Pre-Meeting
Report for May 3, 2005
Compiled May 2, 2005
1) The Station 52 room-addition project is ready to
go. Senefeld and Associates have several
contractors that are highly interested in the project. They are awaiting a signed contract to move
forward.
2) We have received a favorable recommendation from the
drainage board regarding the Station 51 project. As you may recall, this was the last major outside
approval that was needed in order to move on.
The architects are in contact with the attorney’s office on the next
steps that will be needed. Depending on
the outcome of these conversations, the architects may or may not be present at
the meeting. The Station 51 Building
Team is anticipating another meeting sometime around mid-month to continue the
planning process. In the meantime, a
sub-committee has been working on soft-costs directly relating to the building
itself (furnishings, equipment, etc). This
particular line-item in the original tentative budget showed $150,000. The sub-committee is currently showing this
amount to be under $65,000.
3) I noticed a couple of blurbs in last month’s meeting minutes about a capital outlay budget and
questions about the 2003 Fire Loan.
First, the new Capital Outlay Budget Plan is part of the upcoming
Strategic Plan (more on that in a minute) which is designed to replace the Fire
Loan system currently in place for making these purchases. These things would include apparatus, fire
equipment, and large building maintenance projects. Buildings themselves (future stations, etc)
would still require a Fire Loan.
As
far as the 2003 Fire Loan goes, yes there was $300K in that loan to be used for
a future piece of land. The concern was
(and still is) that land in the northwest quadrant is disappearing at an
alarming rate and that we needed to be proactive on securing a future site. We’ve had a couple of leads since, but
nothing has panned out.
4) The sub-committee involved with the Performance
Review project will be meeting tomorrow night just before the District Board
Meeting to discuss the final portions of the plan. An update is anticipated at the full board meeting.
5) The Safety Board Document has gone back and forth a
few times over the last month between the department and the attorney’s office
regarding the necessary changes. As it
stands today, it is at the attorney’s office pending final review. We will keep this on the agenda as well in
case an update is available at the District Board Meeting.
6) No new news from the
7) I do not believe we have yet received any bids for
the two 1999 Tahoes that are for sale. If this remains the case tomorrow night, we
would like to see what we need to do to put them in the Trader and get rid of
them.
8) The Senior Staff would like to officially request
that three benefit policies be reviewed and updated by the Benefits
Sub-Committee. The first involves adding
a second automatic Bereavement day. The
current policy states that an employee be entitled one day with a second being
granted by the Fire Chief if necessary.
We would like to see this be two with a third if necessary. History has shown that one, or even two days
in most cases, is simply not enough – especially if the funeral is out of
state.
The
second policy involves eliminating Personal Leave (PL) and Perfect Attendance
(PA) days in lieu of adding vacation days.
Currently, employees receive two PL and two PA (for perfect attendance)
days per year. The policy change would
just add these 4 days as additional vacation days. This policy would help encourage those who
are ill to stay home instead of bringing it in to work for fear of losing a PA
day. It also cleans up, as well as aid
in, the administration of the policy.
The
third policy regards reducing the compensation time ceiling to 120 hours (for
shift personnel) and 80 hours (for staff personnel) from the current 480
hours. The department currently has a
comp-time liability of around $110,000 that continues to grow as employees tend
to bank their time rather than taking it on their paychecks. Because switching to an accrual-style method
of accounting would not be practical, it would make month-to-month accounting
of overtime much easier to track by reducing the amount that can be
accrued. Those with amounts currently on
the books over 120 hours would be grandfathered until they use up this time
down below the ceiling amount.
All
three policies could take effect on January 1st of 2006.
9) After nearly two-and-a-half years of work on the
project, the rough draft of the department’s official Strategic Plan is now
ready for review. Even as I type this it
is still going through revisions and hopefully will be ready in time for
tomorrow’s meeting. We are confident
that this plan will help serve as a guideline in our future decisions and serve
as a basis for growth within the department.
We are anticipating having copies of this document available at the
District Board Meeting along with a brief explanation.
10) That’s it for this month. See you soon…… Scott