably took an average.

Mr. Martin: But the hiring… eleven months?

Chief Kraemer: Exactly. So, typically what he’ll do is we may budget the full year, but knowing that the process takes forever to get somebody on, you may not actually fully expend that. Their contract over there, they don’t get any vacation time for the first year. So there’s some savings there. So that’s why it’s not reflected. You also can’t compare eighteen personnel number budgets to what’s going to be a twelve. And they don’t have a chief. They don’t have certain number of things in place.

Mr. Martin: I’m just looking at it, it looks like you did put salaries pursuant to referendum from the firefighters into a separate line. And then he probably fixed the other pension costs and social security costs.

Chief Kraemer: Yup, exactly.

Mr. Monzo: What is ‘fringe benefits pursuant to referendum’ hat I see this several times throughout this document?

Chief Kraemer: Where are we looking at, District 7?

Mr. Monzo: Well on 5, there’s $100,000 for 18. And then on 6, there’s $111,498 last year under that line item. So what referendum are they referring to?

Chief Kraemer: Well, there was a referendum to hire four personnel in District 6 two years ago. So there was probably carry over costs to that.

Mr. Monzo: Okay. So some of these might have had referendums for additional costs above the cap?

Chief Kraemer: Exactly.

Mr. Martin: So two of the biggest areas that we could probably realize some efficiencies in the overtime and the commissioner salaries and benefits?

Chief Kraemer: I would say that we can control overtime, we cannot eliminate it.

Mr. Martin: I know it can’t. But I’m saying maybe working 7,000 hours of overtime, you go to 4,500 or something like that.

Mr. Mull: It depends on the staffing too. If you’re riding a three-man engine company, how much overtime are you actually going to cut? Because you’re not taking a fire truck out with two people.

Mr. Martin: How do the volunteers… So now right if you have somebody from District 3 (Scott) call out sick, does a volunteer come in there to help reduce overtime?

Chief Kraemer: It’s a violation of the collective bargaining agreement.

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Mr. Goldsmith: I personally, I don’t think that’s the way we should look to save money to have us fill their shift to save money. Those career guys are career guys for a reason.

Mr. Martin: You’re just there to supplement what you can.

Mr. Goldsmith: Yup. Chief, I do have a question. With supplementing an engine or staffing an engine, would they have an opportunity to ride a truck or a squad?

Chief Kraemer: Yeah, so the way that I envision is quite simple. Everybody in the department would complete training based on a task book. This way it’s fair. It’s across the board and everybody knows what the training standard is. The training division would check that person off saying they’re competent to ride an engine, competent to ride a ladder. So if you just want to ride the ladder and that’s just where you want to go, I don’t see a problem with that. Everybody’s got to meet a training standard. And the days of saying that’s okay just because…no. Those have to end.

Mr. Martin: I know we’ve done a lot, right? Does anybody have any more questions tonight?

Mr. Buroczi: Listen, I’ve rode a three-man engine. I rode it for a long, long time. And riding in it as the captain, you supervise. And we have to go in, we’re that third guy. So we can’t supervise and see what else is going on. So at that point, we go into a dangerous situation, if I’m not watching everything else that’s going on… I mean, we’ve had guys fall through the floor and everything else.

Mr. Martin: You mean, the 2 in 2 out kind of thing?

Mr. Buroczi: On the 2 in 2 out. So that’s why from a union aspect, a safety aspect, we always push for that.

Mr. Mull: I’ll be honest with you, I’m dead against a three-man engine.

Mr. Buroczi: We gave up that concession because hopefully down the road we can work into building up the department. Because right now, like I said in the beginning, we don’t have the department that we need. And I mean, I can even quote Anthony after I saw him and he said he wanted to have the Hamilton Fire Department second to none. And for us to do that, we need to be at least at that 169 number to get there. And that’s even concessions with that three-man engine. And the way we can see that that three-man engine was because of the dual house with the ladder. Because the ladder goes, they vent for life, and find the fire engine comes in gets the hose and puts out the fire. A lot of times it works like that, and it works quickly like that. But a lot of times, if that ladder is not there, it’s hard on a three-man engine to get started. Now they’re playing catchup with everything else.

Mr. Monzo: You have to understand too that… Let’s say the number is $5 million for the extra 40 people. If you’re trying to jump to that from ‘18 to ‘19, DCA is only going to allow a certain leadway in terms of… You still have a levy cap one you have to abide by. So, they’re going to roll in all the tax levy costs from eight companies that are being merged and they’re going to say, because that was really your base for 2018. Now what’s your base for ‘19? You’re still going to have the same levy restrictions. You’re still going to have to have the same exceptions for your debt service and social security, pension, and health benefits over above the 2 percent. That’s a hard number to say… well, now we want to add $4 million. The Township couldn’t do it. The Township couldn’t say we want to add forty new cops and it’s going to cost us $5 million. They wouldn’t have the ability within their budget because they have the levy from one year and they have the 2% and the exceptions. They couldn’t roll in $4 million of operating expenses. We wouldn’t be able to do it unless they went to referendum to have the voters, the whole Township not just the people who vote in the fire districts, say sure we’ll add forty new cops at whatever numbers. It may be difficult unless you have the savings elsewhere or some of the savings, it may be a difficult thing to get through that amount of costs in one year going from ’18 to ‘19, from eight districts to one department just because of the cap restrictions. Not because they don’t want to, just because they might not have the ability, math to be able to do it.

