okay right I call this meeting to order oh I forgot about the echo you join us in the Pledge of Allegiance please Alle Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right this is a uh the fifth budget work session September 23rd 2024 now than City Council and uh we got a couple other things on our agenda tonight so we'll start with a roll call Mr Elena would you call roll please yes sir mayor Pon present council member rainville present council member Alders I believe is running a little late council member Bryan council member flatal she is excuse for this evening uh we have Deputy clerk Johnson here financial adviser Lorie aert here and your city administrator Scott ler is present roll call is taken sir thank you then we will uh take a motion to approve the agenda second motion Council M Brian second council member rainville all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries all right first on the agenda is to approve the resolution 2024-25 a uh we are not going are not recommending that you Levy for the full amount it's going to be a reduced amount in 2025 and so uh we in order to do that I have to cancel the entire debt Levy and then reissue it at a lower level right that's what this is doing we did the same thing last year too how will that uh will that have any impact on this year's Levy uh Mr Mayor members of the council at this point no I've already giving you exactly what the levy amount is going to be and that includes this debt service this the the new amount of The Debt Service not the one that not the 150,000 that they were saying that we were going to do so the county had that we were going to Levy 151,000 and we're only leving I believe 25,000 for this particular Bond I don't care my debt lby yeah 25,000 775 is what we're Ling for this Bond and so we're going to cancel the 151 56750 yes and and actually issue 2,775 or certified $2,775 for this debt we have other debt that were also certifying Levy for yeah unfortunately take it where we can get it okay yeah so with that understanding we have a an RCA and a resolution 20 24-9 I have a motion to approve the resolution don't second MO motion Council briyan second Council M rainville and I'm assuming there's no other dis discussion seeing and hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries all right so we have continuing our discussion on the preliminary budget m we did work very hard to reduce expenditures and reduce the levy so the so walk me through one more time Lori the so we've got the reduced fund balance use so last year we had we're going to use 250,000 I believe it was approximately yes and we we reduce that by 181 and I use 70,000 approximately it's 71 915 okay yep so if we didn't use that you said last last time at our meeting that that doesn't go back into fund balance it doesn't change our fund balance because we never took it out oh you mean you mean in 2024 you're talking yeah okay right CU so so as I'm looking at the numbers that we had we had come down to uh we're actually I'm sorry so then I'll I have to back up so um after I got more updated information um regarding your current year activity I'm saying you're going to use about 100 6,000 in your fund balance and in 2024 and that's as opposed to the most updated I think I said 60 or 70 last time yeah so every time I get updated information we're going to update this but you know for the current information through um the middle of September this is where I'm at 106,000 is what I'm projecting the use is instead of the 250 so yeah $150,000 is still staying in your your your fund balance we originally thought you'd be down to 50% of operating expenses in fund balance and now you are going to be at 59% instead and so now I'm projecting after 24 after 24 we'll be at 58.7 at this point I don't know you know there's going to be things that happen between now and the end of the year that I may not be aware of or or that I projected low or projected high so that number will change um definitely by the end of the year so um so last meeting we thought it was about 70,000 usage now it's 106 what yeah what changed boy uh you know I just uh let's see what did I change um you know there was just some additional expenses I think that came in that I wasn't aware of um oh man I uh Mr Mayor Mr Lan sorry I'll try to help a little bit we talked about the ms4 we put in there we talked about the the uh the $155,000 for the Code Compliance that we put in there so the things at the previous meeting that we talked about and we approved the incentive program for the fire department I think was in there so those things that are about up at the last meeting that we talked about were just followup from the council meeting where those were approved but we needed to make sure that they were in the budget going forward yeah somehow I found there was 27 and you found something you found something on your side too I I did I found you know almost I found 27 28,000 plus another seven and I I don't recall exactly where I found that um that we were going to to be using um and we what I mean we can go back and compare what my my projection was in in um so 11,000 was the ms4 that was added um and let's see well you hit you had the 11,000 in there and then you added the 135 for next year right well that's in the that's in the budget he's referring to is we're looking for this year though cuz cuz last meeting we was 11 we expected uh at last year's budget we were going to use 250,000 the fund to balance so I think what happened is the uh building inspections went up to 150,000 this year is what I'm projecting um I got some new information um regarding this year's expenditures um I can pull up the only thing I can do is pull up my my actual um presentation from last time and and compare numbers so um if you want me to go through that I well I I just think it's it's appropriate because these we're we're kind of we're taking some wild swings here you know we were up at a 20% increase and I'm looking at your your summary sheet here we've done a great job coming down from yes 360 down to 193 yep um but it's it's like in this last meeting we threw on some significant num expenditures yes yep in that budget yes and then and then to I was looking to see if we had 250,000 and we're only going to spend 70 of it um that's a that's a great opportunity and all of a sudden we're back up at 106 and that's for this year so right Scott what you were saying is I know we we talked about we added training bonuses and compliance but those are budget items for next year rather than expenditures but they were the expend 11,000 of that is is an expenditure this year year yeah talking 30 36,000 some yeah right so I'm going to go right down to uh I think a lot of it was in Building Inspections yeah I had projected uh oh no that was at 150 so that wasn't it let's just go back up to and look at totals that's all I can do is um go back up there so so the um Council I don't believe changed from uh my projections before no it went down actually a little bit um office administration 457 no 419 and this one is oops that really went fast no that's down okay projected 24 for elections man why is it doing that to me elections elections went up by 3,000 so that was one area that I think I underprojected the uh parttime earnings there um because of the next election so originally I was projecting 16,000 in part-time now I'm projecting 18,000 um the overtime was 3,000 I'm projecting almost five so elections did go up by by $3,500 uh but what was the overtime it was 3,000 I was projecting and now I'm projecting five basically 4,800 Mr Mayor Ellie I can explain that it's because when we did the budget last year we didn't know we were going to have to be open these other extra hours the Tuesday night and the full extra Saturday and a full extra Sunday that was not we didn't know about those last year Mr Mayor members of the council you're still under budget for overtime you budgeted 5,000 you're going to be under five over on part time yes you're over on parttime yep I'm that's my projection though you know I so that's that's you know this is all a projection it's nothing you know so I don't know you know what the rehashing of this is going to help how that's going to help with the 25 budget frankly um but the legal uh I changed quite a no I didn't change that let's see uh General government I didn't change that Planning and Zoning U I did not change that I did not change that fire management I believe that even went down oh that stayed the same building inspections uh went stayed the same oh I know what change it was my Levy projection um so the uh Public Works went up by 25,000 um which one went up I think the salaries I was projecting in there I projected it low recalculating it no that wasn't it 42 and I don't know what this is 10 16 repairs and maintenance that went up um let's see $20,000 from 17 uh and then the [Applause] parts stayed about the same it went up very slightly so the biggest change was in the levy and so what happened was when I did my um presentation and we were working through the budget stuff I had plugged the number in there that I needed to arrive at in order to get below 10% and that 177,000 was plugged into my other spreadsheet I had not plugged it in here and so I had to reduce this spreadsheet this this Levy by $177,000 it was already in the the analysis that I did and that's why it was under 10 but it wasn't in this particular spreadsheet so I had to increase your fund balance use by $177,000 nopee that was for the budget part that wasn't for this projection oh my gosh let's see now we're looking at about right 35,000 right um you know I don't know what would change right off the top of my head that was that much that um uh let's see here uh 135 124 125 110 and 50 I I don't know I can't answer that question right off the top of my head because I don't know what I changed multiple items in the projected column total expenditures went from 20 2, 277677 to um 2,322 and I I can't identify it you know right quickly for you but like I said this is a projection and so this is only what I'm projecting will happen um and and you're you're using fund balance you're not using what I originally projected was this the 66,000 or the 70,000 you're going to use 106 so it's 30 30 or $40,000 more and it's based on what I'm projecting for expenditures in in 2024 but that doesn't impact your 25 budget or your Levy or anything else it it it it it impacts your fund balance and your fund balance will it will not be what I'm projecting I'll tell you that right now because this is it's impossible to Project Reality um and all I can do is try to get close I cannot be specific with this and that's why I I changed it in the future I would like to not change that protection ever after we've started this process because I get this kind of questioning and I can't answer it because I'm using new numbers every every time we're meeting and this is our fifth meeting and so um well then and that's I understand that part of it because I I have some questions on to we're in our fifth meeting we were going to wrap this up in August and right and we're still seeing new additions you know in end of September member right which makes it challenging for all of us yes so back to my original question whether it's 250 or um you now it's 106 so right 144,000 right so the 59% fund Valance for 2024 that you were projecting is was that based on the 250 or the 144 so yeah 144 so originally the 50% was based on using $250,000 in fund balance in 2024 correct and now you're not using that much so I'm projecting you will have a 58% fund balance you'll have $150,000 more in fund balance than you originally were going to and now I'm I'm I'm budgeting to use $ 71,9 15 25 which gives you a fund balance still of 52,000 or 52% which is a healthy fund balance so and but going forward you need to be careful because if you don't increase your Levy substantially enough to cover your costs then your fund balance will will keep going down or we just get the state to get us a lot more money get in that that LGA right pool somehow and millions of dollars some small cities are getting and like I said these are all you know this is projections as far as what what your fund balance is going to be I'm I'm never accurate on that but I can only try to get as close as possible but to your point yeah the the the fund balance going from 50 back up to 583 well 58 in for this year yeah yeah and and it's not affecting the budget numbers the levy increase of 10% right uh it's not affecting that but it will improve the fund balance projection for 2025 that is correct thank you mes tonight so on the the new sheet that we got today um when we met last time uh Scott you had said that that you and Andy at R River had gone through and and U come up with that you thought was a reasonable number for Code Compliance based I'm going to assume that's based on what rummer does in other communities for Code Compliance yes and so we've projected at last meeting 15,000 and I see on this Sheet's now up to 20,000 there should bit code enforcement 20,00 it says here is that just is there something else stuck in there on page [Music] [Applause] two oh actually it's a good catch I had it highlighted myself to ask Lor no there would there' be no reason from my perspective that anything changed there's nothing that I'm aware of that's going in there unless there always or something 15 was still the good number from my from on my spread sheet I show 15 also so what what went out in the packet here um you can look at Shanny I'm looking at this one 26 that's right so on my my spreadsheet that I have um that's on the projector there um where's my planing Planning and Zoning is 15,000 quote compliance but where you captured the increases since the last meeting on your second page of the document it does State $22,000 in there for planing in Zona what no where so on this document that we got in the second page here have your memo oh my Memo by okay for you trying to capture the changes and stuff since the last meeting yeah so the changes include not only the the 15,000 for Code Compliance but a $5,000 increase in professional for services Professional Services the Planning and Zoning Professional Services I'm sorry I didn't know what you were referring to so that's why Mr Mayor c r and I believe we increased that based on the fact that we've got the cannabis if we have the accessory dwelling and then a look at our