E911 Authority - Regular Meeting

Okay, started with this. Um, we can just jump right into this document and start working our way down. Uh, can you scroll over a little bit to the right? And if you want to do much easier, I'm just going to hide these for now

so we can see it a little easier. Uh, all right. So, this is what I worked from our last meeting to today's uh session. So, we're waiting for third quarter numbers. We plug those in. Um, and then what we're working on is our 26th budget, which is going to be this column here. Again, sorry, Candace, I haven't plugged all these into that county formatting, so we'll get there. But when it comes to coding, all these are in alignment, just maybe in a different order. So, um, um, I think we'll entered it into Tyler last night, so it's in there.

And so, here's here's our 20 this is what we approved for our 25 budget. Um, you can see we decided to um offset the intergovernmental agreement uh to lower our payments, which was uh came to $90,000. Um, so year-to- date numbers, the only thing that'll change here on the revenue side is our ETC. Um, one thing that I wanted to plug in that I'm not ready for today was our our 2024 closing numbers. So, we can kind of compare what our projections were like. I recall. Um, actually, maybe I can open this up. Okay. Okay. So, right. What's that?

Right click on the little This is trying to do. Oh, there. Yeah, that's all I wanted.

So, in 2024, we had a projection of 214 and this was approximately the same time a year and we budgeted for um uh 219. So, it showed that we're going to be a little under. And the only reason why I bring that up is when I I asked for uh our closing numbers in 24 to compare and uh it came in higher. So I I I think how it's working and this is one thing that Jackie is going to be a huge benefit to us on is one staying on top of them but two helping us really project what that number looks like. So in 2024 we our projection said we might be a little under and then when the year closed out we were actually over and when CLA and I initially uh placed these numbers in here they were they were pretty conservative so we kind of expected it to be over. initial numbers showed they weren't going to be and then they did. So I we may see the same thing today and I don't know if Jackie is going to be able to get into our numbers soon enough to really tell us what our closing numbers could look like. But here's what I did to project. I just did this is first three quarters. Um with the projection if we maintain that average throughout the the rest of this year we we will be at 203 which is uh $25,000 less in revenue than we projected. doing a lot.

This is this is something that I don't think anybody here has the capacity to go through the hundreds of providers to figure out why. But again, if we use 2024 as an example, the year closes out strong. So I'm I think saying throwing in our numbers here to say this is probably what we'll end up if we maintain an average. We'll be there. I think in future years having Jackie and Sarah really watching this, we'll we'll be able to be a little more accurate with that projection.

Any questions on that or is that any thoughts on because that's I mean it's 25,000 less than we projected as it sits now. It does adjust some things going into next year. Oh, and that's my worry moving forward too is in 26 we're looking at 232. But if that's also 25 grand less, then that's a huge difference in the 26 budget. Yeah. So, I mean, so there's no way to tell who's remitting and who's not. But okay. Okay.

Now, I will say this about the 26 number. Um, this was a projection again that was built out 24 to 25 based off a $27% 217 increase. And again in 24 we came in uh with more than we projected with using the ETC at the time. Um so I do feel like the year will close out stronger that we will be uh closer to what we projected if not more for in 2025 and then in 2026 um that's fair fairly conservative. We're thinking that we might be able to get the increase that we were going to request in 2026 starting in August.

So, I still remain comfortable at 232 for 2026.

Keith, how are you doing your projections? I'm just doing a monthly average. I meant the projections. Oh, for beyond. Yeah,

it it was based off of um So the emergency telephone charge it was $212. We know approximately how many providers put into that and so we just use the math for that's how many providers at $212 and then in 2026 it raises to $2.17. Um that was something that Claire and I worked a while ago. She was more involved in that process and when she left a lot of that information also left. So we're carrying on the work that she did. So I can't like you know line by line explain that more than that.

Um not but it has happened now but because we're just up against budget season and you have to have something in there. You might just work with Will. Um so he can actually use the projections formulas to do a best case, middle case, worst case scenario. So you can kind of be adjusting your projections throughout the year. So each I don't know if you guys get it monthly or quarterly or how often get it, but it'll he can actually set it up where as your actuals come in, it'll just be updating your projection so you can start to get a little bit better about like really projecting what's likely instead of estimating which might be helpful. Yeah, absolutely.

And he can set it up where as long as you drop the the actual in, it like automatically does it for you. All right, perfect. Or quarterly. I don't I don't know how often those dollars come in. Yeah, these do it's routine but it's in waves also like get one month it's a small amount then the next month they'll send in their payments we'll send them in if you go in a couple years actuals and you can be updating it like it we can get your projection probably a little bit better. Okay. Yeah. And I think we have because we raised etc in 23 also if I remember right. So we should have two solid years now.

Yeah. where we maintain the current max the PS PUC allows for. Prior years it was just nobody was updating it. So that those numbers aren't very helpful and it is a you know PU has been fairly consistent in their percentage of raise year after year. So we can do that. The only big thing that would change for us is if we get approved to go above that then that would be quite quite the increase. And what was Jackie what she say $4 comfortable? Yeah. She's saying four was probably the max that she's seen and $3 is probably a comfortable increase for us. Mhm. Because we're at 217 now and that's we can do that until it gets to that point and then we can play again. But just saying $3.

Yeah. And I was playing around with that number a little bit earlier and I I think we should maybe keep it in the $3 range if we think that's going to be easier to push through, but maybe go on the high side of the $3 range. That would be 50% or something. Yeah. I mean, we don't want to get rejected on it obviously, but if we can get we need another 325 or 350 is going to make a huge difference. I think if we show our numbers like how much money we're actually putting into this project that handle anyways. Yeah, that's that's where we're there. Um, so I I do remain comfortable at 232 for 2026. Okay. Um, and the rest rest of the revenues uh we've already all paid into, so no adjustment there for 25, right?