Chief Kraemer: What I envision is a phase-in. I really do. You asked me for the current numbers, you asked me for where I thought we should be, and that’s what I gave you. I have a phase-in which I call phase one which is basically, it’s a number around 141, 143 which requires additional, about half of that number. It shows what has to be staffed, where it has to be staffed, it uses more three- man engines until… I’m a realist, I understand. I understand exactly what you’re saying. And we have to step into this to say that it’s acceptable to fight fires in Hamilton at 129 personnel, it’s not.

Mr. Monzo: I don’t know if it is or isn’t. I’m just saying there are limitations on what Hamilton, Mahwah, Rocky Hill who’s only this big, can do in terms of their budget. There’s a spending cap limitation, and all these costs are going to be inside the spending cap. All of them, every single one of them. And you have a tax levy cap limitation. Let’s say you had $2 million this year, and then you want to add another $2 million the following year. You have to have the ability within your spending cap… I don’t know if Hamilton has a cap bank if you do that or not, but you have to have a levy cap

26 bank to be able to do it. But it’s a difficult number to fit into this bubble. It was easier when it was at 4%, but now it’s 2%.

Mr. Buroczi: Yeah, if there’s a way that we could do a phase-in…part of it. Start off with what we have now, and then phase it in as we go along.

Mr. Monzo: I don’t think you want to go to referendum, do you? For the voters to say we want to merge the fire companies and it’s going to add 40 firefighters and it’s going to cost whatever the number is. You have to get it approved. If they say no, then that’s what you’re stuck with, the answer is no. It’s just another consideration.

Mr. Martin: Any other questions or comments from anybody else tonight? We have our meeting next week, and what I would say is now that we have some numbers, now that we have some budgets, and I don’t know if we can get better breakdown from Districts 4, 7, and 8. I love how some of these budgets you got broke things down. The exact overtime numbers for sick and holiday and things like that. I live in District 7, so I’ll bash them and say it doesn’t break it down as nicely.

Mr. Monzo: That guy Joe probably didn’t’ do that.

Mr. Mull: No, he did not.

Mr. Monzo: You can tell from the spread sheets; he did the ones that are… the old dot matrix looking ones. He did those. And the other districts do something else.

Mr. Martin: Because I’d like to try to get… and Joe, maybe you can help out with this too, what number our current 129 represents in terms of salary and wages? And what a number of 169 would represent in salary and wages?

Mr. Monzo: It’s not just wages, you have to consider all the benefits, health care, social security, pension….

Mr. Martin: And then, I think if we can maybe start figuring out where we’re going to realize some efficiencies too and just ballpark some of those numbers. So are we going to save $50,000 a year in overtime? Or are we going to be able to save $250,000 grand a year in overtime? We know we’re roughly saving $400,000 a year in commissioner’s salaries. Because I think once we get for everybody to kind of look at the numbers the chief provided for moving forward with org charts and things like that. Everybody take some time over the next week. And if anybody’s got any recommended changes to that, you gotta have them for next week so we can start flushing out those two big items right of way; the budget and the manpower. And even if we don’t answer it next week obviously, but the sooner we answer that I think the sooner…

Mr. Monzo: You said meeting next week, you mean this group or you mean Council?

Mr. Martin: No, this group. So originally, I would have loved to have this meeting last Monday, but it was a holiday. But I thought if we could stay on the 1st and 3rd Mondays, starting next month of every month. So that’s next week, but otherwise, it’s every two weeks.

Mr. Monzo: Who is your JIF guy at Garden State that I could talk to get an estimate for…

Mr. Kenny: I’ll get you that information.

Mr. Martin: Does anybody have anything else they want to say or recommend that we have for next week?

Mr. Buroczi: I think the manpower is going to be the biggest thing to kick everything off from there…and the buildings and maintenance and all that other stuff. That’s got to be our starting point.

Mr. Mull: Quite frankly, we can’t do buildings until we know who’s…

Mr. Buroczi: That’s what I mean. Instead of going after costs and buildings and trucks and everything else, we need to start with the manpower.

Mr. Monzo: Is anybody going to work in this building? Do you envision anybody in this plan working?

Mr. Mull: I don’t think they have room for anybody here.

Mr. Buroczi: They have a separate police department, so this will probably be in a different building.

Mr. Martin: It will probably just be in one of the houses.

Mr. Kenny: Yeah, that’s what I would think.

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Mr. Martin: Thank you everybody.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:32 pm.

______Eileen Gore, RMC, CMC, MMC Municipal Clerk

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