Good evening. It's now 6 o'clock and I call to order the workshop of the Victoria City Council. Our workshops are informal and with that we're going to dive right into our agenda. Uh we have one item on the workshop agenda this evening and that's the Victoria Fire Department staffing model update. Kicking us off on that topic is Fire Chief Dave Shoger. Dave, welcome. >> Good evening, Mayor Council. >> Uh tonight I just wanted to briefly talk about a plan that I've got for helping staff our uh dut shifts a little more efficiently than we've done. Um we're looking to fill these shifts that have been cancelled recently. Uh, quarter three was a little exceptional in that we canceled a higher number of duty crew shifts than we have in the past. And that kind of threw a red flag at me and I recognized that with our staffing levels where we are right now currently 27 firefighters and three full-time firefighters that the hours under our current model um are a little insufficient for filling all of those duty crew shifts. Um, currently what we allow is our duty crew firefighters to supplement the requirements for working duty crew shifts by working community engagement. um opportunities. Um it's been a great way of having them be involved with our community community engagement, but unfortunately what it's done is kind of retracted the available hours to serve as um duty crew firefighters. So our duty crew firefighter requirements for our pay on call shifts and our duty crew firefighters are 20 hours a quarter um as scheduled shifts worked per firefighter. Um, it's not a huge ask, but it's enough that what it's been able to do is allow us to work duty crew shifts on the Monday nights that we do not have fire department obligations all Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, Friday nights, and an eight hour shift on Saturdays. So, as we've done the math and as we developed our duty crew plan, uh, we knew that when we were fully staffed with 35 firefighters, that would be plenty to fill all of those hours. Um, as I mentioned, we have um currently staffed at 27 paid on call firefighters, not allowing all of our shifts to get filled. Um, even if we were to bring on a few several many firefighters in this year's hiring process, I believe that um we're still going to come a little bit short on filling all of our duty crew shifts. I recognize that there's an opportunity here for us to fill that bucket as I'm calling it filling duty shifts by just changing the way we operate, how we staff our our um duty shifts a little differently. Um we're looking to make available two to four shifts of new firefighters or current firefighters that would like to transition to what we call a duty-free firefighter. Um their obligations would be not coming to their all calls. Currently, our firefighters that are paid on call firefighters in addition to their 20 hours of duty shifts are required to um attend and make at least 25% of our all call um calls for service. The new position, as I'm seeing it, would be still a paid on call firefighter in that their wages, their parah benefits, and their training obligations are all still saying the same. But rather than them having responsibility to respond to this 25% of our all calls, they would responding or scheduling their shifts at 60 hours a quarter. Um so rather than the 20 that's required right now, they'd be moving to 60 hours a quarter scheduling their services um as paid on call firefighters in those duty roles. I believe that um as we continue to move this year, we're going we're in the middle of a hiring process currently and I believe we'll probably bring on right currently we have three firefighters that have gone on to the next level, next stage in our hiring process. We believe a plug ring on two, possibly three of those. Um and um possibly adding the ability for some of our current firefighters then to transition into this new role would be uh a great way to supplement and increase our duty crew participation. Hopefully providing us an ability to as I said before reduce the amount of duty crew shifts that we end up cancelling due to only having one person signed up for it. Um what we know with our duty crew shifts are this. This is the very best way that I have to provide our community with the best customer service possible and that is by getting our response levels down. Um, duty crew shifts average 5 minutes and 15 seconds from page to apparatus on scene as opposed to when we're working in just a duty crew or an all call operation mode of 7 minutes and 43 seconds. So that's two and a half minutes difference. Now you can imagine what this looks like if we're just talking about a regular all call. It might happen at 3:00 in the morning or in the afternoon or whenever we've got no duty crews in service, we get a page for service. We've got our firefighters who leave their homes, they drive to the fire station, they get turned out, they get in a truck and they drive even in 7 minutes and 43 seconds. I think it's pretty respectable and a very a number that I'm very proud of. But our duty crew shift time, what that allows us is to have firefighters in station ready to go, ready to get on apparatus and ready to make access and get out to the where that call is. So that's five minutes and 15 seconds from the time the pager goes off to getting their turnout gear on in a truck and directly to the scene of the the emergency. So it's a big benefit to our community to have more duty crew shifts staffed and that's been our process and our plan all along as we've continued to develop and work on our duty crew shift um plans. Um we just know that that's the best way we can get firefighters where they need to be. Um the great thing about duty crew shifts is this. Um, in addition to we get to have firefighters on scene quickly, we know that as long as we're getting calls for service, while we've got a duty to shift in service, um, it's actually a cost benefit for the community and also that rather than having 15 firefighters on average arrive to the fire station to change out a smoke detector, which is the way it works when the alt call process, we've got three firefighters who are dedicated, ready, and paid their hours for being there for those scheduled hours that they're on shift. But that's offset right there. So, as long as we're getting calls during those times and we've got duty shifts engaged, um we're we're seeing a cost benefit there as well, not just a good customer service. So, um I know that as we're building our station, as our as our community continues to grow, we will be continuing to grow our duty crew model. Um but that's going to be driven by call volume. And we continue to see call volume increases year-over-year. Um currently, we're tracking like 470 to 500 calls somewhere there this year, which is a pretty jump over last year. I think we were 410 calls for service in 2024. So, um, we continue to grow, continue to get busier and that's going to continue to happen and specifically as our our age population, our population age continues to grow as well. We know that that is a driver. So, um I do believe that there's probably intent to have at some point a memory care unit opened back up in town and if we end up getting elderly care of any other way, um that is a huge driver of ser calls for service and will continue to be a purpose and the reason why we need to continue to grow our duty crew model. Um it's a beautiful new station that we're building right now. It does have obviously quarters for our staff to be able to work overnight shifts and