Yeah. Um, so you know, here's here's some of those numbers. Here's uh what we budgeted for, total revenues, where we're at year to date, and what's the projection. Um, as you go through, you guys cool with this flow of just going through line by line doing uh quarter and and everything. I use the same formula. I just did a monthly average and then standard that out over the year to give us what our projection would be. Um, you know, there's other things to consider obviously there that we may want to adjust some of these numbers for or keep it. Just keep in mind that, you know, for this first one in salaries, this is where we're kind of projected to land off the monthly average. However, we have um we're hiring Sarah, so that will increase that uh amount over two months of her salary. Um overtime is based off of uh where we're at currently 61. Um so we're look we budgeted for for 50,000. Um so I made an adjustment to that was originally 70. So in kind of alignment with where we were at projected to be at the end of this year and with increasing staffing I think 60 is a fair number. I use percentage throughout these for uh 26. Um so so for the rest of these numbers, this is um um the projection for salaries and wages plus overtime is where I pulled these numbers. So I didn't I didn't use any averages or projections for 2025. It was just the grand total. Perfect. And then the significant increases are coming from just more staff. Correct.

Correct. Well, we we budgeted for full staffing in 25, right? So no increase in staffing in 26. Okay. Um so why the increase in pay? Okay. I mean that's so something 40% increase in the whole thing from like Medicare, retirement, health insurance like the benefits are so you guys are looking at the actuals. The actuals are just cuz we have things not filled. Yeah. So the what we budgeted for in 25 is this number here. Yeah. 617. So it increased from 617 to 68686

and and right but let me explain that a little further after working with will if you look down here our incentives we you know we've already done 40,000 and it it dropped it to 16 to this precise number and the reason why was we needed to account for those that incentive pay in our FICA Medicare retirement. Sure. And so we we took each individual person with where they're at with their incentives, plugged it into this number. So that's another reason why that increase was there. Um so basically that was a 20 uh $23,000 increase alone in incentives that was added to this. Okay. Just so we can have better uh better touch on on what the the deductions here are.

Sure. Sure. So the increase is is we should look at this number for what we budgeted for in 25 compared to 26. Okay. And like health insurance one others over 100%. Uh now again this number would be the one you'd want to look at. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And this one our health insurance increase 4.65% this year. 4.5. That tracks that makes sense. you know, but and that's what I was wondering like, okay, like 99 to 120 makes sense to me. 49 to 120. So that's like, wait a minute. So that's that's why I think so for this as we go through uh personnel, it's better to look at what we originally budgeted for.

We're still trying to get those positions hired. Um so we did we we went through and added the incentives. This is the big one. plus um pay increases for from 25 to 26.

I bet you guys just were never over because you didn't have the positions filled because you weren't accounting for any of the taxes associated with the incident you're giving people and they're all taxes. Yeah. And it was a lot of work, but what I was doing was I was accounting for those within that 40,000. Yeah. To to make sure that we weren't going above that. Yeah. So, this makes the math a little easier. Let's go ahead and account for it right off the top. We'll still have to account for it at the end of the year when we reissue out bonuses uh with the remaining amount. We'll still have to make sure we're calculating for for for these deductions. So, you don't go over that. It's just a little more. Okay.

Um initial thoughts or any you guys want to dive into any of these numbers more specifically? You just want a grand overview first and then go back. Yeah, that's fine. Um, did you happen to run numbers with being able to reduce our payments total with uh we'll get to that after going through each one of these and then I so we can get down to the fund balance and then we can talk about that.

Um, then what I did here was I made some adjustments in the rest of expenses. I used um, you know what we budgeted for and 25. Here's your first three quarters. Here's projection. We're This is what we initially budgeted for in 26 dating back to when we made this a couple years ago. So, we're still kind of in alignment there. Um it seems like based off of what we did this year um for operating supplies at 1530 seems seems good to go. Uh telephone. Uh the next one budget 41 or projected to be at 47. I didn't dive into all those bills to see why. I imagine there was cost increase uh with that service plan. So, I increased that to 50,000 for 2026. Um I can probably do a little more work on that to see if we have some cost better cost estimates from those providers so we can So, I just did an estimate there. U professional services. We talked about this increase last time. Um this is it adding the increase to um all because of 911 solutions. So the payment plan that we talked about with Jackie is paying her monthly. The total amount divided by 10 months and we're going to use it for two months this year. So, the other eight months of payment to Jackie, I added to professional services, which brings that amount to 34,000. Um, travel and transportation and training. Um, this one's good a good discussion point. We budgeted for this much last year. As you can see, it was their most their training they're finding online virtually. So, there's been not a lot of travel associated with

that. uh total cost uh we're projected to see for training is um 3,000 less than what we budgeted for. Um so I I did keep those numbers on the higher side because we originally budgeted for 17,000. I reduced that down to 10,000. Um a big reason for that was was trying to estimate the cost for to get everybody trained as emergency medical dispatchers. Uh they already accomplished that. It was and and I think it was free training if I remember right. and the travel was in uh just in Chief County. So, we accomplished those. Um, as you recall talking to Sarah, she, you know, training was really important to her. She wanted to make sure she had that opportunity. So, I think here we're deciding what kind of flexibility we want to give Sarah to to use to make sure her staff's trained, make sure she's trained, make sure she can go to whatever conferences she needs to go to. Um and and so this one do we want to, you know, kind of repeat what we did last year, keep a little more flexibility in there for Sarah to use.

Normally the travel is more expensive than the training and and the reason why it's totally opposite here is they're just doing everything online until they're not until they're not then. Yeah. So we can we can adjust that later if they find that they need a bunch of travel funds. We can take that from the 10,000, move it to the other line eventually, and then just go that way. Like, it's fine. I think you're right though. Yeah, it is. And we're we're being slightly misled with our our 20 our current numbers because of the online, but I'm fine with giving them more than they may need. That's probably

and give them more opportunity cuz if you know train new dispatchers in Indie or whatever that may be then do you guys lose a lot of staff in that department often?