access or our [Applause] ordinances well I know we uh once it was a fine tooth comb we're knocking hundreds of dollars out here and there and and uh we've added some thousands and tens of thousands we're still sitting at a projected Levy increase of 99.998% with a um mm increase to City taxpayers on a 40 $492,000 about $80,000 per year increase how much $80 $80 yeah what I see $8 sorry I got stuck in theed to make sure was $8 um $74,000 house it'd be $130 increase and a $1.1 million house it be about 221 increase Mr Mayor counc member rainville I just want to clarify because um we've got page 17 is what the different values will be but then it says monthly city tax examples so and people have contacted me they've said so it's $79 a month no okay so that that's confusing to people that was that's under 2023 so under 2025 it's $90 a on okay so so what that what that I I'd asked SC about this before too because I got confused yeah I just people think that these are monthly increases but they're not it's their monthly their monthly cost monthly tot yeah so in the average home back in 20123 was 460,000 MH and their monthly tax from the city now we have to remind people there're still County and school boards out there so um but the monthly tax from the city was 79 in in 2024 the average home was $479 776 so it's $83 a month and now our average is $491 760 so that's $90 a month and the that's your monthly city tax and the increase is is $80 a year a year total y so you know not quite $7 a month so Mr Mayor which is what it reflects down from 83 to 90 yes yes counc so to miss Jagger for 2025 when we excuse me in 2025 when we start to work in the 2024 26 budget yes can that be spelled out better here sure because again people think that's you know it it's that that it's confusing to people and I can leave it out I just I put it in there uh Miss Mary members of the council I put it in there so that people can kind of relate to it like their cable bill or you know so what are you getting for this $90 a month you know what do you know you get your Sheriff your fire annually yeah so we should put in the month no those $90 a month is what it is and annually is $1,079 so if you look up look up top I I will uh it's it's because you're not most of us aren't reading straight down right right the taxable value in 2023 was $479 766 and the annual city taxes on that property would have been $9.98 correct for $83 a month yes if you look down below y so the lower one is what it would be per month the upper one is what the total is So now that that same house has gone up in value so the annual taxes on that are 1,79 and the monthly on that is $90 a month that's about an 8% increase on that level 8 and 1 half on the $700,000 house and a million you get 8.3 they'll break next thank [Applause] you all right any other questions on uh on that I do say this has been a a challenging year because uh and we thought we'd have this wrapped up in August and and and numbers are changing significantly into September yep so we appreciate your your hard work trying trying to keep us all on the same page here um but I think we need to improve the process in in coming years um I know some of these things that came up late in the year were things we were were talking about early in the year whether it was ms4 or Code Compliance um obviously if we do something like that in the future we need to make sure we at least put something in there we knew ms4 would cost something we just didn't know what but we didn't we didn't put a number in there to start with so these these surprisingly large increases at the end just needed to be done but we didn't have anything to start with so had we had some of those in there we might have been starting you know 25 30% increase and working down from there so um I do think I was just looking at the email on the fire department training bonus and uh the reassurance we would have some money in there for this year that Chief Schmid said he would show us where the money was for this year and where it was in the budget for next year that was probably a um a big Miss on our part to not realize that that couldn't be reimbursed and that would come out of the the um additional cost to the city and when we when we passed that we understood we were told that that would be a reimbursable expense by the chief and uh and I was thinking when we brought it up to Lori and she said no I don't think so um in hindsight yes if that was a reimbursable expense I think every city would be paying $10,000 bonuses to get firefighters trained and the city has a lot of the state has a lot of money but not that much so but those are things we need to take a look at early in the year so they're not surprises as late as they are in this cycle so all right any other questions on the numbers we've been beating up for five meetings if not we have a resolution before us Mr Mayor members of the council I really think that we need to um take a look at all of the other budgets before we pass the resolution because it includes those other budgets that's true we have a good gift for those [Applause] yep so you want to uh walk us through Lori yes Mr Mayor members of the council the first one that I have up here is the recycling budget and as you can see historically we've gotten additional grant money from the county uh for activities in recycling um Mary just uh notified me that our grant amount is 29875 and and you get an additional $20,000 if you do particular activities or spend a certain amount of money and and so I've actually over budgeted I believe the revenues in here I have 20 39,500 I would like to reduce that to the 29875 um knowing that if you spend additional money you will get the extra 20,000 but it changes your your fund balance used to $155,000 rather than the the $6,000 that's down there 16,000 so what do we have to do to uh get the extra did you say 20,000 yes Mr Mayor is this is this that two doll's spreadsheet so Mr Mayor rainb our grant the base grant money is based on the items that we except at the recycling center um and a portion of our expenses and a portion of our labor Sue has been helpful in trying to help me move labor around so we can get more additional reimbursements for that but it's not the grant isn't designed to help you pay 100% of your operating costs the um we increased the number of things we took which helped us get some addition points um but based on our size our we're not going to get the big dollars that some of the other cities do um the additional um enhancement is a possible $20,000 I did put in for enhancements and it was equipment for the recycling center new carts new steps um what the other things are but I did put in so that we hopefully um if we do purchase those things those things would be recoupable um on a one toone basis up to 20,000 so the money is there if we do buy it it's y forgive me if I'm jumping on reimbursable yeah no so if we purchase these carts um and the new steps for the recycling center um that would be re reimbursable under the supplemental Grant the other thing we increased in that we didn't realize we were doing and I have to work with Natalie a little bit more on it is um you know when when our City attorney looks through the um score contract before we sign it his billable time we can include we can include Miss joerger's time when working on the finances those are things we've never done before um so that's but that's included in the 29,0 873 um we've also worked on when we have equipment repairs um does that piece of equipment also um is it also used in the recycling center and so can a portion of that repair come out of the recycling budget and it's just it's trying to track everything um our hauling is down um so our re our revenues are down and then revenues based on what the going rate market rate is for something sometimes we Haul something and we lose money on it um sometimes we Haul and we make money but there's just no way to know that until you haul and you have to haul when your when your rolloffs are full there's no place else to put the put the materials so so com rainville on the enhancement Grant or whatever it's called there the enhancement monies is there a list of the type of equipment we can purchase or anything associated with the recycling center maintenance maintenance of repair of you know um over and above your your regular maintenance of repair um if we needed to put a new roof on we could get a portion of that covered and then they also have the ability to at the end of the year and I haven't heard anything this year yet um they sometimes have additional monies left for last minute things um and we did that one year two years ago and we did the roll off we bought the new roll off and then we sold the old rollof so we got a free roll off and made some money on the old one um but that's not ever a given and you just kind of got to watch for it all right so back to the the budget wise so with the U reduction of almost $10,000 in in Revenue it puts us down uh 535 or so um 54 320 Mr Mayor 54 320 yep 54 320 for revenues expenses are the same no expenses are 6937 yeah I mean oh oh right EXA sorry change in fund balance goes up yes $9,000 yeah Mr Mayor C raino and our recycling center to my recollection has never been a profitable it it it's a it's an expense to the city in turn to the taxpayers um and we just have to make that decision that we either have it and and have an expense associated with it or we don't and then we have costs associated with finding those materials in the ditches and things like that um so the the new fund balance is fund balance right now we at 2,949 th000 off of that it'll be 12,279 but that's you know that's with my projected Revenue this year of 39,000 now that you know I was using historical information thinking I that you would get that much money in 24 and I I'm thinking now you might not get that much money you might only get 30,000 in 24 yeah so that means budgeted 50 but your projected is 39 my projected is 39 yeah the budget was 50 yes and you're thinking the projected might be closer to 30 yep yep it might be closer to 30 and unless you spend something in 2024 that is reimbursable by the county and I don't know if you have or not Mr Mayor rille and I will look at that okay um we should be down on on wages um we haven't um hauled that much material out this year M um I we just increased the pricing of the because that the holler um the state increased their reimbursement amount so the holler um increased theirs so we had to increase ours um I've still not heard back on bulbs um as far as trying to find a different holler for that um but the again it's it's not a revenue generating entity it's not an Enterprise but an entity it just isn't so well most of and and and I we've never actually wanted it to be a revenue generator obviously we wanted to break even it's kind of it's the same philosophy we have with with our contracted Services wherever we can break even we're not trying to make money on building permits we not um you know we're certainly aren't trying to make money on Code Compliance or anything else like that we want to minimize our expenses and this was one where we we tried to break even easier to do before covid when we had volunteers from the county uh or forced volunteers from the county to come out and uh and keep up on some of this it it is much more difficult it's a much better run operation over there much cleaner operation than we ever had before but it is more costly so and and again um late in the game to be having that discussion whether we want to philosophically keep doing this if there's some other way of of breaking even or if the residents want to continue this I I think you've been when you've been over there tracking where the users are coming from and looking at the early numbers earlier in the year this would have more impact on people that don't live in now then than those that live in now then I think those that live in now then would be very uh concerned if it wasn't there but the majority of users are now then residents and so that's it's a discussion we have to have early next year whoever is in these Council seats um do we want to keep funding recycling for non now residents we want to keep our Parks free to everybody but majority of those users are not nowland residents because there's something we can do to still benefit nowland residents but charge fees for people that aren't now than residents but you know um the levies due this week so we won't be won't be having that discussion but it's something that we certainly can still have yet this year yes impacting next year because if we're going to keep subsidizing we want to make sure that's good for no than residence Mr mayor council member Anvil and for those items that are are we are charging for whether your resident or not you are paying so um it's the items we don't charge for which is the glass the uh scrap metal cardboard um you know aluminum cans plastic um and you know and I don't know how how you would if if your choice is to build non-residents I I don't know how you would is one grocery bag three bucks or is it and is it no how you do I certainly don't have an answer to that one it's and it's it's a completely different discussion because when we started this you could make money on cardboard you could make you certainly made money on on aluminum cans I mean there are things that we Maybe cover our hauling cost or sometimes we even lose money on it or before um there was a real demand for those even even Plastics and we didn't lose money on them but the market has changed there just not as much demand for the recycled materials uh you know we used to fight people for cboard because they could bring their own in and make money off it so um yeah it's it's it's a changed Market we just have to and again I'm sure that other people in the county when you get together with the county officials are finding similar things yeah so we just have to decide if we can't make money or break even on certain things anymore do we want to keep taking those or or make make sure everybody in town has a recycling bin and put in there but for right now uh we'll be reducing our fund balance to 12 29 279 mhm and U so the fund balance we've been carrying over here we're getting to a point where we can't take double digit losses any more how do we build that fund balance back up I'm Mr may members of the council uh if if no changes are implemented in in regards