that will be a continued benefit to our community as well as our fire department. Um, one of the great things about the duty model also is that it allows people to schedule their time and how they're going to serve the fire department and serve the community. Um, you know, providing them a space to say, "Well, I know Tuesday nights I'm available. I'm going to take that shift rather than just everybody walking around with the pager waiting for the pager to go off and knowing that now instead of four people or three people that are on ser on call in that duty crew role, we're all on call and everybody's responding. So, um, we know that it's the right steps. We know that it's the right path and I believe firmly that it is a good way for us to continue to grow our service as well as continue to better our service or our community by growing our our duty crew model. That all being said, my point in this is that my purpose is to take what we've got right now and make sure that we're taking full effect of and full advantage of those opportunities by making sure that we're not canceling those. So what I'm telling you and asking of you is support for just not changing who we're hiring and not adding people that we're hiring but just changing how what their roles are within the fire department. Those same paid on call firefighters rather than being an all call firefighter and a duty crew firefighter to being primarily a duty crew firefighter. That's what we're looking to do. We're looking to take advantage of that and make sure that we've got the ability to have our people in the right place to do the job that they're supposed to be doing. >> So that's what I'm looking for. Thanks, Dave. I got a question for you. Um, what how if you have a duty crew on, what happens to the all call? Do you let that go until maybe you need them and then you put out an all call? >> Correct. Yep. That's exactly right. So, okay. Um, we've got different tones that dispatch will page us with. if we've got a station crew, which would be um how we will operate Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4 pm. Um when we've got full-time staff that are here, or whether it is that, or a um duty crew shift, those shifts get the specific page that are only for them. So, nobody else is going to hear it. It's not going to be something that comes out for them. They will get a notification on their phone saying that there's a call in progress right now. that it might make people who were at home and not responding to a call be aware that there's something going on and they might think, well, I better pay attention because if there's another call that overlaps at the same time, that's going to be upgraded to an all call and they should be prepared to get to the station. So, that's the way that works. >> Okay, very good. Thank you. Um I I support this duty crew idea. I think it I think it better utilizes the people that we have, the staff that we have, gives them predictability for their life and um understanding when I'm going to be called and when I'm going to be in service. Um gentlemen, any other questions for the chief? >> I mean, I I agree too. I'm part of it. I think some of what I had looked at was I think the call costs go down, right, and the efficiencies up. So I mean you're >> you know and and like you said predictability of schedules and stuff mayor and how about the the total amount of staff if you will doesn't change though it's just more moving the pieces in a more efficient way >> just using them in a way that works better to fill those duty crew shifts. >> Got it. Got it. >> How are duty crew shifts determined? What's the magic in that? You mentioned a few nights but some nights you don't have them. What's >> So we use a we use data to drive when we set our duty crew shifts. So we look at the days and times when we have the highest peak volumes >> and find a space to be able to effectively and >> well hopefully get people interested in signing up for those shifts. Okay. >> Our eight hour shifts on Saturday are sometimes difficult to fill but we're working to make some adjustments to that for next quarter as well for quarter 1 of 26. U making some more flexibilities in there for our staff. We've been listening and hearing. We've been working with the current model that we're in since quarter one of this year. And after we've gone through three quarters, we've been diving into it, recognizing where our shortcomings are and start working on um making some small adjustments to make that uh better affected uh in staff availability and being able to fill those shifts going into quarter one of 2026. >> Great. Any other questions for the chief? >> Just quick one. So, if you're going to go under the 60 hours per quarter, do you and you're one of those firefighters, do you then come off of the um minimum 25% call volume requirement? >> Correct. Yep. So, the reason the way we came up with that 40 hours over the 60 or over the 20 that was required for the regular paid on call firefighters is what we took the call volume that happens in a quarter recognized about approximately one hour per call. We we averaged that up a hair just to make sure it was the round number. Um, but took those 40 hours of calls that our 25% firefighters are making, added that 20 hours to the or 40 hours to the 20 that's existing for the requirements for the duty crew shift of all of the other firefighters. That way, it's equitable for all. So, um, a firefighter who's making their 60 hours of duty crew shifts is working the same similar numbers and hours to those that are working 20 hours of duty crew shift plus their all calls at 25%. >> Yeah. Thank you. I was just going to ask is there support from the rest of the staff for this increase? >> Um the So what's nice is that there is um there are a couple firefighters that are looking at this and maybe um looking to make that transition for themselves just so they can schedule their time rather than having to be uh on call all the time. So I think that we've got good buy in and I think that people are interested to see how it works. Um what I feel like is this is another small step towards you know transitioning our organization's culture to from paid on call and call only to more of a duty crew model. Um it's a difficult thing culturally to change in the fire service traditionally and I think that um small steps that people can see transparently why we're doing it help provide them with the impetus to get on board and to continue moving forward with this. I think obviously also the beautiful new building that we're building for the fire station is going to help drive that engagement and interest as well people who want to spend time there. So I think that it's going to be very good. All right. >> Yeah. >> Any last questions, comments for the chief? >> All right. Um, there's no further discussion, no, no, uh, voting to be done on this. So, the staff has the information they need, I believe. >> Perfect. >> To carry forward. >> Just I kind of want to be think that we're giving the chief a clear message that council is 100% supportive of. >> Yeah. Agreed. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. I appreciate you. >> Very good. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> All right. There are no more items to come before the uh council on the workshop agenda this evening. So I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> We have a motion. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> A motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. We stand adjourned.