E911 Authority - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning. I'll call this meeting of the Lake County 911 Authority to order. It is 9:59 in the morning on September 5th, 2025. Um, does anyone have any changes to the agenda? No, I just have a question. Did we miss the deadline to get those other two items on the agenda? We can add those right now because motion to add those in front of that. That that was my apologies. I didn't see. Yeah, no problem. So, that was that was my battle on that. We can add those two items now though. I'm just wondering I mean with all that's going on. Danielle is prepared but if we should table those two items. It would give me more chance. Yes.

All right. So I'll make a motion to table the two items. Additional so no changes to the agenda. That okay with you? Yeah. Okay. All right. So I'll make that motion. That makes sense. Sounds good. Um, yeah, I'll uh second. Um, any further discussion? No. All in favor of the agenda as is today. I I agenda's approved. Um, we'll move on to public comments. So, if anybody has any Did we let Mary into Yeah. Is she there? I think so. Somebody No, it's just a

And we're recording. call. Hey Andy, good morning. Uh, we're just got through approving the agenda. I'm moving on to public comment. So, if you have anything or anybody in the room has a public comment, it'll just get you that. Nothing on my end. Good morning. Cool. Thank you for doing that. Thanks for joining us. Thanks very much. Are you in the meeting? Um, no, it's fine. I guess Mary is she's in the meeting somewhere. We don't see she's in the Zoom meeting.

Can you hear it? Mary, we had this problem before where there's a different Oh, she's still getting waiting to be approved. Oh, and it's the link the link. No, the team's link. No, no, it's assume. Oh, okay. Try again. next. Okay. Does she know we tabled the uh discussion about rotating shifts and psychological exams? I can tell. Okay.

Because yeah, the last two times that I tried joining Zoom when I was working shift the I think on the agenda I couldn't get in. Yeah. I had to back door it to get this agenda, too. It's weird how it was laid out. I couldn't find it directly on the agenda page, so I had to go to the uh Lake County E91 authority link. And then I was able to get to the agenda.

Whatever link you have on the agenda is not this meeting because I'm right now. Okay, fine. Change at some point then. Thanks, Noah. Yeah. Okay. Um, can I put her on speaker? Okay. Okay. Did she have public comment? Do you have a public comment, ma'am? No. Okay, cool. Move on to director reports. Um I'll start off that recently we had um Bloomman install the circuit from LA County to Grand Junction. Okay.

Uh the state came in and tested it. Not Noah uh came and tested it. We're good to go there. So um now we're just waiting for Motorola to come install the back hole circuit the Motorola one. So I know it's been a project honestly from I think the beginning of the year. I think we're hoping for this around February or so. So scheduled uh for the week of October 6th to install that um back hole switch and then training October 13th through the 17th. So I actually had a question for you guys. Were you aware of that training? Happy. Okay. So I'll send you the schedule that I got from Motorola. And then October 20th through the 24th is the access cut over. So we're good to go with the access equipment which is great because I know we were budgeting for that you know few years down the road I cut that out from the budget. So So good news there. Um, I just Well, I'll go I'll work with you and your sister on confirming that training schedule. It's good to go.

Yeah. Um, that's all I had. Yeah. I don't have anything this morning. Cool. Jeremiah. Yeah. Nope.

All right. We'll move on to our new business and discussions. We have two items today. Uh, first we're going to start off with an interview with Sarah. Sarah, thanks for being here this morning. Uh, we're just going to jump right into it. Um, and but we'll start off with some introductions. Um, so I'll start off. I'm Heath Spect County Sheriff. I sit as the chair of the 911 authority board. Uh, we started this in September of 23, so we're approaching I guess two years now. Um, so uh, the dispatch center is a a managing uh, or has ran underneath us as a managing board at this point. We don't have a director, so hence why you're here. Um, but we we're a board of main users of the dispatch center. Um, so we all have that touch point. Uh so we realize how important this the dispatch center is dispatching in general. Uh we have great value that we place on our dispatchers. So thank you guys as always. Um so we we want to see this be as successful as possible. And so that's why we're all here. That's why we're all working as a managing board at this point. You know, we all have other jobs and uh but we want to make sure that we're pushing. So we do put a ton of effort into this. Everybody on the board works really hard. So that's me. I'm Dan Da. I'm the police chief in Leadville and I've been here a year. Uh, hi. Uh, nice to meet you. Uh, thanks for coming today and, uh, having an interest in this. Certainly appreciate it. Uh, my name is Dan Dailyaly. I'm the fire chief and, um, I've been here 20 years. So,

Jeremiah, nice to finally meet you in person. 100 healthcare coalition meetings. Never actually met you. Um, and I'm the annual instructor. Your turn. Well, as you Sarah P. I'm currently the emergency preparness manager for the common spirit hospitals in Colorado Springs and I'm still a part-time dispatcher for Park County, helping them out almost two years now. Cool. Well, it's great to have you here. Um, we'll give you a few more minutes if you want to just expand on your introduction a little bit, give us a little more of your background. Yeah. Um, and then we'll have uh we have a a series of questions we'll put you through also.

Okay. Um, so I am approaching seven years as a dispatcher. I started in Woodland Park in Ter County. Uh did a little short stunt in Douglas County for a little bit. Went back to Woodland. Uh helped out Taller County when they kind of sent out an SOS and went super short staff. Um absolutely loved it. Moved up to the supervisor position there for a year. Um had lots of projects underneath me that I did. I created their Mayday policy that went countywide. So for the fire department on their side, um kind of improved our processes and procedures as far as dispatching goes on the law enforcement side, um we had several interim chiefs on the police department side. So mitigating through what they're wanting their expectations of dispatch was um managed their schedules, training opportunities, worked with um close agencies like Teller County Dispatch, working together to get them on board, training um the ma policy across all three dispatch agencies in Ter County because there's three of them. Um and then working with um the authority board, which is the E91 authority board down in El Paso and Ter County. um they use a different EMD of color. They don't use EMD, they use internationalmies of dispatch. Um but they're kind of the guinea pig for the International Academy of Emergency Dispatch. So things that we noticed they would upgrade and date and change um that got pushed out. Um so worked really closely with them. I also managed the social media page for W Park Police Department's page. Got really good engagement from them. um kind of education through how to call dispatch, when to call dispatch versus 911 versus maybe don't call those at all. Um so really kind of stressing the education piece of it. I helped with national night out doing all the permitting and planning for that as well as the veterans rally that goes through city of Lenovo to Purple Creek. Um really started getting into the project

planning and making sure dispatch was included in those kind of conversations. Great. That's awesome. Thank you. We just had our nationalist. Yeah. Okay, great. Um, yeah, we'll jump in right into some questions. All right. Uh, Sarah, please describe your leadership experience in a public safety answering point, PAP, and how you ensure consistent emergency communication services.