It's it's been okay lately. Um like you know that the the turnover is with people while they're in training. And so what we're identifying is they're getting in there and realizing I can't do this. you know, they get they take their first 911 call and they dealing with a screaming, you know, victim bleeding to death potentially and they're like, I can't do this. So, I think what we're identifying, we can really work with Sarah on this and I like Sarah's approach is is having a better hiring process so we can identify the right person for the job so we're not wasting that initial time. But once we get the right people in the place, I feel like we're doing pretty good. I'm just thinking a a better hiring process, but but b the thing you don't think about is not spending a little extra to train people and actually get them to where they'll stay. When they walk out the door, you pay out all their leave that you didn't budget for. You you probably end up spending that additional training cost and not retaining the person. And sometimes that additional little bit of training is the difference between somebody actually staying on or not staying on, you know, because we don't ever factor in, okay, well, what if they walk out the door after they've recruited leave? And

you know, it it gets kind of expensive to actually watch them walk out the door. Totally. And so I kind of think even though the training is higher than what you had before, it might be the thing that really over the long run could save you that like out the door cost when somebody doesn't stay. I agree. I think I think it's the excitement of what they're trying and signing up for that they and they feel like they're being invested in and uh um they're more likely to stay. Yeah. Well, I think operations will stabilize as well with a new director and then, you know, her be able to track things dayto day and stabilize. People will not feel like things are in turmoil so often. Like I think that will make a huge difference as well. So, it will. Yeah.

You guys comfortable? and actually have a training plan. Yeah, exactly. Say, hey, this is what we're going to do annually for 2026. We'll have roughly number in there, right? Yeah, I think it's fine to stay there for now. I think I agree that travel's more expensive, but if we need to move around the light item later, that's okay. I I think Yeah, cuz another point to this is that I think everybody's probably just at the very beginning of their training as well. So that might expand over a period of time, but a lot of online training is what they probably need right now. Yeah.

So good good thing to watch as uh Sarah takes over. This might be a bigger discussion going forward to 27 and beyond. Uh moving on to dues and subscriptions. Um, so what I did here was I added the Motorola uh maintenance plan that was down here in equipment maintenance. If you guys remember this number here was down here. Um, and as you can see here, nothing's been paid out. So I looked into that and this is because this is a year two expense. Okay. So we actually did not need to budget for that in 25 and so the initial was covered in the initial cost.

Correct. Right. Um, so you we'll see that carry over. So this that's why this will stay blank for projections for this year going into uh 206. I pushed it up to do some subscriptions. It's more it's a software thing. I know it's titled maintenance, but it's a software thing. So it's where they keep up with the updates and whatnot. That makes more sense. That's what I was I was a maintenance contract. Why would you want to use That's why I put it down there. Um, do you know whether we're under a contract for like 3 years and then there's increases after that? It's a it's five years. Um, and I don't know that we have those numbers for five years, correct?

Yeah. Yeah. And I and I didn't I plug in each year individually yet. I just did it for 26 right now. I'll ask a question. And do we I mean I know we're getting the access consoles and stuff and and from a new equipment standpoint. Yes, it's not going to need repair, right? But do we need to budget anything for changes or amendments or things afterwards with that with the equipment at all? I don't think with the equipment. So, we do have uh to to jump down here, we do have a line item for dispatch repair and maintenance. And so, that's again why I thought like we probably just potentially get rid of this down here. So, we have two maintenance repair equipment related. Okay. And that would apply to like dispatcher stuff, server stuff.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um, so originally we budgeted for 15,000. Uh, we we've been on the decline with this knowing new equipment's coming in and so and they they're they finished the install. Everything is talking to each other this week. Okay. Uh, next week the dispatchers are doing training on it. And then the week after that is a test week to make sure everything is working uh correctly. Um, so that so I'm confident to say that by 2026 we'll have all that new equipment installed and and and then our year-to- date numbers show that we're below 10,000 anyways for this year. Okay. So I think 10,000 is a a comfortable number. Sure.

So with the they were talking about uh the call that uh what is it the recording system? I can't remember. Call works. Is it call works? Call works or media works. One of the Oh switch. Yeah. something like that. It was like $9,200 or something like that. Is that something that we want to invest in in 2026? Um I think I think that's I need to bring those numbers to us. So I'm sorry I don't have that. I don't recall what that upgrade was. I think we have to choice on that one.

Yeah. So I think the question is I need to bring this back up to the the group that installed the equipment. The question was like, we don't know how it's going to talk to the new access console and now that it's now that it's installed, we'll check to see if it's working or not. That was a big question. So, I'm glad I brought that up. I forgot about that. Um, and also, there was an antenna they wanted to install um on the roof um that as was like a better option as a backup or something like that. So, let me look into those two additional costs. See if I want to entertain them here.

There's a big old ground wire up there. So, I imagine I asked about our stations, not got a big old wire hanging up. I think it is. Um, this is something we talked about a little bit last year with um the transfer to the general fund. We just kept it the same and we'll use next year to kind of figure out how we want to go forward with that. That's fine. And Candace, you said you guys are fine with that, too. Yeah. And Candace, what do you want to do for this year? We did budget for it. Is there a way we can add that to uh to a transfer back to the general fund this year, or is it that problematic where we need to hold on to that for another year? or at least 26. Yeah.

So after budget season, so just to do the transfer again this year. Is that what you're asking? I'm sorry. Yeah, we we haven't done it this year. We budgeted for it to say, hey, we're giving this back to the general fund and we haven't made that transfer happen yet. Could you just do it before the end of the fiscal year so we don't have to do an extra entry to post it back? Easy. Yep. So, I'll just initiate that with if you'll just tell Nikki. She's gonna then reach out to me and just tell her. I'll explain to her how to do it. Okay. We just cut a check to ourselves and then go cash it, which is but then it avoids actually having a transfer on the books, which it sounds like they didn't really want you guys to do anyways. Still call the transfer. Gotcha.