to Staffing or or hauling costs or or other revenues the only way to increase or or pay for these things is a transfer from the general fund that's taxpayer dollars yeah and that's that's when I think you'll start getting push back if if taxpayers are paying to subsidize right but at this point we can clearly say as of yet taxpayers are not subsidizing we do have a for those people that aren't familiar with the fund balance that's our savings account in this area and we still have reserved funds in there so yes but we do want to and I appreciate council member rainville all the work you've been doing on this to uh control cost um reduce expenditures wherever you can make sure you're getting whatever you can from the county and then helping us be alert to where we need to increase fees to uh cover the increased cost from the various people we're hauling away with so so thank you for that work and to keep us as close to balance as we can here so Mr mayor council Brian two questions probably one for council member um so you were saying that repairs and maintenance theoretically can be reimbursed yes you're Mr Mayor counc R council member Bri your Ro your routine maintenance and repair at the recycling center comes out of that $29,000 so have we looked at the 2200 in repairs and maintenance and has any of that been submitted for reimbursement we put in a re reimbursement request in July for January to June and then the next one um is for July to December and that is due the end of January along with our tonnage reports and our reimbursement reforce double checking the second question was and I go ahead okay and and anything that Natalie has provided me in a um a detailed budget that has been included in so the other question was you know talking about cardboard I see that we're projecting to do um almost three over $3,000 but we're budgeting for 2,000 you know if we just got off 10 that's a th000 that we ready get back so if that's what we want to do r that by me again Council Brian under revenues we look at cardboard we're projecting to be over $3,000 in cardboard we know that cardboard isn't really stopping or cutting back but we've only budgeted 2,000 revenue for the year for next year and the actual in 23 was 1100 but the actual 2124 was 44700 and I know the way we did we we changed Pro cardboard that we're putting it inside and they pay us a little more so I'll at least throw it out there that there's a th of the 10,000 that we theoretically can make up would Council like to do that yeah all right good find D doesn't eras the water shed cost but I think he's going to drive the water shed down next year though moving on yep the um is there C rainville on the newsletter who used to include some uh some benefit to that because we are advertising in the newsletter is is there any expense that we can cover because we're twice a year we run the coupon in a special yeah so Mr Mayor that's my bra the newsletter we were putting request for payment um reimbursement for the articles that we were putting in there and then we were told that those have to be approved by or directed by the county for them to be reimbursable so I have to work with Sue so for the spring newsletter um we'll work with Sue uh to get specific articles from the county then that portion of the newsletter would be um reimbursable but just our stuff the um and back to revenue so one of the things we've been doing is the um two twice a year we have recycling events so we give them the free tires um so that that cuts down on our Revenue because there's no charge for the tire we don't get any expense mosquito control comes and gets them but we're not getting any Revenue where we are getting if if if we're and I'm just going to grab a dollar amount if we're charging $6 for a tire we're pay paying probably $450 or $5 to have that tire taken away so we make a dollar on it and that's our staff time both in the recycling center handling it helping them load and administrative work to do the billing on it um we don't get that on those days and I did send out the report of how many tires came in so if mosquito control is going to take those for free we can't charge for them right that's that's the deal um same with appliances and and the um uh electronics we're giving those we're still paying to char they're still charging us to haul so we have um expenditure but not the revenue on and the nice thing there if there is a nice thing there is at least we we have high certainty that those are now in residents those are residents that got our newsletter yes it it encourages us they're reading it and and some people are saving up their appliances and tires for it recycling day but but at least it's it's benefiting the residents um which I think is at least a positive there so and and we didn't everybody was very honest last time and nobody tried to get by a copied coupon or anything like that so I mean and the residents do like it um um and and it's part of that we're going to operate a deficit but that deficit is is benefiting our residents right anything else on recycling all right so Lori when when is that uh fire engine company going to start owing US money we're down to uh so when the uh s i I was looking at this at the fire engine debt Revenue but that's the so Mr Mayor the next uh Mr Mayor members of the council the next budget is the uh gambling contribution fund it's a special Revenue fund that was established in 2023 and um the council has agreed to transfer money out of that fund into the general fund to help support the um Sheriff costs because of all the uh the increases in the share cost so we can do that for a couple of years we're doing it in 2024 we're doing it in 25 and then we'll have to take a look at 26 and see what's what's going on so so right now when we establish this fund um the uh we used to get a resolution showing what was coming in from charitable gambling okay and it was it was expressed to the council um that now that we have a fund set up we don't need to accept those charitable gambling funds by resolution okay um um and I was in a conversation with one of the finance uh d dors at the league the other day and I mentioned that because I was I was asking in particular could we set up a fund like that if residents wanted to pay more in taxes if they wanted to voluntarily um submit more like we do with the gambling fund but they said we would like to see more funds going into accounts with the city but not everybody wants to pay more taxes but some people do could we set up a fund like that they said absolutely you can do the same thing but they said you still have to receive it as resolution can't you can't solicit it but I said well we don't on our gambling I said no you you have to okay those funds have to come before the council they're gifts to the city okay and so they do need to come through as a resolution and uh and then we can we'll have a better idea of what's coming in can this fund continue to support the $50,000 a year towards Public Safety right and uh and again in good years it's great when Co get some of those gambling funds dropped way off so MH um but so for for a note for staff we need to go back to uh according to the league attorney or the league Finance people that that would have to those gambling funds should come through as receipts on a resolution um even though they're going into this dedicated fund so Mr Mayor members of the ccil that yeah that could be an annual resolution that you do with not only um the gambling contributions but any other donations that you receive should also be included on that resolution all donations should be included in that resolution and when we do that you know donations of physical material or financial we've always done that and so okay Mr may have clarification that need or to council do you want one with everyone that we received like we had been doing it or like that was my understanding with with the league and I can I can Scot I can give you the name of the person who was telling me that but but yeah when we get when we get those funds in it should come through as a donation to the city and and Lori knows where to put it you know where to put it when it comes in but it should be received as a resolution and authorized by the council so okay I would like to know who you talk to then because when I talked to laori and we called they told me I didn't have to because it was a different fund but I'll get I'll give you the name and that' be great because I said said somebody's going to have questions can they call you directly or they don't have to go through somebody else that that and she's one she's one of the top Finance people at the I don't know she's head of the department but I know they they hired her to to handle that she was the one that handled all the covid questions and stuff as well so yeah I don't remember I hav't in an email I think of who I talked to but it would be nice to know that if you called you were going to get the same answer yeah that's why I said can they call you directly so that they're not running around because same thing if we did if people did want to contribute above and beyond their their taxable amount we can set set up account for that too but you just said make sure you receive it as a resolution and it's not something that you solicit that they voluntarily want to pay more okay all right but for right now we're good for the uh 2028 um I mean 2025 28,000 mhm Natalie do you know from what you've been receiving have have the charitable gambling has been pretty consistent are we down this year they were up in the winter and they've been down in the summer we won't get the next quarter until sometime in [Music] October all right but we're good for next year mhm all right any other questions on the charitable contribution fund all right what's next Lori Mr Mayor members of the council would be The Debt Service funds and here's where the uh 2,775 ADM tax the levy is is going to be for the 2019a Improvement bonds and then also the 2021a Improvement bonds the the budget the taxes are are both included in the lby that's the lby [Music] amount all right and the uh 29 what do we got left on that do you know uh off the top of my head no but I can look it up see okay we still oh um with interest 835,000 through 20 from 2025 through 2030 and then for the 21 you still oh including interest oops 2,297 right that one goes through that's 25 through what uh that one is through uh 32 and the other one is through 30 all right and we're the fire engine debt we're it's all done done yep all done all right anything on the park or the turnout gear I'm on the park improvements Mr Mayor members of the council um in 2025 we have projecting or we're budgeting about $9,400 in revenues but we're not budgeting any improvements for 2025 at this point for Park Capital there is funding there available so we can still look at that before the end of the year if you have an opportunity to to uh look at that again but at this point we don't have anything budgeted for that so in the U fund balance from the end of 24 we um using the projected number yes Mr Mayor Y correct and then we're adding 9,400 to that to come up with our 232 correct all right turnout gear anything on there we need to know no Turnal care is the 7500 coming in from the general fund and then they they budget $7,500 to spend and some years that can be higher or lower depending on the number of firefighters new gears that you need for your firefighters Mr Mayor yeah just to put on everybody's radar I did have a conversation with uh Captain Nelson today and we did talk a little bit about uh just gear in general with the amount of people that we have coming through and all that just to kind of keep that on our radar um you know potentially we could have six people if one of the individuals finishes their training coming through so uh it was something that we just discussed that he wanted just to make sure that we kept on the radar and that we may have to take a look at because of the amount of people that are coming potentially coming through the the training now so so to keep you all up to speed y yeah that's why we were establishing a turnout gear fund because new people are going to need it and and the older gear if you can maintain it there no only last 10 years anyway but mhm yeah Mr Mayor just one other nugget on that if you will yeah we're just down to the last two helmets so that's why you wanted to come in and talk to me fire firefighter gear um we have purchased some of that in the past prob we kind of got some buying power and we purchased them but we are going through it now so we are down to tub so we just wanted to have a discussion about it so just wanted to have it on your radar are those adjustable so that we don't have to have helmet sized to people are they sizable yeah yeah they well they have the adjustable we they have the inside adjustable webbing if you will that's what we call it or whatever but so it isn't yeah they are adjustable for size yeah all right but as opposed to any of the other scuba gear any or the other SCBA GE and stuff that stuff has to be fitted correctly and then their jackets and their pants and the boot I mean that's all fit the size right yeah yep all right building Improvement revenues expenditures nothing planned for 2025 at this point that's correct again um you you can change that up till December 31st or not December 31st December 13th I think when we're doing the budget approval or 12th I don't remember all right anything else Council on that road Improvement fund Mr Mayor members of the council um currently I have the Ford Brook estate second edition in there uh for Road improvements you can see it's at 38,400 for 2025 um we're also looking at issuing debt in in 2025 to cover the uh improvements for this year and then also cover that that road Improvement for 2025 we also included the calcium chloride at $50,000 in here and we've continued to uh include repair and maintenance of streets at $100,000 anything from Council all right so Mr Mayor did we just break out the 100,000 and the 50,000 because last couple years it's been 150 and or last year was 150 for the budget so but we didn't have a line item for calcium chloride so we're just breaking out calcium chloride this year yep okay and uh future discussion we probably want to talk about what the repair and maintenance because that's something that just came up last year that's the first time we uh our engineers