Yeah. So, my leadership style is always people first. So, I think you have to lead by example. Making sure that you've got clear communication with your team. You've got to build that trust with them. I think team bonding is essential in a dispatch center, especially a small one. You have to be able to trust your your partner and your your co-workers to cover. Um, so when I became a supervisor at Woodland, really worked on that on my side of the the week, making sure that we were covering each other, we communicated with each other, if there were issues that it was escalated up the appropriate chain of command. So me first before the manager and then before the commander or the captain, however they change their their chain of command structure um multiple times, but making sure that that that communication is so vital in the dispatch center, especially a small one. Um and making sure that we're working as a team. So if there's somebody that has a problem or if they're having a rough day, recognizing that, giving making sure they get a break. Um as a supervisor, I also think it's my duty to cover. So if somebody called in sick and they couldn't find coverage, that's my job as that supervisor level to take on that coverage before looking at the other side of the week.

Thank you.

So how do you handle personnel management including hiring, training and addressing performance issues?

Yeah. So I am a big big advocate for training. I think you have to have a strong training program and depending on the agency it looks very different, right? Some could be three months, some could be six months. I've been through several different trainings as well as learning on the fly. Um, and so I think being able to have a strong program management that documents that training, that shows the training, the types of calls that they they've completed, kind of gives them that great overview, knows where they're at in their training process. Um, it's really dependent on the agency itself, right? So, I believe the three phases before you go into a shadow phase where you're kind of running the room by yourself. Um, if there's somebody that's having a problem in training that it's documented and if it's the trainer versus trainee, I always believe in giving them a second chance. Not everybody gels well. Not a trainer and training don't always get along. And so, I think changing the trainers first to see if that helps improve their their performance is important. Um, but documentation is huge, right? So, if the trainy says, "Oh, I never learned that." But you've documented it. You can say, "No, here it is." If they continue to not do well, that performance plan is really important. Um, making sure that they get put on an IEP and they're working through that. And then, unfortunately, if they still can't make it through, you do have to make that determination. Um, because at the end of the day, it's your lives that are on the line. Um, dispatch is, you know, a secured place. They're in a room. And um so you have to make sure that you have somebody that's strong that understands the importance of what they're doing.

Thank you. So what is your uh experience with modern emergency communication systems including the nextG 911 and CAD?

Yeah, so I've never worked with NextG 911. Um, I have worked at several different CAD platforms. Central Square, New World, TAC 10 is what Park County currently uses. Um, so I'm a quick learner. Um, I think there's pros and cons to every cat system, though. It's kind of like a car. Everybody has their opinions on it. Um, but I think I think it's easy to learn. Um, I learned pretty quickly on the fly at Park County and sometimes I'm still learning. I was like, "Oh, you can do that? Didn't know that." Um, but I think I think it's something that is always evolving and you have to be able to be willing to adapt to changes and looking at different things that you're doing.

All right. Thank you. All right. Describe your process for developing and implementing a long range strategic plan uh for a countywide 911 system.

Yeah. So, I think again you got to look at your current policies and procedures. Figure out kind of where you're lacking and what things need to be improved upon. I think I like to look at the 30 60 90day method, right? So, what is an immediate need that we're needing versus the next 60 days versus the next 90 and so forth and so on depending on which policies and procedures you're looking at. So, I think you have to be able to figure that out and sometimes that's a teamwork. Sometimes that's just you diving into what you're given to right there at the at the plate that you're given and then figuring out what does that look like for the future growth, right? We all know mountain towns are growing, right? So making sure that we're staying up to date with current technology that's going out, implementing new strategies, figuring out things that work for us that don't work for us, right? Mountain towns are notorious for issues, right? Don't always have the best communication network connectivity and so making sure that we're always looking at those kind of future future things and making sure that we're we're still progressing.

Right. So your resume is it's current. Uh, you're still a part-time 911 dispatcher in Park County? Yes. Okay. All right. Uh, the question is, describe your experience with budget development and administration for a public safety agency.

Yeah. So, I had a little dabble at Wilm Park doing that um as a supervisor, making sure that our training budget was within reason and that we didn't go over it. Um the biggest thing is they did tents and so making sure that people were either utilizing their PTO appropriately or we had training and so if there was a training day we had to make sure that it was within our budget. Um I didn't get the full budgetary exposure because I wasn't the actual manager. Um but I was just starting to delve into what that looked like. Um and then as far as managing people's time and that they were within budget um as far as hiring personnel. Um, so we weren't over budget with staffing.

Now, at Woodland Park, what was your hierarchy? That was so that was a police department position. Um, it was assistant dispatch supervisor and we managed all three, fire, law, and medical. Okay. How many So, uh, how many individuals did you supervise? Um, so I split the week. So, technically, if the other supervisor was off, we had eight total. Um, but my side of the week was three. Gotcha. Thank you. How do you ensure compliance with federal, state, and local laws as well as professional standards governing PAP operations?

Yeah. So, again, goes back to policies and procedures, making sure that those are updated and accurate. Um, we know laws change and so when those come out, you have to then educate and train to them, making sure that our policies and procedures and SOPs are updated to that standard. But you have to educate it because if you don't tell anybody about it, they don't know and you can't fix it or correct it when things are being changed. So,

uh, how would you act as a spokesperson for the E911 authority and represent your organization in public settings?