But at least it's like we actually take it back around and walk out the bank. Walk back in the bank. Yeah. Will you at least walk out of the bank? You're like here. Hey. So, but that will be pulled from that GL code that we put the 15 in so we can see it. Yep. Okay. So, I did I did put that in there for our projections. Yeah. And I mean it saves you guys. I I get that the um the the young lady that was on with us or was with us last time. I cannot remember her name. I'm so sorry. Um Jackie. Jackie.

She doesn't want to see that transfer on the books and I get it. But I mean it technically is cuz we're cutting a check to ourselves. So we can't really call it something else, but we are cutting a check. So if they actually pulled the back or data on it, they'd see that a check was cut and that the check goes into the bank. But because it is from ourselves to ourselves, it is hard to really call it anything else. But like for SEC rules is I think of what she was kind of looking at and gap rules, it shouldn't be an issue. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think maybe in the future we can explore whether we want to have a separate

bank account again or not. I I don't know if I can I can't force our treasurer to do that if they don't want to. I can sure ask. Well, a question. So the amount that all the agencies pay into though um just so that we're not because of those rules, can't we just say that you know this transfer the one that comes out of the general fund is out of those out of that funding and not uh the emergency fund is that just so that we're not I I don't I guess I'm not tracking fully. Sorry.

Cuz there there was concerns that this that this line item wasn't going to be like what you were saying about what Jackie said, right? She wanted to change it. All the funds sit in the county account regardless. So when we pay into this, those funds still sit in the county account. When they make that transfer, it comes from the county account to the county account. So even if we changed where those come where those funds come from in our budget, it still sits in the county account. I mean, you guys something different here. That's just the GL code that gets recorded. It wouldn't change your name for what they do. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry if that was a dumb question.

I I get what her concern is, but I also like understand on the accounting end that she's thinking it's something different than what's actually happening on the accounting end. It's just the name of the GL of the line. Yeah. And this is a problem with like all of our funds sitting in the same fund as all the county funds, right? Like they it's all tracked separately and it's all, you know, it's all kosher and everything, but it's in one bank account, but it's just in one thing. So that's sort of the issue is that like what we pay all of this is everything in one account. It's all tracked separately, but it's all in the same account. So that's where the issue comes from, not where it's actually coming from in, you know,

that's fund accounting. It's like your your fire funds are all sitting in one bank account with the city. They're just coded to fire fun. Yeah. Yeah. Got you. Thank you. Yeah. That's a little in the weeds, but like Okay. Only 500 bucks for clothes. Yeah, they we talked to them about this. They they're they're not they're not public facing first of all, but they do want some, you know, pride in what they do. They all talked about like we prefer to wear our own clothes. However, they were good with like a polo or something and so that came pretty low. I think a branded polo is completely legit. Yeah, I think that should be a standard.

I think it's nice cuz then if they do want to use it to like go to a training or, you know, whatever the heck it is, they at least professional and not, you know, we talked about that in our last meeting and everybody's going to start wearing either blue or black pants, stretch pants, tight pants or whatever it's called. I mean the females until we get a male, but um and then what's that? My guy in yoga pants. I mean I mean no judgment. Do we need to get you running down the street? And then they were talking about some kind of comfort shoe.

Okay, I'm fine with increasing that too because that's 500 is not enough to Yeah. We have 12 11 11. Yeah. Okay. I mean, so that's only But we also have 500 this year that they didn't spend, right? 500 next year, right? I mean, that's $45. There was nobody assigned. We have more requirements, but I budget 300 per person for any fulltime staff. Same. Yeah. Yeah. Ours is three or 350. Something like that. Yeah. Do you you guys wanted to follow us similar? That's I I think that might be a little too much because we're not requiring them to have like pants or anything. But yeah, I think we pay for the polos

and then that's and then I like Yeah, we require certain styles but not a certain item necessarily. So that's fine. Let them create it so they have Yeah. Make it, you know. Yeah. Blue or black pants, that's fine. Wear whichever blue or black pants you want. Black shoes, whichever shoes you want. As long as those are black, fine. But we just pay for the polos. But I and I don't know what cost. I think we need a board or if you do some custom is so you want to do like 100 bucks per person. That's fine. Yeah.

So then um uh that'll give them a polo. And so we were talking about shoes because you know the night crew wears slippers and then the day crew wears something comfortable you know as they're walking around the building. Um, I was highly against slippers. I agree that not every time because you regardless where you organize your days, you're you're going to be walking facility and people are going to come in to see you. I'm trying to use my keyboard. It's not working. Weird.

Um, no, that's I don't feel like that's not appropriate at all. And it should be some sort of again, if you want to say black or white or whatever shoe, but it's got to be the same across the board. They can't be wearing slippers. Yes. Okay. I mean, also I'd like to give Sarah that freedom, too. Exactly. Yeah. I think she'll feel the same way her now. Yeah. But, uh, so I think,00 $100 per person. Cool. And then if they want to get a head start on it, they can still utilize those funds this year. Um, which actually I should put in here. And

I know that they're working on it. Uh legal fees so far year to date projection maintain that average is probably fairly accurate to close the year out. Uh we budgeted four or 5,000. Um we so I I I bumped it up to 10,000. I think that there should be a little bit of a a safety blanket there just in case we need more. So that's internet. Uh internet we under budgeted for slightly. Again, that might be another service thing. So it's probably something I'll maybe work on before Sarah or just kick it to Sarah when she gets here for both that and the telephone is like let's try to get some more accurate numbers.

