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COUNCIL MEETING SPECIAL SESSION

September 29, 2015

The Council of the City of Greenville met in special session at 7:00 P.M. in the Council Room, Municipal Building, Greenville, Ohio. President Burkett was presiding and the following members were present at roll call: Yea- Godwin, Harrison, Oliver, Rogers, Tryon, Schmidt and Baumgardner.

President Burkett stated the reason for the Special Meeting was to have a Committee of the Whole/Work Session at Mr. Tryon’s request for the Ad Hoc Committee assignment to review the Greenville Fire Department’s Strategic and Capital Improvement Plan 2015- 2020. Burkett stated no action would be taken.

Tryon stated he would like Chief Wolf to explain the information to Council that he had covered in the Committee meeting. Tryon stated the Committee was at a crossroads with the assignment to add a Fire/Rescue combination. Tryon stated Chief Wolf reviewed the cost and covered the funding through soft billing and a tax levy. Tryon stated he thought all of Council should be involved to see if it the plan was warranted and to see how to move forward.

Baumgardner stated he would like Council to keep an open mind regarding the plan. Baumgardner stated he felt the plan was a no brainer as it could save the tax payers money.

Tryon stated the Committee also wanted the Law Director & Auditor present for their input.

Oliver stated he stood by the decision that Council took in 2009 in recommending not to continue with the assignment.

Mayor Bowers stated he appreciated where Oliver was coming from. Bowers stated he would like to review what happened during the 2009 time frame. Bowers stated the State had cut local government funds and tangible tax reimbursements had been cut off in 2012 and inheritance tax was completely removed. Bowers stated the average dollars were approximately $1,000,000.00 out of the City budget. Bowers questioned how to provide the same services the community had been accustomed too. Bowers discussed the impact of the funding issues at that time. Bowers stated there was a new situation on the horizon with House Bill 5, however, he was not sure how it would be implemented or how it would affect the City moving forward. Bowers commended Chief Wolf for putting the five year strategic and capital improvement plan together. Bowers stated the plan would maintain the same level of quality our citizens had become used to. Bowers stated it was important to be proactive in reviewing the plan items. Bowers encouraged Council to move forward with the issue as there were pretty impressive pieces in the plan. Bowers stated Council member Baumgardner was involved with putting the plan together. Bowers stated as an elected official, it was his responsibility to look at the dollars. Bowers stated there were still conversations that needed to happen with the Township and with moving the issue forward but if there was an opportunity to save tax dollars for the community, it was 10145 necessary to look at. Bowers stated the public was always being asked to pay more taxes and finally there was an opportunity to save tax dollars for the citizens. Bowers stated there would be new millage, different opportunities and different paths to take, but it was important to look at moving forward.

Chief Wolf stated the previous capital improvement plan expired in 2014. Wolf stated they started last fall and came up with a draft plan and then ask for a Committee assignment. Wolf stated it was up to Council to approve it and fund it. Wolf stated they reviewed the draft with the AdHoc Committee. Wolf distributed copies of the draft to Council. Wolf reviewed the following items:

Chief Wolf stated item #1 referred to staffing in order to reestablish a five man minimum so they could run their two piece engine company response which previously existed in 2002 but was eliminated a few years ago through reduction in personnel. Wolf stated the current minimum was four men with six men assigned on each shift. Wolf stated he would prefer to staff two full engine companies and a ladder company. Wolf stated there was a need to establish a seven man staff shift including hiring three personnel. Wolf stated the budget for the staffing would be $226,000.00 total cost. Wolf stated an alternative would be to limit leave to one man off duty. Wolf stated it would not increase cost to the City to do that, however, they would have to eliminate Kelly days which would take them from a 56 hour work week to a 53 hour work week and would cost $83,000.00 in cost in order to comply with Federal FLSA. Wolf stated in a sense, every employee of the Fire Department would get three hours of overtime every week automatically. Wolf stated that would be a huge contract issue to negotiate with the union. Wolf discussed bringing in part time personnel to supplement the full time staff on an as needed basis per day. Wolf stated by the current tracking of personnel average on duty per day, they would have to bring in 360 hours per month on average which would cost approximately $85,000.00 which only covered the wages and BWC Premium Medicare. Wolf stated funding for any of these proposals could be met by bringing in EMS operations into the Fire Department. Wolf stated EMS billing would cover the cost of additional staff and EMS staffing would need to be greater than five in that case. Wolf stated there was no other funding source identified through the General Fund or any other source. Chief Wolf stated Item #2 referred to recall personnel availability. Wolf stated we need to increase the number of available personnel. There is a response plan for our off duty recall and auxiliary personnel. Wolf stated there were changes where employees were living due to the changes in the residency rules within Darke County and any County in Ohio contingent to Darke County. Wolf stated response time was greatly delayed because of employees living in other counties. Wolf stated some alternatives to this would be to increase staffing and offer a residency bonus for living within a ten mile radius from the traffic circle. Chief Wolf stated they had discussed pay for on-call time to come back in if employees were needed for four personnel at $5/hr. x 4 x 24 x 365 = $175,000.00 per year. Wolf stated another alternative was to increase fire auxiliary members and enforcing a residency rule on those members and establishing a ten mile radius from the traffic circle. Wolf stated the Fire Department had two employees within a ten mile 10146 radius and this was an area where he had significant difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified and competent auxiliary members. Wolf stated they did not receive any points for being a member of our Fire auxiliary but they did get percentages of points for certain levels of Firefighter training. Wolf stated another alternative was having part-time personnel. Chief Wolf stated item #3 referred to Radio Communications. Wolf stated the Darke County system was nearing the end of service life. Wolf stated as far as the infrastructure and system was concerned, there would be a push for the joint dispatch center down the road. Wolf stated the Ohio Multi Agency Radio Communications System (MARCS) would be around $3,000,000.00. Wolf stated there would be a lot of area to be covered with that. Wolf stated it would be a huge burden on the City to pay for the system. Oliver questioned if the County currently used the MARKS system.