Yeah, so I am a big educator. I love to educate the public and engage with them. Um, at a lot of events at Woodland, we were there on site. I created a whole spin wheel to get kids involved to ask questions, kind of getting them encouraged to come talk to us. Goodies are always a plus side on the kids side. Even adults love them. Um, but really kind of educating that public awareness and getting them involved. Um, I think being an advocate for 911 is huge. A lot of people don't know how 911 works, which I find amazing. It's nothing like you see on the TV show, unfortunately. um in a dream world maybe. But so making sure that they understand, you know, it's not as simple as well, you know where I'm at. You've got my location, right? It's really kind of stressing to them. No, we don't. Like this is why we're asking. I think when you give adults the reason why, they get they calm down a little bit more. Children on the other hand are amazing. They're really good about calling 911. I love when a kid calls. Um but I think just that education opportunity is so v vital, right? So whether it's at a farmers market or in a public setting like this, um just being able to be that face and encourage them to see you and come check it out. I think those are important getting kids to come tour your center. A lot of people don't know what they look like um and what we do and why it's so vital to the community.

Great. Right. Describe your experience in managing public communication during a large scale emergency or crisis. Yeah. So, um probably the my largest scale one at Woodland, well, one of many, um solo dispatcher and I had gotten a 911 call and we had um the county had an incident going on on their side of the county and so we were handling everything from force sent over to the city for Tyler County Sheriff's Office. Wow.

And we Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so we ended up getting I got a 911 call for a house fire and I had just happened to remember that this address was a county address, but we had just dealt with her recently and her driveway was long and narrow and it was a structure fire and I'm getting fire in route, law enforcement in route. Um, we managed to I remembered her driveway. I was like, "Are your vehicles blocking your driveway?" She's like, "Yes." I was like, "You need to move some immediately." Um, so while that was all happening, we also had a DV in progress and mind you, Woodland staff's two officers for the entire city um at the time. And so we had to mitigate that while having no backup from Ter County um on top of I love the juvenile comp, right? The the little things that you know kind of add up, but this was all within 30 minutes of each other. So, not only did I have to get additional fire resources coming from Green Mountain Falls and Deside, um we also had to get law enforcement on scene to help with the structure fire as well as then mitigate the DV and making sure that happened. Recalling resources from Green Mountain Falls, which if you've ever dealt with green mountain falls, sometimes it's a hit or miss if they're wrong or not. Um and then just working with our our state partner, um our trooper in the area was phenomenal and backed us up a lot. So

had to prioritize kind of what got dispatched out first, but making sure that we, you know, life over limb kind of highest priority came in. True. Yeah, that sounds like stuff you've dealt with before. Sure does. All right, Sarah, what is your approach to resolving inter agency issues and acting as a facilitator among different public safety stakeholders?

Yes, I think the first thing is it's got to be brought up, right? Somebody has to say, "Hey, I've got an issue." And they have to feel comfortable coming to you saying, "Hey, you know, this happened on this shift." Um, and then you have to do some investigation, right? So, look into it. Re replay the radio traffic if it was something on the radio, look at the call, look at the notes. Um, you have to do some investigative work, right? You can't just say, "Yep, what you said was fine or no, that was absolutely wrong. We'll fix it." Um, but you have to then bring those parties together. If it was something, you know, I'm a big FK. If it was my fault, I own up to it, right? I always if you ever hear me on the radio I go my bad my apologies right that was my fault. Um but making sure that you can you can have those conversations with somebody. Um so bring them them together right? So if there was something that was found wrong on the dispatch side obviously addressing that with the group not a hey you did this wrong but hey this got brought up moving forward we just want to make sure we're not doing this x y and z. Um or if it's vice versa, right? If there's something on the on the crew side that there was attitude or you know people get upset with each other. Um just making sure that we're addressing it because at the end of the day we're all a team and we have to act like a team.

Thank you.

And then tell us about a time as you just mentioned when you made a mistake. Sorry when a mistake was made. Not when you made a mistake. When a mistake was made in the dispatch center, how did you handle it and what did you do to prevent it from happening again? To think back now, seven years of mistakes I probably made. Well, it it can be just a mistake you dealt with or a mistake that you did. Okay. Um, probably it's probably the one that haunts me to this day and it was it was a learning moment. Um, I had a 911 call that got transferred from Creek. The lady just said, the dispatcher said, "Female party having a medical emergency somewhere between Safeway and Walmart," which is like three miles. Yeah.

You're like, "Okay, great." Call kept dropping. Finally, the caller got on the line and I stayed on the phone with her. Dispatcher from Creek stayed on. She's like, "I think she's at the trailer park at near Walmart." And my brain goes, "Who vacations in a trailer park?" First of all, I was like, "No, that doesn't sound." So, I finally asked her. I was like, "Okay, are you are you in the tiny homes?" And she's like, "Yes." and it was her fiance who was not conscious, not breathing. He had overdosed.

Um wasn't telling me what he overdosed on. But that actual location is another teller county jurisdiction. So when I got the initial call, I already sent law enforcement out. I said, "All I know is we have a female party somewhere between Safeway and when we're having a medical emergency." Once I finally got the actual location, I sent the call screen to tell her and I said, "Please dispatch private medical." Well, they were waiting on a cabin number of the tiny home and I was like, "Don't have it. lady doesn't even know where she's at. Doesn't have she gave the wrong vehicle information. It took them 12 minutes to dispatch fire medical by the time we located where she's at where I should I felt like I should have just dispatched them cuz I have that capability. It's the same agencies, right? We dispatch Netco and Uprad. So, it's the same agency. I should have just gone ahead and dispatched them the moment we we located. She's in the tiny home park. Um the mail party did die. he um uh took the last call on the phone. Um heard last breath, but to that day haunted me. So I was like, you know, when it's life over a limb like that, like I would rather get reprimanded for dispatching out the agencies when it's not in my jurisdiction than letting somebody die. Um officers got on there very quickly and we found him. Um but even they nar and I know nothing that I would have done would have changed that. Um, but I'm a I'm a big believer now that, you know, to me jurisdictional lines don't matter when somebody's left in the hands. So,

sounds like they would have been there in a minute. They still could not have saved them. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, 12 minutes. Um, big investigation kind of happened on that. I obviously didn't get a total followed our policies and procedures, which was notifying the agency that it belonged to. Um, but yeah, at the same time, I'm like 12 minutes is a little it's too long. Sure. Wait for a dispatch. Yeah.