said you should put something in here for that so we we should identify how that should be spent based on we do have in our Public Works we have a patching program we have we have some other things there so what what is this for but at this point um we started doing it last year and we just decided to put the calcium chloride in that budget so yep all right equipment replacement Mr Mayor member Council so the only thing we have here is hopefully the fire engine will be delivered and we'll pay our final amount the amount do is actually 40,000 but we're anticipating a a refund or a credit based on the fact that we prepaid for this fire engine and so um that is what we're so that's why we're anticipating a $ 16950 yes that's correct so we we've been on the books for 3 years with this and there's a cash back 3% cash back right and so this is with the the most recent June included so we've had three Junes Natalie I don't know that's yes I believe it is three Junes since we paid it so each each anniversary of June we get a 3% cash back okay so then this will be even more that or less because it's if it's three then it's 4 to 6,000 y so we should watch that yeah yeah rumor is it might actually be more no actually come to us someday okay and they they'll want the what the leftover so originally we paid all but 40 of this because we had a cash back program yes and uh each anniversary of that that original purchase we get the reduction and Mr Mayor at the time the interest rates were like a half a percent and now they've changed so yeah but so we did did really well up front and then now it's a a little different so hopefully we well and we had no no way obviously knowing the interest rates but no way knowing would take this many years to buy a truck that's so we did good up front and uh and they did Bad by not getting that thing to us so right but if we can get that under $177,000 yes payoff that will be beneficial as well so yeah all right anything else Lori no that's it um so we have a request for Council action view the presentation adopt preliminary Levy and budget for 2025 um anything you want to go through in the presentation itself Mr Mayor it's up to the council if they want to look at it or if they've looked at it in their packet um it's totally up to you but I'm willing to go through the presentation too Mr Mayor Brian one one change that I noticed was that we're saying that the medium meeting starts at 7 o' we're kind starting at oh they have I'm sorry I did not know that yes truth and Taxation is 601 okay can't start before okay yes it it should be Le one thing that I noticed that I just wanted to make thank you I didn't not if we're posting anything based off that 7:00 time that usually would be okay I will change that we should address that this evening too when you do the resolution because that time slot is included in there and so at this meeting we need to make sure that the public is aware of the time that we're um proposing for the adoption of the budget in the levy and I think did we say that was the 12th December 10th 10th December 10th December 10th yes it's my first page tooth and Taxation process so the recommend and public meeting date will be Tuesday December 10th 2024 at 6:00 6:01 p.m. unless there's a continuation meeting that the the final Levy and budget will be adopted on December 10th at 6 6:01 the meeting will start at 6:00 um one one uh item there is we still our next agenda item will be the fire chief we do have uh salary and benefits going up 69,780 uh part of that's new fire chief part of that's 3 and a half% increase for staff um and I understand we can always reduce the levy if we decide the fire chief is not going to be a full-time position we can reduce the levy we just can't increase it that's correct um and Mr we've always talked about going back and visiting these again afterwards I think this year we should because at 10% I'm still not comfortable that with all the changes we've made late in the the process that we've nailed it right but and certainly with the fire chief situation um still in flux that could come down reduce um would reduce the well would it reduce the levy or just reduce the fund balance Mr Mayor members of the council that would be determined by you you would determine whether you wanted to reduce your Levy or change amend the amount of fund balance use by any savings that you've incurred right now the current increase from last year is 9,840 over the 2024 budget so Mr Mayor that's $9,844 over the budget but not over projected that is correct correct that's correct significant difference now [Applause] so people want to have the fire discussion first or want to vote on this let's wrap this up pardon so let's wrap this up okay Mr Mayor members of the council um I just like to announce that the preliminary Levy is going to be set at 2,129 366 for 2025 so Mr mayor council member allers um I would make a motion that we approve the resolution adopting the preliminary Levy of 2,129 366 uh with a truth and Taxation meeting on the dates discussed um to move the city forward for the 20125 budgeting second have motion council member Alder second council member Brian any other discussion and hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed nay motion [Applause] carries all right see this thank [Applause] you all right next item on our agenda continuation of the September 17th 2024 meeting regarding full-time or part-time Fire Chief and or a plan to fulfill the leadership responsibilities of the now then fire department presentation with council member flatable comparing other fire departments part-time chief job description salaries Etc a proposal to council how to move forward with leadership for the now then Fire Department we have a packet handed out tonight there are there is a copy of the packet in the back of the room I do have another copy here um those that would be interested Mr Mayor coun R um before we start the conversation I'd ask um your approval I um owe you an apology I did email it out but I want to publicly state that um at our last meeting I had was um I stated it was my belief that the contract was written that the fire department reported directly to the mayor and not the councel i l later learned I was incorrect the contract was written that we the fire department reported to the mayor and councel and I want to apologize because I was in correct thank you thank you I I appreciate that um so as as uh the council has been informed council member flatau has uh has been actually in the hospital since last week and so she had taken on this project to as stated in the uh agenda to come up with a comparison and proposal um I was informed today so that I was I'm stepping in to herstead so I have prepared this packet accordingly um I did get an email uh late today that council member flatau had worked with the league on a number of other cities they targeted cities 3500 to 5500 in Residence um to try and get some other numbers so she may have had a more complete packet than this but I think this is reasonable to to move forward uh with our discussion um based on the research from The Limited number of uh cities that we have here the expectation the discussion that was had at the last Council Gathering was if the city decided to go part-time fire chief as opposed to uh a full-time position you guys both have these okay um as opposed to full-time who would pick up the additional responsibilities that were posted for the full-time position if we only went part-time looking at uh these three cities here in particular that we have job descriptions for and talking with some other Chiefs and uh officers at other fire departments the understanding is the job description that's in this packet that was provided by Chief Schmidt this last week would be capable of being done by a part-time Chief um without additional uh necessary help or any of the items on that job description being neglected um looking at the the three job descriptions that you have in front of you and the comparable cities that does seem to be a reasonable statement um so as I said I've I've put together a packet in in U Council flatos stad comparing as requested uh other part-time Fire Chiefs job descriptions salaries Etc um so with with your packet you will have a a job description for the city of L city of St Michael City of Oak Grove and the City of Nan so all those job descriptions are in there uh population L is 4996 St Michael is is 21,34 for Grove is 9179 and now then is 4536 is depending on who's coming and going a households uh I didn't make this note in here but they have about 22 100 households in L in those 4,900 residents and extra lots and buildings businesses about 600 so they service about 2,800 uh properties there and they also cover seven of their surrounding townships um St Michael has 5239 households Oak Grove has 3238 we have, 1550 approximately number of firefighters in lever is 37 St Michael has 30 plus they have 10 Reserve firefighters o Grove is currently 27 or 28 they've with some recent retirements they were at 32 they've had some recent retirements and they have some new recruits coming in so they uh they expect be back up 30 32 fairly soon and I believe our number last week was stated at 15 we've uh approved up to 20 in our uh force uh Le has one station say Michael has two stations Oak grov has two stations and we have one annual salary for Lever Chief is 10,456 and he also gets paid on call when he's fighting fires so he gets 13 73 when he's paid on call in addition to his $10,000 salary St Michael U low end is 468 uh high end is 5796 Oak Grove is paying 41,7 48 and uh our numbers based on again the the posting that we put out um our low end was 4268 our high end was per hour and our high end was 6401 that equates on a part-time basis to 44387 on the low end and 66 570 on the high end if we use the same numbers and the same job description that we've been using all along here uh hours worth per week in lever is four to 5 hours St Michael is a minimum of 20 o Grove is 20 to 30 it's flexible and uh the projection for now then would be a 20 20 hour average call volume as reported for 2023 and L was 141 they do both fire and medical St Michael was 595 they do both fire and medical po Grove was 601 they do fire and medical and now then was 214 fire and medical so those are the statistical comparisons um you have the job descriptions in front of you but again the the question was with the job description we have would a part-time Chief be able to fulfill those requirements as posted from what I can see based on other cities and on these job descriptions I believe that we would not have to modify the job descriptions at all for a part-time Chief with our call volume and the size of our department um if we were to propose a part-time Chief I would suggest as we say here averaging 20 hours uh annual salary equivalent of half the full-time position um to sweeten the pot we may want to alter that number and offer some health benefits I did uh send in an email to could you get my email on what health benefits cost I did so um I think there would be some potential discussion there if somebody was coming in and would like health benefits um Mr Mr ler just for the group you sent that to me today so we have been looking at it I just you're not I just started this today so gotcha okay um we we have two candidates that are currently in the process um As I understood from the email that we got from Mr laner that they were willing to stay in the process waiting for the council to determine what the uh requirements would be from a job description from a wage and uh an hourly expectation how many hours they would be expected to put in so they are currently waiting for our discussion tonight um as I said I would expect that that job description would remain unchanged the difference would be cut the hours in half and cut the pay in in half um Mr Mayor hang on a second okay okay go ahead just uh heads up the so Martin mcal reached out to me and they will have the report uh they told me midweek this week so once those reports come back on those uh two individuals if we have the additional information that you're talking about and if anybody wants to to take a look at the assessment that was done in either one of those individuals um they can contact me and come in and do it's not something I can send out and all that kind of stuff so if you want to take a look at it or you want to put your eyes on it just let me know and and I'll make them available I will I will send out an email uh when I finally receive you know when I take possession of them um but it is looking sounding like it should be midweek this week is what they told me I have not seen anything obvious see yet so so that's just a piece maybe want to be aware of Mr Mayor raino um I I will we don't have a motion yet but I could not approve going down to part time based on what is here um I think the two big questions that needed to be answered and they're not here um is as uh firefighter Schultz asks is what's the age of these departments we don't have that information and another big piece was what other assistance is provided to the these part-time Fire Chiefs whether it be City internal City employment or employees HR Public Works whatever do they get any assistance from any other local firefighter firefighting agencies um whether it be State County DNR other City municipalities and to me those are two big questions that aren't answered here and um just looking at a job description that doesn't tell me how how say it how how detailed um this Chief would be um in these other cities truly how involved they are um I just I I understand that council member flatable cannot make it and and I I get that but to me the two big questions was the age of the department and then the what type of assistance are they getting so that they are allow able to just have part-time fire chief so and so my initial conversation with those the uh the St Michael uh fire chief at 21,000 residents 600 500 95 calls a year and 30 uh firefighters in two stations they do have some administrative help to do uh some of the paperwork the other ones um actually uh when I ask the the clerks responding or the administrators responding uh they are doing all the work in their job description themselves I I was quite surprised at burn because again you're you're doing 5,000 residents you don't have that many Calles but you're also handling seven townships as well