Chief Wolf stated the County currently used the system and it was funded by the State. Wolf explained the system, who could use it and the benefits of the system.

There was discussion regarding the MARKS system and how it worked. Wolf stated the County Commissioners were discussing a property tax in order to fund it. Chief Wolf stated the Committee had been meeting monthly or bimonthly. Chief Wolf stated the grant system was very difficult to achieve.

Tryon questioned if the joint dispatch center would do away with the City’s need to have dispatchers.

Chief Wolf stated he knew that would be a discussion Council would like to have. Wolf stated he would like to keep our dispatchers. Wolf stated Chief Butts would be a better person to discuss that with.

Oliver questioned if other County’s had their own stand-alone 911 dispatch centers.

Chief Wolf stated a fee was paid by the City’s and County’s to pay into that system. Chief Wolf stated Miami County and Montgomery County would be going into the MARKS system.

Safety/Service Director Garrison stated the Communications Committee and County Commissioners discussed putting a levy on the ballot to help fund the radio equipment for the County. Garrison stated the City would need to purchase two consoles for $325,000.00 and the County would purchase one. Garrison stated there had been a lot of discussion about the joint dispatch center and the biggest concern was the ability for the City to have any say so in the issue. Garrison stated with the call volume that the City handled, there was a definite benefit to having our own dispatch center. Garrison stated it was not all about dollars but about public safety. Garrison stated the dispatchers did more than dispatching such as handle paperwork, help with leads and other items. Chief Wolf stated Preble County had their own dispatch system. 10147

Chief Wolf stated he was going to skip item #4 and would come back to it. Chief Wolf discussed item #5 referring to Capital Equipment. Wolf stated Capital Equipment was always a large concern of his in order to maintain an effective and reliable fleet. Wolf stated there was no dedicated funding stream for the fleet. Wolf stated equipment had been replaced as it got old but the Fire Department had to compete with other departments for funding from the General Fund which was a big issue for him. Wolf stated he had applied for a grant for self-contained breathing apparatus which would cost $140,000.00 for approximately 20 units. Wolf stated the FD was currently two NFBA standards behind. Wolf stated with the plan of assuming EMS duties in the City, it would cover all purchases for the Fire Department. Chief Wolf discussed item #6 referring to Hazmat Team. Wolf stated they were working to achieve the Type 2 team status which is at the national level. Wolf stated the need to reach level two was for funding as we are a huge part of the County team. Wolf stated we are currently at a type three team. Wolf stated the FD hopes to accomplish level two by spring of 2016. Wolf stated a lot of dangerous liquids go through the City on the rail cars.

Chief Wolf discussed item #7 referring to Training Facility. Wolf stated the cost for the facility would be approximately $750,000.00. Wolf stated the training facility would be a huge asset to the ISO rating and could reduce insurance rates and allow personnel better training. Wolf stated the facility could also be used for Law Enforcement training such as special response teams. Wolf stated Greenville would require a burn unit in the facility. Chief Wolf discussed item #8 referring to Remodel FD Basement area for a better learning environment, better ergonomics for fire prevention functions and to update the lighting and storage area. Wolf stated the cost would be approximately $40,000.00. Wolf stated this would also update the air conditioning. Oliver questioned how often the Fire Department had a live burn.