Was there any sort of policy or procedure change after that? No, because you know there that's our jurisdiction and so um I will say maybe I broke a policy a little time after that because I said it's I don't really care somebody like right after that I had a twocar accident at Crystal which is Tyler Countyy's jurisdiction for medical is El Paso Countyy's jurisdiction for law um to t-boned highway speed both vehicles rolled ended up landing two helicopters. um tell her got a little upset, but I said, "My officers were 30 seconds away and remained on scene the entire time. Your deputies left." And she's like, "Well, that's ours for fire medical." And I said, "Somebody's life is at risk. I'm going to dispatch it out as quickly as I can." And it took them two minutes to even drop the first call into cuz Central Square because we shared net code and update I can see when they drop their medical calls. Took them two minutes to even drop a medical call. So, and in those two minutes, fire.

Sure. So, I will say I maybe tweaked the policy a little bit. Um, but El Paso and Teller County has this really weird understanding that if it's a high priority medical that that agency that gets the call, they keep it, right? So, you can still send the call screen to them to dispatch it out. Um, but because we dispatch Medco and Fred together, um, it's a little gray area. It's not really defined, but yeah. So, I learned from that one and I said, "Nope." Because I'm just I would rather get in trouble for sending units than not sending units at the end of the day. Life first. Life first. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Cuz at the end of the day, especially on the law enforcement side, they're going to figure it out whose jurisdiction it is. Yeah. So, pushing stuff for me. Yeah.

I try. They might drag the body out first. Do you see this toe? It is on your side. That's the nice thing about here is that you guys don't fight over that stuff. If he shows up first, it's great. You each other. Fire neighbors the same way or even the surrounding counties here. I mean, we go into other counties all the time or they come into our county all the time. It's not a fight. It's we're on the same team. Like, that's what I really like about this region is that we don't do that generally, you know? Yeah. When I'm answering calls for service and it's only me, I tell dispatch, try to push this stuff into the country. I think she's done it before and the next three calls it's s Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But then one of your deputies shows up and helps out and it's not a big deal.

Yeah. Because at the end of day, we're all on the same team, right? Well, I really appreciate you sharing that story. I'm sure it's tough to share. And then it's actually But then it's good to hear that not only did you learn from it, but you actually implemented what you learned and had to overcome something tough there. That type of situation. I'm sure I can speak for all of us. We support you. Yeah. I uh I definitely got the Nathan Black Widow after that day because it was a Black Friday and I had two fiances die and a dog. It's tough to share. So, well, um let's do this. Let's That's the end of our scheduled questions. What do you have any questions for us? Anything you'd like to add?

Yeah. Um, so I know I I sent it late, but he got all my serves. Um, there are a couple that aren't on there, but they're not specific to dispatch as I mentioned in my email. Um, but what does training opportunities look like for for not only myself, but for the dispatch center up here?

Well, I'll take that question and start off with saying that the culture is we want more and the reality is staffing dictates that. And so we we do try to push that out. We um we have um a budget that seems to work fairly well for supporting that. Um so you know it's my standpoint to say let's get well trained. Let's use opportunities outside a region um so we can learn and keep up to date with technology. So that's that's the general idea and hope that we can do it. But I'm sure as Daniel's experienced sometimes we have to cover shifts and we miss trainings and whatnot. So, um, and also to speak to some more personal experience, I was a trooper with the Colorado State Patrol. When I walked in here, I could not believe the training opportunities that were presented to all the employees. And at the time, dispatch was underneath the sheriff's office. Uh, and and I feel like that's maintained. And so, and I do hope to grow it. I think training is a huge priority um, as you mentioned too. And, uh, the long-term goal is to have freedom in our schedule to allow for more consistent training, too. you have any thoughts?

I was just even with the staffing issues we've had um you guys went to EMD recently before employees went. Yeah. So we've had we've had some training. Um you know Chief Daily went over to summit and work with them on their their stuff a little while ago and uh so there I mean there have been opportunities with the staffing issues um all that sort of thing and so we're yeah all about it for sure. Uh, as a board, sounds like this role's been vacant for a little while. Um, what are your guys' expectations and kind of hopes and vision for what dispatch looks like for this county?

Up to date, um, you know, reliable from both the personnel side and the technology side. Um, we I would say this was when I first started as sheriff and this was underneath the sheriff's office. this was a position I wanted then as as we needed a a single person who can just stay on top of all of that. And so with this role build now we can start to achieve some of those hopes and dreams that to have that. Um I think bringing in uh information and experience from other areas is also important. Um, again, as a prior trooper, I I was dispatched uh by probably close to a dozen different dispatch centers. And so, I've seen a lot of different things, and I'd like to bring some of those things that work, things that didn't work into Lake County because we only know what we know. I think uh from my perspective, we and this is a brand new position we've been trying to fill. This board is fairly new, but a competent individual who's a visionary and uh pulls us together uh identifies deficiencies, comes up with solutions to fix those deficiencies, uh brings ideas and policies to us for for us to say, "Okay, we we agree with this or we don't." Um uh I mean we're at the cusp of uh being going to a really really good place uh and all of us are just too busy to uh you know do it directly. So we just need somebody to to be between us and the dispatchers to pull it all together uh because we have so many responsibilities. What's so exciting is uh we've seen you know I've been here a year and between all the agencies I've

seen so much progress and uh there's many challenges here but challenges can be exciting. Yes, they can be.

Awesome. I uh I think the sky's is the limit right now because we are starting fresh not only as a board but in dispatch itself like our our training manuals need to be put together our policies our procedures a lot of things need to be updated it's a create it's it's a creation phase which in my world is very exciting I love to be able to create something because you can make it your own and have all the buy in and be excited about uh creating a culture of um of one team and having fun and enjoying your job because it's tough, right? I mean, uh there are those days where it's going to be challenging and uh emotionally draining and etc. But having um having a good family feeling of wanting to come to work and wanting to be able to have the passion uh constant in in a in an agency that's fresh and clean and new and be able to enjoy it. Um so that's kind of what I mean and I also echo what they're saying as well.

So awesome. Awesome. That's one of the questions I have. Now, looking at your resume, it seems like, uh, for much of your career, you've held two jobs at one time.