as the city of Leber um when I asked you know who helps get things done and they were just kind of like what do you mean that's the fire chief's job everything on the fire everything on the job description is the fire chief's job so um there was some administrative help in a city that's five times bigger than we are and significantly more call Value the other the other thing is is you know you can get into the Weeds on this we don't have railroads uh all of these have railroads uh Rivers uh lakes and uh significant highways going through that that we don't have so yeah is it a is it a perfect example um age of the department um you know I considered that you know again I've had a small pool to work with here but being that we are the newest Department in the state um if you're going to hold out for um age of the department as a determining Factor as opposed to the responsibilities and the volume of of work that's that's necessary there um I don't know that that factored in at all to the candidates that are in the pipeline right now no nobody asked the age of the Departments they're coming from so I I don't know how that factors into the the chief you know unless we go back to the ones that are in there and say well what what's the age of the department you're coming from that you weren't the chief at um so I I don't know that that if you're saying that's the stumbling block then I'm not sure we can ever get over it because you'll never find another department at three and a half years mayor counc I I I get that we're we're a new department but but I think that the fact that we are in New Department there needs to be me needs to be more of a management structure for those firefighters um and and that was something that was specifically asked of a firefighter and we included it in the direction given to council member flatal and um also the the issue of what other assist to these fire these agencies get um and without having it in writing to me I don't have anything so project all right Mr mayor council Brian what was uh the numbers that you were did you just that you were using for now then the the posting that went out was um the low end was 4268 which was equivalent of 887 for full-time 44 387 for part-time and the high end was 6401 according to the posting that we had which on a part-time position would be $ 6657 or double that for fulltime and Mr Mayor C right when could could you clarify when you're saying 20 average especially with um the potential at least in this in the early stages of of I could totally see this as being more than more than just 20 hours a week to get things up to speed are you using that as just a an average for the entire year or how much flexibility is in that 20-hour average I'm I'm using it as an average you know for the year um again I'm looking at at the UH responsibilities that in the back of your packet the last sheet is the responsibilities of items that Chief Schmidt's handing off to the captains um I'm assuming somebody's been doing these all year I don't know we we have been um we've been very fortunate in the contract that we set up four years ago um we had contracted a chief assistant chief and administr help to get the Department set up and running um in recent recent years this year in particular uh the chief has been involved in building a new fire station in St Francis um so the idea that there's significant more that needs to be set up and we've been receiving over the past two years I'm not sure what that is you know if it if it needed to be done why wasn't it done now I can see these things that that I I I if I was a captain and I was suddenly told you're going to be doing payroll call sheets monthly reports approving bills purchasing public education budgeting inspection burn permit compliance recordkeeping building Fleet Maintenance Personnel concerns fire reporting compliance fire investigation training and and equipment repair and maintenance call response and all other aspects of the fire department starting October 1 I'd be concerned too um have those things all been handled on a part-time basis right now over the past two years and if so what additional things would you see necessary um to start out full-time and then try and step back to part-time I I don't see that as a I've never seen anything in government work where you you fund something and then then can step back and say okay now we're going to make it part-time um I I see it the other way if we're seeing that some of these things need more attention we'd have to step it up which is why I didn't push for taking that funding out of next year's budget but it's much easier to say we've been getting by with this part-time and if we take this load off the captains so they go back to just being captains and the chief takes these on like a parttime chief has been doing now that to me makes sense and if we see that we want to step up what's going on there I mean currently right now um we don't have the business district that others do we don't have the fire inspectors we don't have a fire marshal going around and checking do I think this person when they get settled in could go to our few businesses there and and make sure that they're as safe as they could be without becoming an irritant to those businesses I believe so would that be the number one priority on on on the chief's list never has been and Mr I I think there's a misunderstanding of my question I'm not saying start at 40 and work our way back that's not what I'm saying at all if we're saying 20 average there's got to me there's got to be some flexibility in there because I could certainly see in the beginning that there that there's going to would be taking some more time to get up to speed because we still have to focus on what are we doing for training what are we doing for retention what are we doing for recruiting and I could totally see that being at least um in the in the in the beginning of this position that that's going to be more than 20 hours so how much flexibility is there going to be in this position where if the the chief is reporting to Scott are we going nope you hit your 20 we're good we're done or is there is there some flexibility in there that are we saying over the entire year we're only averaging 20 or it could be 25 or 30 depending on the workload where where administrator laners kind of keeping an eye on that and going yeah this is really Justified we need to get this done now so it we are moving into that over 20 per over 20 per week um at least in in the in the beginning of of what's going on here yeah and and and that I can't say I think it's up to the council to determine how flexible we would have it be um and and obviously to the candidate you know what what they perceive with a job description like this is that a reasonable reasonable number you know I'm again starting with black and white saying is if this can be done in in a 20 hours like it's if these Duties are being done right now and they're being done on a part-time basis can we continue with that um and look at growing this position if there we find there's more things that need to be as the department grows as the city grows obviously I would think this this position would grow but I'm just comparing it it to cities that are larger and more developed than ours and again not knowing the age of each of those departments looking at the responsibilities that they cover does it make sense um I'm not C certain I I was going back through some of the documents that we had on you know as recently as as um July um June and July we we talked about what else would this person do if they weren't full time active with being a fire chief and we actually had an action item for uh Mr laner to to determine what else is there to fill out this position in our meeting this summer so as recently as the summer we were saying this probably isn't a full-time position what else would they do in the city what what existing role in the city could they fill without creating a new new role in the city so again there's an option to to consider this um so Mr Mayor mayor rders so would we put together a proposal that says it's a minimum of 20 hours a maximum of X number of hours with the review at four months out the U the review right now is at four months out you know in the with the proposal that was already out there it's 120 day review period so I I agree with that I think that makes sense because that's consistent with what we're doing um we didn't we didn't that builds in a little bit of flexibility cuz if there are some it's I'm going to be here 3 days a week so that's 24 hours are we going to say no I would say I probably wouldn't you know if it's like 3 days a week is what we expect and after a 4mon review it's like hey here's all the things I'm not getting done at 3 days a week I need to go to four days a week for x amount of time to to check those off the list and then I can go back then I can fall back to three days a week if we want that or after four months he could be 20 hours is just fine and I work two and a half days a week plus calls yeah or because we still have the the budget there if it turns out that realistically it's it's something they we need more hours we have some flexibility on that as well but then we'd have somebody that's been in the position explaining to us why right yeah so Mr Mayor coun rain um again we just we got this information it's hard to read it through it and listen and and try to uh figure out what you want to say um we talk benefits nowhere in here do I hear see anything with Benefits here uh for any of the other uh I don't know if that was a question asked if these other part-timers have benefits um talk about a review and whatever the month period was um we have a current employee that we were supposed to do an employ a review at 6 months and there's never been a review so I'm not confident that we would follow through on that because we haven't done it for our last uh appointed position so um so how how are we going to do that with the uh the other that's the same thing that's that's in the existing contract existing proposal right now so we can't do it for full-time we can't do it for parttime again they answer to the administrator administrator has been fine on his reviews he's kept up on those and Mr Mayor I'm not worried about the administrator okay well the administrator does the reviews on this okay well then I guess it'll be okay that the administrator will follow through with what they are tasked to do um where we didn't well you know again it's a five person councel mhm so I again again I just don't didn't call for you know somebody can make a motion I'm I'm not comfortable with what we have here what we weren't provided and um some of the vagueness here so when did you um you know again um I I understand you haven't had a chance to look through this and and so we had a meeting last week we had a couple of firefighters articulate that um very specifically we're not here to Lobby part-time full-time just get off your duffs and do something give us a plan so trying to formulate a plan here that we can we can do something to um sooner rather than later offer relief to our captains that that have everything suddenly dumped on them again it it's surprising to me that all of a sudden everybody chis we had to extend this contract last year for a year this should have been done a year ago and and you can go back and say well you know shame on us for not getting it done and we can't trust ourselves to get it done we've had a whole another year to think about it we started talking about it in June we had six months where nothing happened on this and and uh and and rightfully the firefighters are concerned it's now October and and we get this we didn't get it but they get an email saying yep starting next week here's what you're going to do that's that's would be very concerning to me as well as a firefighter so disappointed in in all of us for for letting this go on so long but we've had uh all summer to do something about it Mr mayor council May R we were on the path of moving down a with a full-time fire depart fire chief is what has always been discussed it wasn't until just recently there's been a change in what path and that change in the path you you keep saying that and I disagree well you can disagree I I have an email that says here's here's recommended OPP options we have a discussion as late as this summer saying what else would this person do a full-time position now again we talked about full-time position with that's what there for right that's what council decided a full-time position with part-time fire chief part-time something else and we couldn't figure out what that other part-time was because we kept having that discussion if it's a a public works job probably not a good fit for somebody who's always been in office and vice versa and so what would the other portion whether it's 25% 50% what would the other portion of that be and uh and then all of a sudden it's like like we'll just call it a full-time fire chief because that'll be easier to do this with and so I I uh I beg to differ based on the documents we have that we always said it would be a full-time fire chief now I will say there there's been lack of clarity I was looking back at the at the minutes when we even said uh when we we did this four years ago and the council Bryan and I were part of the process start to finish and we were told this year NOP we're going to we're going to get you in on the last set of interviews and the council never made that decision it was it was preceded because council member rainville deferred to the chief it didn't see say deferred to the council what does the council want to do and what did the council vote and we keep making these decisions through deferral rather than focused decisions you know do we have a motion do we have a a council agreement whether we have a 50 or a 32 we have do we have a council agreement on things and so we're doing things then we come back and say well that's not how I remember it but we can't go back to a document and say well here's the vote and that's yeah I guess the vote's pretty clear here's the document from last September that the chief sent out and uh you know I presented it and was like well we don't have the full packet don't have the date on it it's the chief's document but we didn't we didn't go back and and verify that you had this in your packet on September 2023 so shame on us for that