Chief Wolf stated spring of 2015 was the last time they had a live burn and they usually only did it once every two or three years.

Oliver questioned if the City could partner with the County to have more live burn options as they were extremely important.

Chief Wolf stated they were working on trying to do it County wide.

Chief Wolf discussed item #9 referring to build permanent steps to the Fire Department attic area for safer access to training props and storage area.

Chief Wolf discussed item #4 referring to Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Wolf stated integrating this function of Government into the Greenville Fire Department would fix a lot of issues including:  Lower total cost of providing EMS to the entire City of Greenville. Wolf stated there was currently a 3 Mil tax levy. Wolf stated this proposal would reduce the 10148

tax levy to approximately between 1 and 1.5 Mil which would reduce the cost to every property owner in the City.  Help fix staffing issue as there would be more people on duty every day.  Establish funding mechanism for all capital equipment needs which removed the need to fund it out of the General Fund. Cost of program is covered by billing insurance companies. Administrative control of EMS has no official input into that whatsoever.  Identity/Marketing - rigs would say City of Greenville.  This would be a model that is used successfully in region, state, and country.

Chief Wolf stated the Community satisfaction of the Fire Department continued to be rated high. Wolf stated they have direct control of quality assurance on running the program. Wolf stated EMS fit into all hazard nature of the fire service and the ISO rating would improve with increased staffing. Chief Wolf stated the plan could be accomplished by creating a paper township and removing the City from Greenville Township which would remove us from the property tax levy allowing us to propose a new lower levy. Wolf stated the funding could be used for all Capital Equipment needs and other funding as specified on the ballot language. Wolf stated they would propose to hire all current Greenville Township full time employees providing they passed the entrance standard. President Burkett questioned why Chief Wolf felt he needed control. Burkett questioned what was currently out of control.

Chief Wolf stated the plan fixed several issues that the Fire Department currently had.

Godwin questioned how it would work if there was a seven person staff with one person on vacation

Chief Wolf distributed and reviewed a staffing plan.

Harrison questioned how multiple squads could run at the same time.

Chief Wolf stated there was currently an average of about seven to eight medical calls per day taking approximately an hour per call.

Harrison stated he could not see fixing something that was not broken.

Chief Wolf stated it was broken.

Baumgardner suggested Harrison talk to Chief Wolf stating it would then make sense to him.

Chief Wolf distributed an EMS cost projection sheet.

Chief Wolf reviewed the cost projection sheet including: 10149

 Personnel hiring & Recurring Costs  Equipment & Supplies  Training, Maintenance  Insurance  Wages

Tryon asked Chief Wolf to explain the cost of the part-time Firefighter/Paramedic.

Chief Wolf stated the salary figure included six to nine part-time Firefighter/Paramedics.

Chief Wolf stated he took the information to Sidney and Van Wert to review the plan and they said the plan made good sense to them.

Chief Wolf stated they had talked to some other people also to help review the plan.

Schmidt questioned how much staff the Fire Department would have on a normal day.

Chief Wolf stated all personnel would be cross trained for Firefighter and EMT/Paramedic.

Schmidt questioned if they would eventually want all Firefighters to be Paramedics also.

Chief wolf stated that would eventually be the requirement, but they could begin with what they currently had.

President Burkett questioned if Chief Wolf was proposing to purchase two medic units in 2016 and one in 2017. Burkett questioned if there was room to park them.

Chief Wolf stated there was room to part them but that the utility truck would sit outside.

President Burkett questioned if $150,000.00 was all it would cost for each vehicle.

Chief Wolf stated that was the cost or they could get them cheaper but he would not recommend the cheaper ones.

There was discussion regarding the start-up costs and cost for additional years.

Oliver questioned if there were currently five paramedics on the Fire Department. Oliver stated the maintenance costs seemed low for the equipment.

Chief Wolf stated there was normally $20,000.00 put in the budget for maintenance for all the current vehicles.

Law Director Brand stated the maintenance costs for Arcanum were higher than that.

Godwin questioned what the course cost for training was to go from an EMT to a Paramedic level.

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Chief Wolf stated he did not have the figures for the course cost.

Chief Wolf distributed Chart #1 and reviewed it. Wolf stated the chart showed a basic concept of what would happen if the 1 Mil tax levy passed for capital equipment. Wolf stated within the first two years, three ambulances would need to be purchased. Wolf explained the payment plan over the next five years.

Tryon stated the Committee decided to have a work session. Tryon stated the Committee was at the point that if the plan was going to move forward, Council and Administration would need to be involved or they could just thank the Chief for all of his hard work and move on.

Baumgardner stated the current 3 Mil levy would be reduced to a 1 Mil levy with a savings of $500,000.00 to $600,000.00 per year.