Sure have. Um, yeah. Uh, I love to work apparently. No. Um, yeah. No, as far as dispatching goes, I I absolutely love it. So, when I saw Park County needed assistance, they went kind of they sent out an SOS. Um, I have a a really good friend who works for El Paso. She's like, "Hey, have you heard?" And I was like, "Well, I wanted to keep my skills set up because it is kind of those you use it or you lose it in dispatch." Um, so I was like, "Yeah." So, I've done it and thankfully they haven't fired me yet in the two years, almost two years that I've been working with them. But I absolutely enjoy it and I love dispatching. I love the EM side things too. And

um, I like to stay busy. And I'll follow up on that comment that we actually got connected because I went out to visit Park County dispatch and met Maria the dispatch director out in Park County and just uh spoke very highly of you and thought of you immediately. I guess she trains a lot of great people there. So you're being very modest in that response. Oh, thank you. Sometimes I joke. I'm like, I don't know if the deputies like me because I do things very different than their regular dispatchers, but they're like, don't Sarah does her own thing when they do trainings. I was like, okay. And so like EM2, EM less or EM as much

equal. They are both both sides of my heart. Um, but I do think they go hand in hand with each other. I think in every organization, EM plays a role, right? You have to have somebody that's a training officer, right? Well, what do they do? They're preparing, right? So, to me, EM and 911 and first responders all kind of they blend their Well, that's all we have unless you guys are. Nope. Okay.

Well, thank you very much. We're going to move on to our next agenda item. Sarah, you're welcome to to stay and join and we're going to do a little preliminary budget presentation. So, I'd be happy to have you stick around for that. Same for you, Danielle. And Mary still still listening in.

Yeah. Can you do that, Jeremiah? It's actually the Excel documents on the bottom. So, we'll move on to our next uh agenda item, which is 911 presentation. You want this one, sir? Um, yeah, let's start off there. Um so just just for some general information for everybody, we do follow the same uh budget year as the county which is the calendar year. Um there there the county is required to uh approve the budget by December 15th and we are trying to stay ahead of that so we as a board can make these budgets soon

um have our budget approved prior to the county so we can give these numbers to the county to approve. So we're trying to stay ahead. Um just to add to that sheriff the uh preliminaries due by October 15th. Mhm. Yeah. With

Right. They want that presented to the to the board. So, um we're doing a lot better this year with staying ahead of that and uh this will eventually roll into a better practices year after year and then also stay on top of audits and whatnot. So, good practices in front of us and getting this in front of everybody now is is helpful. So, um we we also do a balanced budget just like the county. uh or expenditures do not exceed our available resources and that's what's presented here in front of us. Um and I'll note a couple more general items here is first is we have talked a little bit about um going through the process with the PUC to increase our our emergency telephone charges um beyond the maximum amount set. Um for the group's knowledge, I reached out back to Jackie. Do you know Jackie? Um, so Jackie uh offered a certain scope of work for us to help us out um mainly like with IGAS um and then I asked her to add into her scope of work helping us with the working with the PC to increase that amount. So it's still uh for all the user agencies that pay into this. I just want to let everyone know we're still working on that and we're asking for help to assist us so we can increase that amount. What's presented here today is our projections without increasing that just for everybody's awareness. Um so this uh the format that's in front of you actually you mind clicking to revenue first? So this format that's in front of you is what the county's using. So we can just easily communicate with the county when we go to transfer whatever numbers that we decide on to the county. We're all speaking the same language basically. Um, so that's where this format is coming from and it aligns up with the account codes that we use in the county

to transfer funds uh for revenue and expenses. Um, so what we're looking at here is basically what we did in our projection uh 5-year lookout last year. Um, so last year we presented a a good lookout for five years and we plugged in our 2026 numbers as our preliminary numbers. Um so this is the opportunity to start discussing what that looks like if we want to maintain that um and also be aware of what changes in the future could happen. So the um so again we have a balanced budget so our revenues match our expenditures and our revenues come from the emergency telephone charge and from the intergovernmental agreement payments. Um, so what was projected for an expense and a revenue was the 1.1 million you see on the far right and it's split up by the emergency telephone charge uh prediction of 232,000 with a 930 left as a split between the agencies. One thing I do want to note on here is by the time we close out quarter three uh with the vacancy savings that we have and we do maintain a fund balance um with the E911 authority which is different than other county departments is that we maintain that fund balance. So the money's not spent this year will go towards the fund balance. Last year we dedicated some of those funds to lower the intergovernmental agreement payments

and it looks like we'll be able to do that again this year. But what I would like to do is wait for quarter three to close out so we can get a good projection before we dedicate those funds um to reducing that amount.

So what so what I wanted to talk about today is those two hopefuls is that we have the hopeful to rate lower the IGA payments um by two methods. one the increase in emergency telephone charge and two uh a fund balance transfer since that fund balance is growing uh beyond what our minimum goal was to keep it at. So we're still in a safe range. We're still comfortable with maintaining the fund balance amount that we want to um but we can use some of those. Any thoughts or questions on the revenue? No. Again, because of the preliminary um rules that we need to follow, we're going to go ahead and just uh insert this as is today um into the preliminary numbers. But yes, Andy,

hey, Heath, do you know kind of a ballpark percentage of uh what percentage under budget you are in relation to salaries and wages? Um don't I don't have a I don't have that projection today. Um so I didn't come armed with that. Um the numbers that we do have that we'll go over here in a second um were from uh given to us by the county at an unknown date. They appear early on. Um so just don't have the information that I want um to do that. If there's a request for that number sooner than later. Um I can work on getting that for you, but uh what I was hoping for is to let quarter three end and then dive into that.

Yeah, I think it's fine to wait till quarter three. I was just curious of what what the discrepancy was there. Okay. Yeah, it's going to be mainly uh um our vacancies in our our the positions that we were trying to fill in 2025. Um so that's our biggest expense and not having many of those positions filled or hired later in the year is going to meet the main cause of that. Yeah, for sure. That makes sense. Thank you.