Sure. Where's the new back hole coming in? Is that or is that uh Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's through limit that's at the So they did the fiber they they tapped into the county's fiber line but so thanks county because that was pennies compared to what the initial install would have been. So they just they spliced into that they transferred it over just like Motorola asked uh the state came in and tested it and we're good to go. Okay. So that's okay. So that's what that was my question was because that was supposed to be a significant increase and it's not going to be a significant increase now actually. Yeah, because I don't that just happened. So I don't know

because that was going to be like a few hundred bucks per month start paying or something. So I just don't want that to be way underbudgeted again. That's going to be a significant increase. Okay, cool. Question. You guys want to go over any other expenses for now before we get into some bottom line? I think so.

Okay. Um so from the balanced budget approach because we haven't touched anything with our um IGA payments the total expenditures will will match the total revenue which is one uh nine. So about 100,000 more than last year. These are um some projections. So, um, when it comes to our fund balance and we can go into some of these numbers here, but, uh, basically, if you just look here with our 2025 projections, we do need to enter still our 2024 closing numbers. Um, but this is going to put us in a a really close range. um even without those because I do have current fund balance numbers here with uh from the treasurer's office and they do fairly you know closely line up to what these projections are even without a 24 closure because the 24 ran with a 24 projection on this worksheet. Um so starting the year off that was uh the start of the year is the same with the projection. Uh revenue this number did update with a $25,000 reduction in uh what were expected in ETC's. Okay.

And then expenses is using the monthly average formula uh for all expenses. And so this this could you know what what happens here is like I said with Sarah hiring her is going to increase our current projection number in salaries. However, if we look at some of our dues and subscriptions for example we pay for some of those upfront and beginning of the year. We don't have to pay that again. So, it's it's not it's not extremely precise down to the penny, but with some of those give and takes, it gives us a pretty accurate accurate projection. Um, it's possible to get in there and get a little more precise with that projection for 2024. I don't have the time for it, maybe, but I am fairly comfortable that this gives us this. So, this is where we should close the year out, okay?

Which carries over into our fund balance. And so rolling it to 2026, that should be our fund balance. Uh what I did here is this morning actually just played around a little bit for following the county policy on on fund balance. The three months um of our uh three months of our annual budget would be this 332,000. And I did that based off of our 2029, our highest year on on on this worksheet. So I say that's our minimum that we drop our fund balance to. Okay. And that's three months of the budgeted expenses, right? Budgeted expenses in 2029.

So that's well over what 2026 is going to be. Correct. I mean it's a little bit of a cushion, but it's not huge. So I I just say we call that our bottom dollar when it comes to our fund balance. Uh so it gives us that much $468,5753 to see what we want to do with and and we've heard from all our user agencies that the the goal is to use all of this to keep us at that number to keep our payments as low as possible.

So there's a couple of thoughts. We can scroll back up and play around with this number a little bit here. So without making any adjustments um here's what we paid already 25 with no adjustments this would be the change going into 2026 and then you can see year after year we see the steady growth just by estimating growth in salaries and expenses. One thing I didn't plug in here, uh, if you want to talk a little bit about the future years is the potential of an increase in the ETC beyond the PUC max, that would adjust those numbers, which would lower these numbers, right? We're not there yet, so I'm just kind of focusing on 26. However, our decision for this, which we're just talking about today, um, you know, does affect the future years. So, one example, and I didn't pre-make all these so you guys can see them. We can play around with numbers today. One example is we throw it all into this year and dramatically drop these numbers. Another example is we spread it out over two years, three years, however we want to do do that. So um you know with 468,000 we have uh four years we've looked out to so far. Um in the future we can spread it out over four years. We can spread it out over two years, three years. What however we decide to do that. If we get to a point back to where we're fully staffed and hitting all our numbers and we're not like growing our fund balance, at some point we're going to we're going to bite this bullet of the full amount. And that's where we hope to get ahead of it and have that ETC increase lower that for us.

Yeah. Which with engaging in a contract with Jackie, we're looking at a partial year and 26 of a higher amount if approved and then in the future. One thing to keep in mind is we are expecting growth year after year because of the ETC max, but if we take it to like $3.50, it's going to be $3.50 as far out as we can really, right? Exactly. Yeah. Because it's that that'll be a 5centent increase the last two or three years, right? So, it's going to take years for that to get to $3. Yeah. So, we're we're kind of locking that in for a long term, right?

But we're fully staffed. We have our equipment. I mean, our equipment will get out till um like 15ish to 20 years. So, big increases I don't see in our future. Um but it's maybe not a bad time to start planning for that too from a fund balance standpoint. Maybe we see some slight increases there, but that's that's really, you know, decades down the road. Sure. So, so my proposal is we start playing around with or start talking about we can look at however we want to look at this. I can plug we can just do some simple math here and figure out what these look like. My initial proposal is why don't we keep the payments the same for at least two years. I think we can do that. Sure. Potentially three years and I didn't go that far out.

And that was going to be a question is especially for 26 what is the total amount if we drop it to the last two payments, right? Like what's that going to be? Yeah. And I think I think that was question I think it was like 175,000 if I remember right. Yeah. So, if we take 175,000 from the 468,000, that pretty much matches. I mean, I'm not going down to the penny, obviously. Okay. So, there I was just looking at the top line. We'd have to do more than that. Yeah, we'd still we're still at $10,000 increase on that. Yeah. And I can Let me I'll talk about that, too. But

and I'm just guessing 199740. I'll just Well done, sir. Thank you. Um, now, okay, so let me explain that because all right, so in this in this model here, we're at 43.2% paying into it, right? The PD was at 39.8. Yeah. Fire, I believe this is fire. Yeah, fire was at 8.1%. You guys were at 8.9. Sure.

So, we're doing a three-year rolling average, and what we have here is our 20 2 to 23, 23 to 24, and 24 to 25 members. Here's been here in and here's so here's the calls in and by district, Lake County. So, what we do in the report is we fold Sheriff's Office, Lake County Highway. We and forget that number. PD was that number fire here and this is the same model followed in the 23 24 year and then 24 and 25 the same model there.