but the uh now again unless it's it's changed what I heard from the the firefighters got up here that they're not lobbying for one or the other they to get something done now I'm not saying it's good bad or otherwise but I'm saying here's something we can at least compare here's something that says we can do something to offer potentially immediately help immediate help to the captains to take these responsibilties that that Chief Schmidt will no longer be doing in a week and and bring in some help to that so that there's an immediate help to the U the fire department I don't care if if you're concerned that we don't have enough information yet that we bring in somebody on an interim basis so that we don't burden the a an existing overworked captain and a new captain who just coming in and trying to figure out what it what the captain's responsibilities are um I think that that we could we could manage something here while we figure out what what we could do long term but I think there is something we could do to provide immediate help to the the fire department and and I think that by having some flexibility keeping the money in the budget so that if there is more work that needs to be done the council can designate it yep that is reasonable work that needs to be done and that's a shortterm let's get it up and running versus that's a long-term responsibility that somehow didn't factor into the job description we have in front of us um but based on what I'm saying from a limited pool of other cities it does seem in a city like now then this is something that we could accomplish Mr Mayor councilman Brian um and I don't know if this is a question for administrator ler or something that needs to be looked at is there a minimum you talked about potentially Sweeting the sweetening the pot with Benefits is there a minimum number of hours that that someone needs to work in order to be eligible for benefits have all Mr Mayor yes it is it's 40 hours that's within the that is what is in the Personnel handbook that you guys approved in the phase one okay oh then that's up and then Mr May Natalie another clarification you're going to go part-time is this going to be an hourly position or an exempt position uh looking at the the CH we have it's exempt these are exempt salaried Physicians part-time Mr Mayor so um St Michael says they hourly that's why I'm reading it on the last page that's an hourly part-time to full-time position I don't see that specifically calling out with the but still can be exempt even if it's hourly yeah and then Mr Mayor one question please yes ma'am if they're part-time are we allowing them to have another job somewhere or is this just a like a retired person or is this going to be someone who's got an obligation to another position obviously this would be their uh their primary but they could have another position most of the U part-time Chiefs that I've encountered uh over the years have had another position right now o Grove their their Chief is retired has recently retired I recently but he's retired um the previous Chief was part-time and he had a uh another job Mr Mayor uh councilman Brian so if we're saying they're hourly but exempt does that mean they don't get overtime after 20 or overtime after 40 or how does that work my understanding is the overtime is 40 okay by by state regulations and and this being a uh what we would be offering is a salary position potentially so that you put in 10 hours one week and you put in 30 the next you're still getting the the weekly portion of your or monthly portion of your pay Mr Mayor councilman Brian I could see this if we're trying to look for ways to in incense someone working parttime that we should make this hourly position um that's my opinion anyway hourly exempt if if they can go up to at least go up to 40 that covers if they put in 25 hours a week they get paid for those 25 hours versus a hard working 10 having to adjust where I can't see them working if they work 30 hours a week that they're only going to be doing 10 the next and also does this cover are they getting extra for attending calls or are they getting their their regular hour or this whatever or are they getting paid extra for calls or not it would be my question if they're if they're going to to actual calls in Le they get extra for a paid on call and are they getting paid at their hourly rate or the the firefighter rate firefighter rate there there is a flat rate um 10,456 typically they are saying they're working four to 5 hours a week and if they're out on a call they're getting paid on call for 1373 an hour Mr Mayor hang on I'm trying to capture it so your second thing is so councilman Brian you were saying you're you're recommending hourly rate and what was the extra or the your second comment I just want to make sure I I would be recommended that they actually get paid hourly so if they do actually work 25 hours a week they're getting paid for 25 hours a week because if we went salaried they're not going to I I I have I I see it being extremely difficult that they only work 10 hours of a different week to make up for it and you had another comment though too it was extra for calls oh oh the calls worked right Natalie so then my other question then is if we go to hourly um what about holidays evenings the stuff that is in the personal policy for overtime or one and a half or double time Mr Mayor I would add to that what about vacation or PTO Mr Mayor hang on all right Natalie then um as far as PTO would be concerned it would be the ESS for the Earth sick and safe there wouldn't be there wouldn't be anything else there would not be anything else all right any else want to throw at it here ESS doesn't apply to Firefighters um PTO doesn't uh is isn't necessarily in for the discussion we we already said that the wouldn't qualify for benefits so if it's a part-time position we don't currently pay PTO we don't currently pay um the um or offer benefits so again that was one of the is one of the significant savings because you've got a $100,000 salary in here Plus benefits plus vacation plus I'm looking at again at the chief's recommending that uh there be raises in 120 days and then uh increase we start out with h uh top top vacation so it's it's a significant difference the question is is there a candidate out there that would be interested in this position so Mr Mayor our plan would be to go to our the two candidates give them our salary range of this 4268 to 641 per hour based on their qualifications we would offer them somewhere in that range and it would be an exempt hourly position that's going to average 20 hours is what our Target is it could be it could be more initially but our goal is it's going to be a 20 hour position correct no benefits there would be eligible for ESS what is it ESS esst and believe I have to verify just because he would be an employee I'm sorry mayor Natalie because he would be an employee versus just a fire like a volunteer pay on call so I believe he would qualify it would be or or she yeah and in addition to his hourly average or hourly pay for uh his fire chief he would be eligible on call pay at a different rate or he or she B whatever that covers them both [Music] Isaac you had something you wanted to say all right so what do we go to uh two candidates with you summarize you want me to again mhm so we are going to uh I'll make a motion to go to the two candidates that have passed their screening um and offer a part-time of position with a 20h hour average with a hourly exempt um wage of 4268 to 641 they would be eligible for ESS they would not be eligible for um PTO or um other benefits since it is a part-time position in addition to that they would get uh their what I would say our normal on call Fas and their job duties um are listed in the current job description your turn down all right I have a motion I will second that motion Mr mayor council Brian I'm just playing out several different scenarios in my head um because I'm even though I'm still in favor of having a full-time Chief and that's where we were what the vote was the past two times that wasn't wasn't voted for so then I'm going what do we need to do to keep this thing moving forward so what happens if we make this offer to our our two fulltime candidates and both of them say no thank you I'm not interested are we immediately posting for this position or do we need to post this first if if if it's it does become a part-time position I'm just trying to play out some steps in my head so that we can continue to keep a keep the process moving forward now one option is to post it immediately last time we posted it for two weeks um we have two candidates in the pipeline we could post it for a week anybody else is paying attention they can apply as well um the candidates are are here they can apply since it's a a change in in what they would have and they would now know what the the offer is M may I do have one more question because the way council member Alder said it would be hourly exempt um in my opinion it can't be hourly exempt it's it's exempt or it's hourly it's not exempt all right so let's let's put it in a salary okay Salary thank salary exemp so Mr Mayor I want to make sure you finished now uh for the moment okay CC rainb so to clarify salary is hourly no you have a chief so wages hourly okay so that's I'm trying to clarify yeah so salary is exempt we have we can't have a hourly exempt employ in the city okay so we're going to tell them Mr Mayor tell R so your your your weekly rate is $1,000 no matter what you what hours you put in unless of course you're responding to a fire and then you get the what the firefighters make at while they're at that fire [Music] at the bottom end 44,000 yeah so it's about 850 a week top end so we're just going to put the salary range in there half of what's in there for the compensation today yep Mr I guess I'm still not clear so you put half of what's in there but if I work 42 hours I'm only get paid at half of what I worked I I get I don't I'm not getting that piece to it all right expectation is you wouldn't work 42 hours in a week cuz it's part-time that would be a good expectation but doesn't mean it's going to be true so so if I'm if I'm going over my 20 hours a week I'm basically giving the other five to the city just going to be clear if if we're saying it's an average part-time position of 20 hours the expectation is it's 20 hours if it takes you 22 or 24 if we say it's a salary that's a salary position that's what your rate is going to be for the month just like if you're salary at a private company if it takes you 44 or 48 or 50 hours to do your job you get paid the same I I I just want to be clear because this my opinion this person's going to come in to a department that's 3 and 1/2 years old um that needs guidance um that maybe hasn't um had the full attention that it's needed over the LA last couple years um just based on the structure that was in place and um I again I um I'm not in favor of part-time so I I guess I can't I can't uh I can't wrap my head around it I think it's just foolish but that's it's up to the prerogative of the council well and you know I I think and that's one of the challenging things here is we haven't done anything depending on whether it's three and a half year old department or five and a half years we've been doing this um we've had nothing but topnotch service the whole time and then this person have to come come in and clean up what hasn't been done we can't have it always either has been done great or it hasn't and there's now cleanup and so that's why we have to bring somebody in fulltime to do cleanup or we have a great department and but it needs it needs some shared workload because we only have two captains and one of them is brand new and so yes there is a role for a uh a chief and to build up the the officer Corp and to uh recruit more people but are there departments out there doing that successfully with part-time Chiefs and it appears there are now are they three and 1/2 years old nope I think we're the only three and a half year old out there so if that becomes our criteria then you again it wasn't one of the questions asked of anybody that applied previously how old was the department you come from and and how does that factor into how you're going to manage AG the the group we have here the For Better or For Worse the advantage we have here when we um separated it from the jpa is and not to take it lightly but we got excellent people with years of experience you know I would be much more concerned at a three and a half year old Department that was starting out with all new equipment and all new personnel and and not to um take lightly what these guys sacrificed to come over and be with us um but I do think that that uh we can do well with a part-time position knowing that we kept the budget there that if we have to grow it we have to grow it so but we can never shrink it once we once we jump off that ledge so Mr mayor council member allers are you proposing or suggesting or asking should we update the motion to repost it with these new requirements for a week and let the other two existing candidates apply for it or automatically apply them for it and see if anybody else is interested as well I'm just wanting to make sure we're doing we're due diligence and that whatever we need to do needs to be done so we don't if it has to be posted then we need to post it if if we don't have to post it because we don't have candidates what happens if both of those candidates say um I see this being more work or whatever it is and and it's going to take more than 20 hours a week so no I'm not interested and now we have no candidates so then we need to do something with it so then let's post okay modify the motion I'll modify the motion to repost position for do we want one week or two weeks that's one week one week with the updated parameters on benefits and salary and our expectations and we reach out to the two existing candidates and let them know that it's been reposted based on the updated job parameters right so that's your revised motion I will second that revised motion Mr Mayor R so council member aldr just said we're going to let let them know that we're going to repost it with these new parameters so are we not asking them if they're interested in having a part-time job at 20 hours so no matter what I think we are but if we're going to post it then they need to apply for the new position why