You're welcome. All right. All right, there's no other thoughts on revenue. These these different tabs on the bottom again from the county. Um, and if it applies to a department of the county, then we fill it out. We don't have any grants. Um, so we can go to expenses next. So, we can go down the line here. This uh we've made a request to the county to expand what they give us. So, there's a little bit of a downfall in this. And there's another um uh form we can pull up to help answer some of the questions. But as we've gone through this, the biggest question that popped up for us was if you look at the columns to the far right, we have the 26 budget, which we uh numbers from last year, one slot to the left, we have our 2025 activity. This is the this is what we can use for projections for the end of the year. However, when I asked the county where they when did they pull these numbers, I didn't get a solid date. They appear to be from earlier in the year. So, they're not giving us good outlook. And then there's also a request to add a column for what the 2025 budget was so we can compare that.

We do have those numbers. It's just not on the sheet. Um and then there's the historic numbers that we have um behind that. That was going to be my question is these numbers look low. So I was just Yes, that's why that's why I was like, okay, when you pull these in, we didn't get a good answer. So um we we can still dig for these. Uh I didn't come prepared today with that. Um what With that said, can you guys uh handle a sidebar conversation real quick? Um, we don't have anybody right now managing this except for me. Um, and who do I use? I use my finance person, Erica.

So, I do plan on just early heads up talking to you guys about getting something approved where we essentially hire Erica to manage our finances right now. And she's doing that. Mhm.

So, she's uh um you know, essentially she's the one that entered these numbers for us. She's taking care of our invoices. Anytime the county gets into, she's doing all the work right now and I want to make sure that she's paid for that. So, that's a future conversation that that that's how this is being managed without a director or supervisor to handle all this. Um so, from a management standpoint, um we're we're we have somebody who can do it helping us essentially for free at this time. So, um, but yeah, let's I I think we we can we can go down the list. Actually, it might be better just to say we're looking at this. You guys understand this uh form. This is what will be submitted to the county, but we can go back to our form that has the historic numbers since um since this 2025 activity can give us a rough idea of where we're at, but it also isn't pointing directly to where um it's not a good really resource to use at this point in time of the year to say, "Oh, we're on track or not." Um because these numbers are from earlier and we're almost done with quarter three. So, right. How do you guys feel about going to the other form? We can bounce back and forth, too.

Okay. So, Jeremia, if you don't mind pulling up the other Excel sheet, so this is what we used last year, and we're switching to the county platform, so there's some changeover happening there. This one's a little more detailed with how the payments could uh um how the payment will could potentially look from a split standpoint. And you know, we use the, you know, the rolling three-year average for call volume right now. Um, and that's that's where these number projections came from. I like this better. Yeah, that's much easier to follow because it's what I'm familiar with. Yeah, I don't see

this breakout is just it's interesting when they're breaking out salary wages, hourly wages. It's it's kind of strange that they break it out. I guess I'm not sure if we're used to the other one. It's just I I do like the breakout better, but if it's going to be easier to especially if we're going to use Erica, if it's going to be easier for her to use the same format across the board, then we should probably just use the same format across the board for sure. And we can long as the numbers line up because we are copying the base two numbers. So, we're trying to avoid human element uh error as much as possible. These numbers line up,

right? And for you know visibility wise and for understanding wise u we can use this and we keep exposing ourselves to the other one and maybe it'll all click for us eventually. But when it comes to the uh their accounting and the account codes and how because they the county we use the county to pay them right and we use the county budgeting process to pay for other expenses and to accept the payments from our different agencies. Um so it's important that they that we use theirs for the account coding and whatnot. But this this does give us like basically the whole picture on one page. Mhm.

Um so it has the breakout of the payments and 26 uh again that payment amount again is if we can't get the etc up and if our fund balance um is somehow which it shouldn't be. So it should be less than that. Um maybe we shoot for a goal where it's similar to last year's payment. Yeah. Even with but if we get ETC increases then maybe we can even get it below last year's payment. um is is our goal, but because of our workload where we're at now, hopefully we can get with Jackie to really help us push that through. As a matter of fact, I've already uh submitted a prelim preliminary budget for the police department and uh based on all these factors, I'm hoping to keep my payment where it is right now.

Yeah. And I and I and I feel like that's a uh we're capable of doing that. U we just need a little more information and dust to settle before we can really make that projection. Right. Right. So, I'm playing it safe with those numbers, basically. Um, and so I'm saying now I'm I'm hoping for my 2026 number to be what it was in 2025. I think that's a good goal. Maybe we'll shoot for that.

Um, so again, that's we kind of already talked about the revenues. If you want to scroll down a little bit, we can just kind of focus on expenditures next. We can we can use this um sheet to go over 2026. So column F there is where we're sitting at this year. This is these are the numbers that we placed onto the county sheet. Mhm. Um and then we had that that far lookout. Um basically what we applied here was a 5% pay increase year after year. Um it's it's a little above the standard of two maybe 3% cost of living increase. Um, I do feel like we're still playing a little catch-up with getting our salaries and wages up

to a respectful level. Do value again them. So from a budget standpoint, we did implement. So those numbers throughout the years on salaries and wages represents a 5% increase.

Good. Um, we did a slight increase in overtime um for ma mainly for uh staffing uh hopes of being fully staffed and with a fully staffed office. Uh that number may go up. I think that one's actually up for discussion and I think we need to look at 2026 overtime as potentially lowering that amount. Um so that just give you the idea on why we did that. The counter to what I just said is also if we're fully staffed then we shouldn't need overtime. Um, and then and then also just to see where we're at with our current staffing levels. How much overtime have we used to really understand that number better. Um, so generic numbers in there with some rough history, but as we gain more history, I think we can be a little more accurate with that number. Um, so that one's up for cutting. Um, all the other the fringe benefits are pre-calculated to u counter standards. There's really not much to talk about there. here. So, if we drop down to the next one, the bottom of the green, and um I'll jump off to the the color key on the right. This is a this is how the county likes to bundle line items. So, that's why it's colored colors to the right. It aligns up with the codes. 61 series is all for personal stuff, etc. So, that's why there's colors and the key explains that. So, the bottom of the green is our uh retention and incentive bonus.