What I did is added those all up and and then the these became the the new three-year after. So like we went from 43 and a half to 42%. And then your historic number was 8.9%. Let's put it to 10%. And I think we've always kind of knew it would be around 9 10% for both you guys. Seems like EMS had the had the biggest jump. Right.

Well, we've seen a 1% increase. Yeah. From 23 to 24, that was a large that was a being able to pull out the system, call a number of issues. Yeah. And that's fine. Um, so again, we can we're playing around with that number of what we'd like that to look like. You know, we can each look at our own agency.

Sure. And if we want to say that the you're you're the greatest impact, if we want to increase that amount, what we'll see is a reduction in ours the most because our calls drop right in the county. Um, and I do have all these reports saved. Happy to share them with you guys. There's probably 10,000 pages worth of stuff. Um, and I think also longterm wise, we continue to talk about how we do this. I'd really like to dial that into something that we're all pretty happy with. Sure. I know from my standpoint where I'm sitting now, um, the information that I have, I I feel like this is the appropriate way to split the use of dispatch center.

No, that's Yeah, that's totally a thing. Um, the way the the way the sheet is working though, if you go back to that. Yes. Yeah. Let me know something. um the the budget sheet the other one the the breakout of that's totally fine but like in this case you were at 175 and I was still a $10,000 increase. You're at 200 and I'm still almost a $10,000 increase. Okay. And but you're $9,000 less. MPD is less but both fires are more. Yeah, cuz you guys went 9 to 10%. Okay.

But let me let's double check that. So I think I see okay no wait that's correct. So we're taking we're taking this amount dividing it by or multiplying by a percentage right so at 10 10%. And just multiplying this number by 10%. Okay. And this year we were taking that number and multiplying it by just under 9%. So it's a 1.1% increase. Okay. So I think that I think the the worksheets working correctly.

Yeah. The percentage is changing. Looks like the same percentage. If we want to spread this out over two years, it's like 230. That's kind of in half of what we have left. And that would apply to 27 as well. Do that to 27.

That's reasonable. And this could change too based on percentage. You might see a half% increase. Sure. Decrease that way. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's I think you should budget for the insurance to be higher in future years. Okay. I know. Yeah. Yeah. What percentage? I mean, we just got really lucky this year. We dropped down like a risk band or otherwise our increase would have been probably double what it was. Yeah. We have to

it's just insurance across the country is slated to just almost keep doubling tripling every year which you know there I mean we can be as unrisisky as humanly possible but if that's just what the market is doing so you don't have to put anything in there. I'm just letting you know like that you're probably Yeah. And that's just like nationally. is not okay us specifically getting okay focusing in on 26. Do you think we should do an increase on that though? I think you're okay for 26 cuz we've already gotten our rate increase. We know it won't do anything. I'm just letting you know for if you're looking at making sure you have enough in the future as you look at your fund balance. That is something to keep in mind is

okay insurance is likely to to increase exponentially for the next few years. That was all we should know more hopefully in the next year. Yeah, look at that for 27 for sure. But is absolutely wrong, right? That could be it for sure. Which more from a fundation goes through from a fund balance standpoint, if you continue to model a balance budget that's topped off by the IG, then we would, you know, more expect that from each user agency. Yep.

But no, I I think spreading it over two years is is reasonable. Um, and then by then we'll especially know more about ETC funds um, and things like that and be able to to decrease. But yeah, I mean if if I was going from a 76 to a 67 to a 96 payment that would have been a huge issue for us. Um, they but again question after question with that. But you know 6,000 3,000 that's totally fine. Okay. You know one fear I have is uh several years down the road having a 100 $110,000 jump.

Right. Well, the the hope there, Chief, would be that the ETC increase would reduce that back to more of a normal payment then. Um, so that that would be the hope there is that there never is a $100,000 payment because that's still going to be an issue. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. I think that is something worth recognizing. Um, this sheet doesn't show the projections for the e the etc increase that we're going to pursue next year. Um, so, so and when we get to that point, I think we bring this sheet back up and start to say, how do we keep our payments about the same year after year and make sure that we have other sort that source of re revenue? And I'd be even, you know, willing to entertain other conversations about sources of revenue. It would be nice if we could keep the PD's payments the same until the day I retire.

All right. That's our goal. Um, so we're working like this. Yeah. Or Yeah. Chief, how you feeling? I'm doing pretty good. Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. A little sore, but I will heal. We We hadn't heard there was an issue till just now. So, yeah. Sorry to hear that happen to you, brother. Well, the worst I feel about is I wrecked our brand new police motorcycle. Everybody was looking forward to riding him. Yep. You were you were I'm glad you're okay.

Um so yeah, that represents uh a you know an a not an average but just a rough average split the next two years. of 230,000 pulled from the um our fund balance in 2026. 230 or 200 230 230. Yeah, I increase originally at 200 but then splitting it between the two years it becomes 230 cuz it's 460 230. So just just a rough split. Yeah, I I like that. That's fine. Some increase is totally fine. Just that large increase was going to be a problem. So, um, yeah, 67 to 73 is fine. It's not

and and if you want if I'm more focused on this and then this year taking a bigger jump, we can play around with that. I see. Yeah. So, the the only thing that's not represented in here again that I've played around with a little bit is what those etc increases would look like. I think rolling into 26, we keep it at that. And that just says, hey, if you don't get that approval, this is $2.17. What that should look like, correct? Yeah. No, we have we have to stay with that until we get actual approval on that. We should assume $3 moving forward until we get done. Yep. Cool.

Any other we can go through salaries, calls for service. Uh these were um other sheets that I worked on to for this number. Um, yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's Yeah, let's talk about this because I had to do a lot of um playing around with Will on this one. So, the the county has a new um what's it called? Candace, the new personnel budget. Um positional budget. Additional budget. Yeah. Yeah. What is it called?

