White River Township Fire Department Senior Staff Meeting August 21, 2003
Present:	[P] Chief Tibbetts		[] Chief Cassin	[] Chief Brown
	[P] Chief Slauter		[P] Chief Thacker	[P] Chief Young
	[P] Kim Clawson		[ ] Others:

1. Paramedic course students are Jason Bailey, Joe Green, Mike Combs and Casey Arkins. This class is believed to be starting sometime in November.

2. Please log all call offs appropriately, even if you are not the one paging the hours out.

3. A map has been posted at station 52 for automatic response on Box 92 alarms.

4. Employees should be discouraged from wearing on duty apparel when not working. This could potentially create a negative situation for the department. Also, employees are only issued a certain number of t-shirts per year and those should be kept for on-duty use.

5. Johnson County Emergency Management has received grant money from SEMA for Homeland Security. It is unsure at this time how the money will be divided between local agencies. Tug Sutton has requested that White River consider establishing a Haz Mat Decon team.

6. Personnel updates:

- Anna Marsh has retired and will be joining the Auxiliary.

- Ed Fenske has resigned.

- Jason Arkins is on leave until November.

- Chad Witham has requested that he be allowed to return from “leave”. After discussion, this was denied. Chad did not submit a letter requesting a leave. He was considered resigned because he returned his gear, said nothing to anyone, and moved to North Carolina.

7. Chief Tibbetts will be establishing new guidelines for leave requests.

8. Not much information is available this time on the appeal for increase of our maximum tax levy. Chief Cassin has started a book, which is located in Kim’s office, that has potential contact names in it. Kim suggested that we schedule a separate meeting just to discuss this process, outside of a regularly scheduled senior staff meeting. Everyone agreed. She will set this up.

9. After discussion, it was agreed that we need someone else representing the department for the TEMS team (SWAT medic team). Chief Slauter will address this issue with Lieutenant Settles when he returns from vacation and see if he would be willing to do this.

10. Discussion on fire loan tabled until Chief Cassin returns.

11. Chief Tibbetts will talk to Tony Slusher about using Booster Club funds to purchase a thermal imaging camera.

12. We need to begin enforcing the current policy regarding animals on station. Chief Young stated that there is a health code that states no animals are allowed in government buildings.

13. Chief Slauter introduced the command packet. Everyone agreed that this looked good. Chief Young stated that he would like to make a few formatting changes, but the content looked fine.

14. Chief Young has established an investigation committee to follow up on the incident where Lt. Alexander received an eye injury. He has assigned Lt. Arkins, Lt. Alford and Ryan Cox to work on this and investigate the accident and not the individual involved. Chief Young is not participating in this investigation.

15. Chief Young stated that PPE Inspections will be distributed to Battalion Chiefs and Lieutenants before he goes on vacation.

16. Kim stated that the fall picnic has been scheduled for September 20^th. Please notify your people of this. Flyers will be posted soon.

17. Chief Slauter has received positive feedback on the evaluations from everyone involved, as well as some suggestions for changes to be made to the next hiring process.

18. Please remember, and encourage your personnel to remember, the station visitors policy. If someone is not related to one of the firefighters, and they are not a student, then they should probably be encouraged to NOT hang out.

19. Chief Slauter anticipates the next part time hiring process not occurring until early next year.

20. Chief Tibbetts thanked everyone who has been working overtime due to recent staffing problems.

21. Chief Thacker stated that the house on Curry Road is available to be trained in, but no burning can take place yet. As soon as this changes, he will be letting everyone know.

22. Chief Thacker thanked everyone for the support he has received during he recent recuperation. He will be returning to active duty on shift this Sunday.