would they need to apply because because we updated you had said they could automatically be yes you know I I again an attorney would be able to answer that question and we change it um but I to me if they're going to if we offer to them and they say no why would they apply and and a week for a position such as this I think we're um we're not giving it enough time but yet we're at August almost August one or October 1 so we don't have time well and remember our original posting was two weeks m it was a full-time chief that offered benefits and 40 hours a week and and there that wants 20 hours a week Mary I hope so Mr Mayor coun Brian I just want to bring it up again can if we know we're not paying overtime until after 40 can we leave it as an hourly position and and whoever this candidate is they're working with administrator laner to go I need to go over 40 or not and then if that overtime needs to be reviewed it can but knowing that we're trying to be shooting for 20 to 30 hours a week I'm just looking at the other POS the other positions that that was given to us tonight it was 20 to 30 hours a minimum of 20 or four to five which is more than 20 what's the 45 12 you have lever at 4 to 5 hours a week so that's more than 20 hours that's 20 to 25 hours a week no that's 20 that's 20 to 25 hours a month that's a month four to five month a week okay yeah a week 5 * 5 is 20 five no not a day not a day a week okay all right okay gotcha so it's an hour a day all right I'm just trying to sweeten the Pod if we go over 20 that they can be compensated I I think that that uh by by making him eligible for paid on call and reduced rate does because I'm thinking that that's part of um whatever this daytime respon is going to be um if they're if they're full-time Chief they're not getting any extra pay for responding to fires to me that's a again I'm not saying that we're saying they're a full-time Chief right now because no but I'm I'm just saying that that these others the uh L gets paid on call the other ones don't they go to the fires they just as part of their salary so because I know going forward with the full-time Chief is not going to happen tonight so what do we get I'm just trying to get again all my questions answered so we can find something and move forward so what other questions if the motion is that we're going to be hard and fast at 20 then then then there's really not that much that I can do about it so but I still think if we made it hourly that gives them gives us the option so that they can be compensated if there's if they need to go four 5 10 20 hours over without having to comp without having to pay overtime and the and as you said the money's in the budget yeah and I I think you you give it a go and you see how it's working and and evaluate and if it needs to be raised from 20 hours then then we evaluate at that point okay I'm just voicing my concern yep I think back to the if it's going to be hourly you can't be exempt and that's a that's an issue because then you start entering in a lot of a lot of other things that don't typically factor in the fire department like double but that's doubling their potential workload that they get compensated for if if the week comes up so but understood so Mr Mayor Mr L so just to be clear um since we have gone this rout out at this point um who is the council who who is the job right up going to change then are you going to decide on an hourly rate is somebody in the council going to be contacting these individuals are you looking at staff to redo I I don't I'm not clear on what what the marching orders are going forward I'm not even clear on the dollar amount that we're talking about but so again the the job description doesn't change okay the uh hourly rate that the salary was based on in in the original posting doesn't change but the hourly requirement changes so the original posting was based on uh an hourly rate of 4268 time 2080 was a little over 88,000 low end and 113 something on the high end so that those brackets still there but at a 20-hour rate rather than a 40h hour rate I Mr Mayor yes sir I'm fully aware that the brackets are there but I'm guessing you all are going to decide on an hourly rate that's going to go into that how are we deciding on the current candidates I the same thing you're looking at you're looking at level of experience right and you're determining what what to offer when you when you had the candidate CU they don't they don't know what the actual offer is right now no they they know a range and so the same thing it'd be a range only half of what it was for a full-time position okay so if I'm hearing you correctly then we're if the posting was going to go out there's no changes same rate range and $20 correct have I capture that correctly so far and uh and the request was for um the potential for additional paid on call response yeah right okay at the normal rate okay and and Mr Mayor sir is that the the people that have been working on this and putting this packet and all that together are they going to continue to stay involved are they going to be talking to the individuals are you asking your city administrator to talk to these how how does this move going forward because for the last couple weeks I have been out of the loop have not participated in any of this so I don't know what the expectation is going forward so I just want to be clear Mr Mayor uh councilman rain so the on call paid so if I'm the part-time Chief and I'm in the office working on the administrative stuff and because I'm there during the day and there's a call out and I'm going to be called out so then I'm clocking out from my chief job and then I'm clocking back in for my response call and then I clock back out out of my response call clock back into my chief call just wonder it makes it easier we don't don't include the paid on call they just they just go as part of their duty if it's outside their core hours we can add it if it's inside their core hours I mean I think we're starting split hairs here Mr Mayor we have two calls today for the fire department one was at 5:17 a.m. and one was at 5:27 p.m. both of which will be outside of your core hours so what is your expectation if those core hours are going to be 3 days a week for 8 hours and you're saying that they're going to be in the office Monday Tuesday Wednesday or Monday Monday Wednesday Thursday whatever parameter that is of those five days you're not splitting hairs you're deciding if you're here in your core hours you're getting paid One Rate if you're here outside of those hours assuming that that individual lives in a response area that's even reasonable for them to get here and also assuming that if you have interest in a part-time position they meet the parameters and qualifications set forth originally on the job posting so if you're telling me that that hey for a part-time position I can get 50 60 Grand a year well why wouldn't I want to work 20 hours a week for the city now then rather than 440 hours a week for the city now in public works doesn't mean that I'm qualified but I certainly have interest in it sounds great on paper you see the conundrum well it's certainly cleaner to say this is this is the salary and and uh the expectation is they're a daytime responder on the days that they're in the office you know I I don't know there'll be a because if you're allowing them to get another job they're no different than than any paid on call responder that has a full-time position outside of the city cuz right now I'm the only individual that has a a full-time position with in the city for the city so if you're saying hey you guys can go get another job for 20 30 40 hours a week outside of 20 hours that you're committing to here you would have an expectation that they would not have to respond during those hours correct yeah if there their outside job is not in the response area yeah you wouldn't expect them to be responding on days they want to I'm I'm I'm just looking at it through a lens that as as someone in the industry that's currently responding to calls how are you going to look at this and what are your [Music] expectations you guys need clarify that no one else can say it's cleanest if we uh we just say the salary range is between 44 and 66 based on experience and respond when you're in the response area okay so Mr Mr lner's question is to uh communicating posting communicating to the existing I'm I'm assuming you talked to them previously based on your email when you said that there was possibility this was going part-time mhm and they wanted to stay in the process depending on the I think in your email said wage and or the salary and the hours and responsib expectations were as far as the job description so would it be reasonable to communicate to them the hours the salary and the job description and then we would be um looking for interest over the next week so are you asking me to come up with the dollar amount then in the range no I mean that's right now they're in there knowing it's somewhere between 883 mhm based on experience that has not been determined yet okay so now it's it's in the same range only half that amount okay so somewhere between 44 offer 444 and 666 so Mr Mayor yes sir if they are interested in that then um who who would be making the determination on their qualifications and making job offers I I think um at this point city council because that's where it is now anyway so Mr Mayor then we should probably come up with what that would be before they're contacted what what what would be what the offer would be to them that's what they're both believe I believe they're both waiting for they want to know what an offer be to me if I was to be chosen so we should probably have a good idea of what the offer is not a range so that they can decide if they want to stay in it or if they want to go we should probably choose who your top candidate is and ask correct we we don't know that yet because they haven't come before the council right because the the evaluations just came through so I think now my opinion they could both say no so we should have it posted right away but if we post it then we have to allow the other candidates if there's anybody else to come to come through the interviewing process correct if we don't post it we offer it to the two and you guys pick one that you like the best and they decide yeah they want to do full-time or part-time so we should have a dollar amount to offer them that so that they can come before you to meat wouldn't that be more reasonable I don't see any different than right now if they're the finalist right now they know the range that's all they know and we haven't offered anything because we don't know the level of experience of the final candidate no but it might be the difference between if it's the 20 hours at this salary and I already have another part-time job versus it's this salary at fulltime you know if you're going to go to the low end with somebody or you're going to go to the high end wouldn't that make a difference on whether or not they're going to stay in it but it would depend on their experience right I mean just like any other job there's a salary range for the position and we're going to offer them somewhere in that range depending on what their skills ability and years of experience are and fit for the job right right but wouldn't you still have what you want to offer to your top candidate before you'd repost it you don't know what your top candidate brings you're not saying your top candidate necessarily brings the the most experience I I'm struggling because what we're doing if we were going down the path that we were with this full-time it's no different we have a salary range with two candidates those two candidates would come in front of council we would make the final call on which candidate we wanted to offer a job to and we would offer him a job with a salary but we would not tell them ahead of time here's what it's going to be are you interested or not I guess I was thinking about in the interest of time because if we were to offer it because we should have the reports by the middle of the week we have the reports you guys take a look at it we have them before Council we could have other candidates and you're you're not going to make them go through the whole entire process again I me I think you need to clarify that right now it's clear as mud I I would say they would not have to go through the whole process again okay but then we still have to wait for if another candidate comes up at wants per time and we still have to wait for the time frame to go back through mallister for their leadership evaluation and two interviews if and two interviews yeah if they pass the screening right right they have to meet the same qualifications is what my understanding is the same that's up to the council well that you said the posting didn't change so I thought that meant everything stays the same no that's up to the council okay so is that changing for the posting yeah that was Mr Mayor the the the posting is not we we have a deadline looming here where our our chief is is uh stepping back and so that's up to the council depending on the candidates the cheap isn't steing back the contract was written that way that you approve so Mr mayor council member rainville to tenis Johnson's question yeah we I thought the only change in this was it's going to be part-time and no benefits no nothing and everything else in here was staying the same but now we're saying you're saying that that's up to the council well wouldn't that be part of this motion if we're going to make changes to this or or are you going to make a motion right after we vote on this and then look at what the qualifications are don't um I was I was going to suggest that uh the this round of interviews actually be different than what we've done okay well Mr Mayor we're we're on this motion so are we looking to change in addition to the other items that were mentioned in the motion are we looking to change something in a job description that we felt captured what we need a position to do what qualifications we need that position to do are we now looking at either lessening the responsibilities or lessening the qualifications or are we leaving that the job description stays the same okay so that doesn't mean the interview process stays the same Mr Mayor cuz that's not in the job description and I didn't ask anything about it interview I asked about other than