Positional budgeting. Um, so this is this is nice. I really like the setup. Um, but since they're county employees, the county is looking at budgeting for a 2% cola. Um, so we had to adjust our numbers slightly to line line up with what we planned for and then when the county applies the 2% across the board, it sounds like it's very and it is painful. I was with Will going through to make these individual adjustments and people. So, it's something we, you know, to help with the back end still line up with our numbers that we're comfortable with. This is, it was a I spent a lot of time with Will. We're best friends now. Uh, so uh so basically what we did here, if you so these these numbers represent the budgeted amount to to eventually come to this number. Okay, I'll explain why it's different. The the this is base pay. We have the incentives that we added to each individual person based off of their education. Uh there there's there's there's u if they're bilingual in Spanish, uh if they're a field trainer at night shift differential, which we talked about in the past, we added all that to these numbers and then to those numbers, we had to subtract 2%. So when the county added the 2% our budgets lined up and so that's what this number represents.

Say that again. So we took base pay plus incentives minus 2% with the expectation that the countyy's going to add that 2% back on. So when the county has their budget, what they're doing is taking all the numbers and then they're going to add 2% to it. So we had to reduce ours by 2%. Make sure that that 2% lined up lined up with our total for each person. Why don't we just do it and and then there was there was confusion with the evaluations. Is that where this comes from part? So yeah, that's a that's actually slightly. So yeah, there was a um county has a merit and

merit

and they did the county evaluation employees qualified for merit and then they were like only two weeks worth they were paid the merit but that wasn't coming from our pool of money and so we had that removed. We have our own. It's not like we're taking things away from the I would say that our incentives and our step is better than the merit program. It pays more than the merit program. So their their option to fall underneath what we have with our incentives and the step is greater than and then they just have this additional for two weeks. We took it out um and they're completely underneath our budget again. That's the reason why you spend a lot of time in the grill.

Yeah. So, we found that that muddied the water essentially. We got it fixed. This represents continuing that fix. The one thing that was really hard to pull from was this. And so, the county has this $450 wellness benefit that employees can use towards some sort of healthy practice in their life. get ski passers or shoes and run the Lego 100, do whatever they want with that. And and and so the argument there was their county employees,

we're not allowed to not offer it to them if we offer it to everybody else like just legally. We can't be like because they're our employees and they're all in the same we don't have like different classes of employees set up. And if people are in the same class, you can't offer a benefit to one employee not. So that benefit legally. That's a great that's a great incentive. It also helps keep our insurance low. The more people who use their healthy lifestyle benefit, especially if it's like towards being healthier, it really gives us a little bit of a credit on the insurance and it's kind of why we added it

to our portfolio. So we we budget the full amount for every position even if they're vacant and that comes to just short of 5,000 that was again added to this number. Okay. Is that comes out of ours? Yes. Okay. Is that in that was incentives? No, that's in salaries and wages. Okay. So So it's falls into the appropriate um taxes. So this 686 is where that's where that came from. So it includes everything to include the 2% that the county will put back in. Um.

Yes. Yeah. So it it will balance out between what the county has and what what we have. Sure. The the 450 I understand budgeting for every position. That's fine. The three vacant positions. Okay. Yeah. 51 the 244s. Where is that coming from? Why is it less than the minimum salary? We um so you see my note here. It's just an estimated hiring date of February. Okay. So you're you're prorating that estimated start. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's why um and then I this one still has that note in it but um says three quarter t. Yeah. I I went full mount on that one. Yeah.

Um because I wanted to give Sarah the flexibility. We have two interm supervisors and if she wanted to promote one of those or both of those, I wanted to give her that financial freedom to do so. Totally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that column made sense to me. I just didn't understand why the estimated column was was different. But yeah, if you're prating that for time or for when they're going to start, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah.

So, this continues to represent the 11 positions everybody. No.

Um, one thing I wanted to dive into which I did was Sarah. She's part-time. So, we used averages for 2025 to what 2026 would look like for her because she has another year of school. We imagine it will look and she actually ended up being around 60% of of a full-time employee because she worked quite a bit in the summertime. Sure. Okay. Um, we should probably at some point because she's in a full-time slot there, correct? So, we should probably break that out into if she's going to remain full-time or remain part-time, then break that out into a part-time slot. So, we see that there's a full-time slot. I think this is a great question.

Do you know we want we think 11 full-time is fully staffed that that hits the marks. We've discussed this in the past. One thing we're looking at in the sheriff's office is creating a part-time section that can help fill in for vacations or events and whatnot. We do have somebody interested in being uh we've had actually a couple people interested in being part-time dispatchers. Um this would increase that number.

It's a pretty small increase. What we did was uh 14 days is what we're asking for our part-time deputies to come out and work certified. I think we can do something similar here and create a handful of part-time positions. Uh what they've been great for is, you know, we have somebody out who's maybe on injury or um wants to take a vacation or we have events, they can come in and fill those positions or whatever. And so I think Sarah can be one of those. Um I heard from somebody else uh who was a dispatcher in Grand County asking she does that in Grand County parttime. Um, so from a budget standpoint, it probably increase the budget by maybe $20,000 to do a handful of part-time people.

No, I think that's totally fine. I think like we do the same thing where I have 13 full-time positions and then I have like six or seven PRN is what we call them, ENTs, and then a few PRN medics. I do the same thing. They just they're required to pick up at least one shift per month and they come in on vacations or they come in, you know, six calls or whatever it is. That way it's fully staffed all the time. You have a staff to pull from. But you know, yes, in Colorado, you now have to pay sick time for them. So, it's a steady cost and there's insurance. There's all that kind of stuff. But you're not paying for another full-time employee. You're paying for one day work, right? There's there's probably different ranges, too. So, Sarah's part-time, but she also works 60% of a full-time schedule,

right? Whereas somebody else who we're talking more of just, you know, the occasional date here or there during an event or so, that would be a lot less, you know, than Sarah. Correct. Yeah. And if if you want to budget for a part-time position, we're fine with that. But if we truly still need three full-time positions, plus Sarah has a part time, then that needs to be broken out like that. What do you guys want to do? Do you want me to play around some different options? present it to you cuz this would increase. I think it's I think it's fine to leave for now and sort of wait for Sarah on that one and what she feels she needs. I have that discussion with her. Yeah.