Um So, how we have scheduled this, this is something again that we have adopted from the sheriff's office. It's a pool of money I use to incentivize qualifications greater than the job description. So, like Daniela for example qualifies for this cuz she's a fluent Spanish and boy do we use that. It's not it's not the minimum standard. Um and it offers a huge benefit to our to our community. Other things too, higher education, uh being a trainer, these things again that people are doing more work than they're required, we want to pay them extra for. So we incentivize those things. The ret the bonus side, the retention deal is that we apply whatever's left of that money back to each dispatcher as an end of the year bonus.

And so it's whatever money's left. Um the reason I want to bring this up today is I still like this idea. We still do it at the sheriff's office. I think it's a good model. Um but we need to talk about how we manage this because right now the we're using the county's um evaluation process which is tied to a merit increase which is essentially what we're doing here on our own. So the question is we need to discuss this also with the county because if they're paying them their merit out of their pool there that doesn't line up with them falling completely under our budget. So I think there's so there's a you're saying there's a separate county correct incentive

pool. So that we were not using before but now that we're it's tied to the evaluation process that the county is using and the evaluation depending on what your you know you get a 1 2 3 or four whatever your rating is u that your supervisor gives you qualify for different pay increases 1% 2% 3% depending on where you're at. And that's just the county model. But since they're they're falling underneath the county's valuation process, they're being exposed to that inherent increase, which doesn't line up with our budget. So my thought is, why are they falling under the county evaluation process?

Because we fall underneath county policies. Um and and that's one of the areas we don't have a policy on isal. We don't have an evaluation process. We don't have a policy on evaluation process. Okay. um our IG says we fall underneath county policies in for HR finan financial stuff right services yes correct and so that's just one of the services that they offer I mean it is something that we can say well we'd rather use this model and so it ties with our our pool but we have to develop that we don't have that sounds like a director

well and that's that's the biggest thing is that's we haven't had that because of the fountain I get that yeah Um, so I I don't know. That's I guess part of the discussion. Um, to me, I don't see how this is going to work in the long run of using the county's merit pool of money to pay dispatchers that should be paid out of this. Yeah. Right. Shouldn't I mean that entire process should be under us directly, not the county for that. Like even though we contracted them for HR, we should be doing the evaluations. We should be doing that. We haven't had that position. So, and I will say we take their evaluations and make our decisions based on that evaluation to the percentage of what we want as a board for the employees. Sure. I think you just use their system,

right? I think that's probably the best way to handle that is is to make sure the county understands that even if Danielle qualifies for 2% underneath the county model that they're not paying that to you, but that we then in turn pay you for according to our model. So, if that sounds good to you guys, we can continue continue to keep that amount in there and roll with that, but use the county's evaluation process to help determine those pay increases. Yes.

Yeah. So the city's doing the 2.5 cola and up to 2.5 merit for a 5% and and like what you're saying sheriff, I think that we're still continuing to try to work on getting those salary ranges up and that's a pretty good percentage increase for this next year. Okay.

Yep. Um, all right. And I like the I like the uh the retention and the incentive. Yeah.

Yeah, it's been really good. It's um you know, the the bonus at the end of the year varies. It depends. If we have all our dispatchers can speak Spanish with a master's degree, um and they're all CTOs, then that pool's going to dwindle quite a bit and at the end of the year, there's not very much to get back. But what I what we found historically is we can give usually between a,000 to $2,000 at the end of the year as a bonus which is a nice nice amount um and and well earned. So it that that's why that varies. Model we've used in the past too is it depends on how many months you've been employed here. So if you started your employment November 1st, you're going to only qualify for two months worth versus the person who's been here for the entire year because it's more of a thank you for your service. instead of in the future. All right. And that's what that amount equates to kind of falls into that range. Um, so last year we did a pretty good deep dive into the different expenses listed below and we've kind of used uh 2025 as as a year from that. Again, we'll do a deeper dive once quarter three closes out and to really see if we're on track, off track um and make adjustments in 26. So, the initial the preliminary numbers again for 26 um I I feel pretty confident in, but happy to go through uh each one of those items if anything is standing out to you guys as a major change that we need to adjust. Um, but going off of

question about the professional services. Do we have a contract and we knew that that's what our numbers were going to be based on that contract and the percentage increase annually? Is that what that No. So, we don't have the we don't have that. We uh mainly with our uh legal team that we pay for. So, this year we're going to learn a lot on what that looks like. we just made a uh based off of what the the rate was and potentially how often we'd have to use our attorneys. Um that's where that figure came up with back in 24. So we kind of just built off of that um a little bit more. So I know with a lot of changes we're we're planning on uh 25 we went up a little bit on that but once once we get some more numbers and then we can make um better projections for professional services.

Okay. Great. Good. So it's not absolutely Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Um I like that training. Yep. And I think we're a little ahead of that. Training did jump because of we wanted to get everybody certified through EMD. And I know we're a little ahead of that. So um we can we can look at that too. But I think this goes to Sarah's question that she had towards us is you know that represents you know our focus is we have increased that budget quite a bit and the travel that requires it because we realize we have to move here to get training

with the overtime that's just going to be a discussion or is that a discussion for now but uh you know if we're fully staffed there there'll be certain times during the week and during certain time frame that will go down to one dispatcher versus two and that's where that cost won't happen because frankly reduce staff. Yeah.

I mean there's going to be those times obviously where and I will say is another thought for everybody have about the overtime spot was we should budget for the race series overtime or any other extra duty services in that column. So if we become um if we have greater capability to help out from an overtime standpoint, it would come from that, but our revenues would increase at that point to offset that amount, but we would have to account for that over.

Can I ask what the do you know what the current balance of the general fund is? Yep. We can scroll down a little bit. I don't so I don't have the current numbers um as of today.

So at last projected the 362 would be be what we knew or the 47 47 the 47. So we're looking more at the 470 57597 Andy. Sure that makes sense. Um, and so to kind of echo uh Chief's comments earlier, I would uh advocate for not increasing the amounts paid by the um various districts uh for 2026. Granted, it's not as much as last year's big jump. Um but you know, we did have a big jump last year. Um

and so the I believe you said that any net would be then transferred into the general fund if even after if that was the case. Yes. So I would

grant my time here is coming to a close but um take it for for what it's worth. Um I would encourage you know consideration of some language in the IGA where um if the net profit exceeds an x% of the gross revenue um not exceeds but meets a certain percentage of it that then that money could be returned back to the districts. Um so you know for some reason we have a a big budget surplus um that not only say would it the fees for each agency not increase but we could also possibly recoup some um you know from from the the hospital standpoint. Um it's great to see a healthy fund balance there. Um, but if there's, you know, not huge expenses coming up, I personally would not like to see that continue to grow exponentially, um, to where we could, you know, give back to fire, give back to the, uh, sheriff and police department as well as the hospital um, in a sense to recoup some of those funds and address it yearbyear.