the salary the fact that it's part-time versus full-time as it was approved that there's no benefits there's no nothing there's no nothing there's no nothing is there anything else in this job description that is changing because that was not part of any motion job description provided by Chief Schmid this week it should be the same job description that's St that that we've had all along all right I just want to clarify that we're not changing anything in the job description other than the the the payroll piece of it no benefits and all that correct okay so if you didn't if you applied and you didn't meet those qualifications to begin with you wouldn't still wouldn't qualify again that's the rubric okay that's not the job description well the job description [Music] asks for know required knowledge and skills and abilities mhm minimum requirements there desirable qualifications so none of that is changing I just want to get that clear all right I have a motion a second um did we change that to a straight salary yes right Mr Mayor can we start like right at the beginning because it's changed so many times for me so I get it right is that the job description stays the same it goes to part-time the salary stays the same the two candidates don't have to salary does not well I mean at at part time time y the two candidates do not have to reinie they do not but you're wanting me to check with them to follow up with them to let them know the changes so are you moving forward with one of those candidates if they so want to we're going to post for the position and if there's any other qualified candidates that are interested we will pick from top candidates knowing that those are two of the top candidates we haven't chosen anybody yet so I will let them know the changes and and we are going to repost it for repost it because I think we need to repost it because it goes from 40 to 20 we don't know if anybody else is going to apply sure if somebody else applies we are going to do due diligence on that any other candidates that apply and if they meet the minimum requirements or um we put them into the interview process they will be part of the interview candidate pool like these other two candidates are okay well you use the existing rubric that we've used then for determining qualified candidates I wasn't part of I don't know what sorry you probably didn't see it I'm sorry yeah and and I want to go back to that because I I would have liked to have been as we had discussed here like to been part of that so I don't know that we would use the same rubric we would we would take a look at the job description and say do they meet the job description again it's it's a different job from a full-time position okay you just said it wasn't it's different in terms of ours Isaac I appreciate that but the rubric then shouldn't change yeah you're you're you have two qualified individuals who were spearheading this so what benefit would you bring to the decision making process from a from a rubric standpoint I would have liked to have seen some firefighter involvement in it I would have liked to seen what are the firefighters looking for why because you guys are the ones that going to be settled with whatever the decision is here correct and we had qualified leadership that we spearheading it so why would we muddy the water with opinions you you put Force forth the best candidate moving forward through each step of the process and essentially you're going back to Ground Zero you've grenaded the entire process to go back to ground zero to start over so you have two candidates that are just hanging in the wind and and if we're fortunate enough that these two qualified individuals don't give us excuse the expression but the middle finger and keep their hat in the ring they're still waiting in the wind well will we decide that okay it's posted for a week and then we're going to bring the other candidates that we deem at this point that said oh yeah I guess if it's a parttime position I do want to throw my hat in and and so how long is that process going to take where you're expecting these guys to just continue to wait where where where does it where does it Li that's the issue at hand you have two candidates that you said were qualified to go to Martin mallister and and you said these two individuals have the potential to lead our department on a fulltime basis so if the job description hasn't changed only the amount of hours in which they're going to do the job then they should be the two best candidates moving forward and our hope would be that one of them would take that position now if both of them say thanks but no thanks you guys have egg on your face then we start over with a new job [Music] posting Mr Mayor rainville if our goal is to post it as part-time then we should really tell the two candidates that are currently there uh applying for a part time or full-time position thank you we're not interested in a fulltime we're going to repost it so don't even go back to them and offer you know them a job at half the hours no benefits because if we our goal is to repost it this part-time then why would you even have a conversation with them to say is what we're going to do we're going to offer that and we've just spent I already had that conversation with $2,000 with m y and we had that conversation too do we want to go ahead with Martin mallister and it was decided that hey they wanted to keep their hat in so I decided to do that yeah well I don't disagree but I'm just saying that again if we're going to move forward with if the vote on this is a a positive vote and we're going to move forward to repost then we should let them know that we're just going to repost it and you really don't have an option anymore unless you want to reapply for part time so you don't think that that uh because they're in already that they uh if they want to stay in that they have to you want to start it all over I think from uh from a process standpoint I believe the reason that we need to repost it is because we changed the scope of the job and I believe if these two candidates are interested with the revised scope they are still viable candidates for the city I also believe that there may be additional viable candidates that didn't apply because it was full-time versus part-time and if there are other candidates that potentially are as good or better than these candidates then we can do due diligence on any new candidates if we don't find anybody that's we believe is better or more qualified or possesses the same traits then we pick one of the two that um because they both have expressed interest in part-time they were waiting to understand what is the salary package going to be and what does the job look like if we tell them the job description is the same the salary is half and there are no benefits because it's a part-time position we may find out our answer and then we're going to have to see what happens in a week if any other candidates apply but I believe that if they're interested in part-time they're waiting to understand what we're going to do from a salary standpoint now they know what the range are going to be they know what the benefits are going to be there aren't any and there may be other semi-retired fire chiefs that have potentially interest in the spot so that's what I believe we should do and that's how we should move forward and if no one else applies and these two are interested pick the best one so Mr give it give it a week and you'll find out yes Mr Mayor are the two existing candidates required to reapply for part-time or are and are they then eliminated from any new hiring interviews anything like that I I that's going to be a question that everybody's going to ask so I I mean I don't disagree that maybe there is somebody out there but again we're at October 1 I I think and I it it is as fire fire shult it clear as mud so to me at least um but yeah I mean do these other fire do these candidates have to reapply is it a whole hiring process how long is that going to take what what do we do if and they say no and no one else steps up and not then we got nothing like so we better we better if this motion passed then we better have a plan in place the next motion better be a detailed plan what we do going forward if nobody applies or nobody is um nobody applies for part-time um or nobody applies that meets the qualifications that we're asking for in this job descrip ition and they may be out there but if they're not and they choose not to come in working more than 20 hours a week and not getting paid for it what do we do so let's let's give it a week because we keep going down these scenarios what if what if last time it was who's going to drive the truck on January 1st and and and you know who's who's going to do all these things that the chief's not doing now um you know we we we're really good at worst case scenarios I I remember in May saying we wouldn't have an office help till sometime in July and and sometimes things work out pretty well but let's give it a week and find out because in a week we may find out nobody's applying for it and the two that are here don't want it and at that point yep we got to start over again but when you're starting over again when you don't even know anything exactly that makes it even more challenging that's fine I you can do whatever you want and Mr Mayor I do have one more question for clarification ma'am if the if there are some other candidates do the first two candidates get scored to however if you're not going to use the same rubrics that they used in the with the first interviewing do the first two candidates get rescored so in in this case it will be up to the council to decide that that's what I'm wondering though because but again we didn't decide that until we had candidates applying I would propose there if both candidates are interested in a part-time position we go back to both of them they do not need to reapply tell them their name is still in the Hat and we're going to post this for a week to see if there are any other candidates that are out there that potentially would apply because it is part-time and we will determine if any of those candidates will move forward to the final selection because these two are potentially in the final selection based off everything that we've had right yep right so the scoring and all that is same so just those two are over here then we have a new bucket of candidates that are here and we decide if any of those candidates move up with the top two if both if there's an of these top two if both of them are interested knowing what the revised package is great we'll pick one of those two if there's somebody else that meets those requirements and rolls up to that we may have three to pick from okay that was all I wanted that the and requirements are the same I think from uh Clarity and who's reaching out if the ask is for Scott to reach out to those two candids to say we're going to post it for a week here's the revised salary here's the revised benefits we'll give you a couple days let us know if you're still interested or not if you are interested you don't need to reapply you will will still be considered one of the top two candidates we may add one more depending on what we get for um a candidate pool and the council's going to make a decision in the month of October Mr Mayor Mr ler I think I'm hearing a little bit of this and that but who who is going to vet this next group of people then because I'm hearing some may be unhappy with how it went the last time so what do it what does it look like going forward who needs to be part of that process let's see if we get any candidates then decide that huh let's see if we get any candidates and then decide that because it may be a mve point this point well Mr Mayor Mr L so my concern about let's just see if we have candidates is all of you have received an email from an individual that said he's got interest in it as a part-time position so somehow that individual needs to be vetted and that socalled individual was vetted on the full-time position and didn't meet the minimum requirements of that position so I think we're going to need to at least come up with some sort of a scenario how does somebody get vetted so somebody can get back to this individual and let them know if either you're you're qualified or you're not qualified Mr Mayor rain if what we have said is that the job description doesn't change given the salary the hours and no benefits but everything else stays the same if that person didn't meet the qualifications then they wouldn't meet him going the second time now I don't know this person at all I mean we all got the same email I don't know who they are I you know don't know if I've ever met him as a as a firefighter um they didn't meet qualifications first time around unless it was by five six weeks of something that they didn't have that maybe they would now six weeks more and whatever we we wouldn't know what that is though well the qualifications are there and they didn't meet the people that did the beding didn't find that meet met the qualifications and they didn't need the qualifications I we have a motion to uh post position for a week M the week start guess it starts tomorrow going Brian just trying to figure things out if do we legally do is it worth finding out from our attorney if we legally have to post the position and if if we don't that we theoretically call the two candidates and say are you interested and if they they're not interested then we go ahead with the posting thing or if one of them says or both says yeah I'm interested in part-time then we we have that decision made I think that the question is there may people that didn't look at it because it was a full-time position and that's the that's the question can we can we find the retired Chief can we find the the somebody who would have been interested in a part-time position but not full-time and if that's the case I'm just going if we have possibly two candidates that I have my opinions but if that that they could theoretically move forward part- time then we're a little bit ahead of the game but if we don't want to do that or we need to post post it then then then that's what we have to do at this point the motion is to post other discussion heing none I'll call for the motion for the vote those in favor i i i i oppos n motion carries I'm move to journ so Jour I hope you caught on that because still not clear so