President Burkett questioned what steps needed to be taken to create a paper township.

Chief Wolf distributed and reviewed a Conformity of boundaries document regarding creating a paper township.

Godwin questioned if Chief Wolf reviewed the document with Law Director Brand.

Chief Wolf stated he did not review it with Law Director Brand, however he reviewed it with many others.

Godwin questioned if the County Commissioners would have to approve the paper township.

Chief Wolf stated the County Commissioners would need to approve it.

Chief Wolf stated once the paper township was done, the 3 Mil tax levy could be removed.

There was discussion regarding the paper township and how the process would work.

There was discussion regarding whether the City would receive a benefit from the tax.

Tryon stated the majority of the structures were within the City and the City was not receiving the full benefit as we were subsidizing outside of the City.

Chief Wolf stated these were only examples of how a paper township could exist and these were only to show the process of creating a paper township.

Tryon stated a paper township would be a benefit to the City but it would create a hardship on the Township.

Schmidt stated each situation would be different. Schmidt stated the examples only showed that it was possible to create a paper township. 10151

Harrison stated if the Township could not continue with less funding, then they would have to rely on the City for more help which would require more staff and more money.

Chief Wolf stated there was a lot of speculation. Wolf stated there would still be monies going toward the Township.

Baumgardner stated it was a funding mechanism for the Fire Department that would not have to be supported through the General Fund. Baumgardner stated it was best for the City’s funding mechanism to maintain our Fire Department and provide the best service.

Godwin questioned if Law Director Brand thought it was possible to create a paper township.

Law Director Brand stated it was possible to create a paper township.

Harrison stated if the City tried and succeeded, the City may win the battle but lose the war as the Commissioners did with the issue of the prisoners.

Chief Wolf stated maybe Council could give ideas for different funding sources.

President Burkett stated if the City created a paper township, it would eliminate the 3 Mil levy. Burkett questioned what would happen if the City went to the voters with a 1 Mil levy and it did not pass.

Chief Wolf stated the City would need to have a plan B in that case.

President Burkett questioned if the City should go with a larger levy and include the Police Department. Burkett questioned if adding the Police Department in the levy would create any problems with creating the paper township.

Law Director Brand stated he had never seen a combined levy and didn’t know if it would be possible and he would need to do research on the issue.

Oliver questioned if the City created a paper township and the voters approved the levy, how soon would the funding from the levy be available?

Safety/Service Director Garrison stated the money would only be used for capital expenditures.

Oliver stated we would need to come up with $548,000.00 in the beginning.

Chief Wolf stated the soft billing would also help with that.

There was discussion regarding the amount that would need to come from the General Fund for start-up.

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Baumgardner stated a portion of that money would go back into the General Fund.

There was discussion regarding the issue of soft billing.

Godwin questioned if the current Fire Department secretary would be able to handle all of the billing.

Chief Wolf stated most likely a firm would be hired to do the billing. Wolf stated the cost for billing had been built into the plan.

Baumgardner stated the additional administration the Fire Department would need would be minimal.

Auditor Willman asked how much funding was expected to be generated in 2016 on soft billing.

Chief Wolf stated 85% of $650,000.00 was expected to be generated, around $552,000.00

Auditor Willman stated the cost was $904,000.00.

There was discussion regarding the cost for soft billing vs. actual cost in 2016.

Auditor Willman stated another large item that needed to be considered was that in October there would be major changes in insurance billing adding additional costs that were not factored into the current plan.

Chief Wolf stated all things regarding insurance would be facing the same issue.

President Burkett questioned if anything had been done for the Capital Improvement issues that were listed.

Chief Wolf stated the City simply did not have the funds to approve the Capital Improvement projects.

There was discussion regarding the Fire Department making improvements to their quarters.

Tryon questioned if there was a need for another Committee of the Whole. Tryon stated he had several opinions given to him regarding the issue.

President Burkett stated he thought another work session would be a good idea and he would also like to lay out some proposed timelines for the assignment. Burkett stated there would be some new members of Council in 2016. Burkett stated to push this through by the end of the year would be impossible.

There was discussion regarding the timeline of the issue.

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Tryon stated there were representatives from the Township present at the meeting and if anyone had questions they should send them via messages.

Chief Wolf stated Council members should contact him if they needed any more clarification.

Godwin questioned how many rescue calls per year there were from the City

Chief Wolf stated there were 2,800 calls in 2014.

Tryon moved to adjourn and the motion passed as follows: Yea- Godwin, Harrison, Oliver, Rogers, Tryon, Schmidt and Baumgardner.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:06 P.M.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT

CLERK OF COUNCIL