I agree. I I think we all feel the same way and but I really like the idea of uh, putting that into the IG. So, I took a note on that and when we continue our conversations with Jackie, that's one of the services that she can provide for us is with her experiences on IGAs with authority boards. Um, opening the IG back up and and really dialing it in well for us and we'll make sure that that is part of the discussion. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for that input. So, not directly um related to 2026, but if you scroll down a little little further, in 2028, we had that $150,000 capital improvement. Um just so the group knows that's that's not needed anymore. As I mentioned earlier about the the woman backall being connected,

it was a blessing in disguise that our um we were delayed with women because of that. we were exposed to. Now access is ready for us. It's approved by the state, good to go and it was a hu huge cost savings there for us. So what are any other things that are coming up capital wise that we can think of? I mean tower is good to go that that's good. There was some other there was some kind of recording device that was about call works.

I think call works are still on the table and then and we had to wait until we got the new equipment to make sure that call works would come in and work with that. Anybody think of anything else that's going to [Music] want to be a surprise. Yeah, we've gone through so much change lately, so much new stuff being implemented that we really are carrying ourselves pretty good. That access equipment should last 15 years or so. Can you think of anything that may be needed capital wise? Anything over 5,000 as a purchase for the next three to five?

The only I can think of is improvements to mobile command. I know we've had issues with that even being able to roll out in the past. Um, never mind puts in there, things like that. If we want that to be serviceable, then that may need improvements or revisions. Yeah, that's a good one because that's I mean, if if our if our base dispatch area is fine, then let's improve our mobile capabilities as well. I have no idea what that looks like or what it Yeah, I just I know it's had issues in the past that we may need to put some money into it.

Okay, that's a great question. I'll follow up with the county on that one because it technically falls into county fleet at this point. Some of maybe the internal components maybe we would be responsible for. So, I think that's a pretty good discussion. What was the name of that again? Global command. No, the Oh. Oh, call Works. Call Works. Calls. Yeah, that was Call Works. And then um there's another contract we had to renew. Becca. Um

that. So that's that is Call Works, but we're talking about Call Works equipment though. So the contract's good to go. We were able to sign that. We didn't have to make any changes. So that that that's we're on that new contract expired August 31st. So we're good to go there. Okay.

So good news, the equipment seems to be pretty good and updated and upgraded. So, I think from a preliminary standpoint, there's no major changes at this point. We'll roll with what we submitted to the county. Yes. Um, and yeah, just to be clear, we're not making a decision on our final budget at this point. Getting ahead of and getting the numbers from the county. Is there on the other form there was a uh R&D paving.

Okay. Yeah. So that's um part of the cleanup process that Erica has been working on. Again, Erica doing a lot of work is there's as you can see there's some dead codes in there, meaning that they're just not being used. They don't apply to us. That one doesn't apply to us. Um, so there's going to be so there's going to be uh lines in there that don't apply, correct? It's not just specific to us. Okay. So, we're getting all that cleared up

and u um I guess the only other change would be to that professional services line to go under contract with Erica. Yes, that's that would that would be a question that I need to follow up on. So, I'm not really ready to talk about it today because I don't know what that looks like. Sure. Um so, I plan on following up with

to see if our employee lending agreement somehow works for that also. Um so, we can you know if we if we are going to essentially hire her for this additional task um you know to make sure that part of that work is under you know our supervision make sure to go there. a lot of questions with that. Uh, but the best we can really offer, Eric, is a big old thank you for Yeah.

I was just going to say our appreciation that bottom line. So, we can continue this conversation uh as we get more and more information. we can keep it part of the monthly agenda if you guys want as we close the year out to make sure we're communicating well on this. How how fast does the county finance have those third quarter numbers when they close? Um so I did ask that question. Okay.

Yep. And it and it's pretty quick now uh with the upgrades they've made to the system and their ability to use them. So it could be pretty quick. So I'm I'm what I told Erica is let's try first week maybe two weeks into October to grab final numbers before the end for the first three quarters. So I think within a week or two after the closure of quarter 3 we can have some solid numbers to work off and we we have to then because closes at the end of September we have to have it in by October 15th well this is our October 15th preliminary moldable. Okay. Yes, that's good. So, we'll make the adjustments to the preliminary that was submitted. Okay.

After that's a lot easier. So, we should be we should be good. Okay.

Well, any other thoughts on the budget? N. Should we put an additional meeting on the calendar for October then? Because our first one is the 3rd. We may not have Yeah. numbers. Um and actually just do a work session on the budget. Yeah, I think that's fair. You guys okay with the second meeting in October for a work session? Was it um we need to pass it then or just work on it? If we need to pass it, I would vote in the work session, right? I think we're okay to pass it in November. Okay.

Um which since we're doing it first Friday, that should be good. I'll double check on that. And um I say for now we push a board session in the middle of October. If we have to adjust that timing wise we will Yeah. You guys want to look at calendars? I think the county said November 12th for their for the

That's fine. Yeah. First week of December though it's recorded should be right on time. Yeah. 10th do another Friday. Yeah, I think that should work. Getting the numbers by then. Yeah, it works for me. Yeah,

I don't have a light. I know how to find you, so I'll just go get you. Cool. Is that the time? At the work session. Okay. Work on schedule on that. Great. Well, if there's no other thoughts or questions on the budget, we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Our next meeting is our next regular meeting will be Friday, October 3rd. Same time, same place. Don't miss it. Guaranteed to be fun in next time. Yep. All right. I'll adjourn the meeting. It's um 11:09 a.m. Thanks everyone. Thank you guys. Thank you.

You know how to close it out. I think you stop recording first is what Sandra said. And if you open up the video, the two arrows on the right, and then hit the pause button first, How are we?