I don't want to staff her department in a way that she doesn't want to by any means. Correct. But I don't I'm not against the part-time. Um I do have concern especially when it pertains to a service like this being provided. It's already difficult enough to get our full-time people to do high quality or quality um dispatching. Uh it takes a tremendous amount of training and getting them on board. So it'll take a while for them to actually get into the seat of being able to get quality service. So I just wanted to throw that out there just so that keep that in our rolodex.

Typically at least when I hire PRNs, I come hired. I don't have brand new people. I have people with experience, right? So, it may take a while to staff those positions, but for exactly that reason where they they they have to be able to come in and just do the job. They can't come in and just do training and and stuff like that, right? They have to just be able to do the job. So, I typically hire people with more experience even than I hired full-time positions because they have to be able to just come in and do it, right? So, it may take more time to hire these positions, but they would have higher requirements for those positions to be able to do. Absolutely. I get all that. Yeah. So, we have had a problem just hiring regular dispatchers. So, I just wanted to make sure that we understood that it may take,

you know, some work on Sarah's part to be able to get, you know, those filters out there, you know, snatch those people. But I I'm most definitely in favor of it because it'll reduce our overtime costs. Um because we would bring this person in based on their educational level and say, "Hey, okay, between your minimum and maximum, you'll be paid either max minimum max minimum max, you know, over time, right? I uh I'm most definitely in favor. I just want to throw that concern."

Totally. Yeah. And then typically their like hourly pay rates are higher because they're not working full-time. They don't have the overtime, whatever it is. But but yeah, but the co overall cost is both lower because they're not working here as many hours. But I think with Sarah's connections, I mean, she's worked several different dispatch centers. And I think with her connection, she could definitely get some people in there that would be willing to do that a day a month, couple days a month, whatever, just run the system. Yeah. And she's she's done that herself as part of her resume. Exactly. But yeah, I think Sarah Sarah Keenan is a great example. You know, she was a dispatcher here. I think she was even a dispatch supervisor before at one point.

So, she's like the one that you're like, "We're totally comfortable full-time. Make sure you keeping up with your annual trainings and whatnot and good to go." Um, we had another dispatcher that been here for a handful of years said she wanted to come back but could only do so on a part-time basis. And then this other dispatcher from Grand County, again, tons of experience but part-time. So, it is hard to hire full-time people, but it seems like there's a pool of people interested who have experience to do part-time work. You want to add two? Yeah, I think we can do two or three. Three. Let's go. Let's go. Let's do Let's do three. Okay. I'll do I'll do three. What I'll do is

I don't necessarily have problem with that. We certainly have a discussion with her and just make sure she's on board with that of course, but I don't think she being overstaffed versus understaffed. Yeah. I think we're we're giving director Sarah some freedom here to make those decisions with that by budgeting this money. Um it may increase our IGA a little bit spread across three agents. I mean if we go up let's say total cost for three or for yeah for three additional might be around I mean especially with Saras on the high side but the other ones we can maybe say we're we only need you know couple few weeks a year

right in 2030 grand I mean that's another 5 $7,000 well it'll be more than that if we take Sarah away from that that part cuz her her estimate is close to 40 herself because she workked 60%. So I think if we pull her out of that then rebudget for that position as a vacant position. Sure. It's probably going to be closer to 100,000 increase. Sure. Okay. Not part time.

Um we would open that up as a vacancy move her to part time. So we'd have 11 full-time, three parttime and we can look at those and cut one out. I know we're getting a little tight though on time. making some bigger changes here, but I mean that's that's another 10,000 to your budget if if it's 100,000 totally. And then as far as county stuff, do you guys consider parttime a certain amount of hours or I think it's 20 to 30 or 35 now. they changed it

because that would be the thing is like a typically a part-time position is going to be you're scheduled for those amount of hours for regular amount whatever it is whereas that's why we do PR positions because there's no expectation they schedule a certain amount of time that's there's requirements they have to fill there being scheduled regularly in those hours so no that's a good question because actually from a county standpoint it's it's uh it's part-time which is below 30 hours because 30 hours is now considered full-time from a benefit standpoint yeah that's what I was trying to piece benefits piece and then part time does not get benefits or it's reduced I believe. Okay. And now that some benefits on parttime I have to look at it because I know that you just changed it and I just don't remember this. Sure.

That's that's what gives us a little more freedom to pay more is there benefits. Now there is the category that that I'm using. It's called uh occasional/on call and that would be more probably like your piano. Exactly. Because they don't get any benefits. We have to pay them sick time for new color rules but that's it. Yeah. So that's that's where it's us like it's almost like military. It's like you know maybe a weekend a month or two weeks a year we if anybody gets it we all get it. What's our overtime again? Is it 60,000? Yeah. So I mean I think if if this plan works then we can probably reduce that probably by 20.

That's true actually. Yeah. We could take a portion of that and put it towards it and not have to worry about that such an increase. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. So, yeah, we can do that. I think it's uh So, you guys comfortable with reducing it now by 20 and then adding these positions in. Y and so that that might be like closer to an $80,000 increase. Yeah, because it'll it'll be in the budget. It'll just be a different line. Correct. And we'll know. Breaking out differently. Yeah, we'll know. Yeah, that's fine with me. Yeah. And I just I bring up the classification thing for exactly the benefits thing, right? Where if we if we classify them as b as parttime, we may have to pay benefits where we classified them as something else. We probably don't, right? So,

um I don't have that built in to really break that out from a separation standpoint. So, if I increase this by let's say 100,000, it's going to add automatically here to these. I would have to do like a separate line for them almost like below these numbers or Yes. So, I can play around with that. Yeah. So even if you have wages, salaries, full-time wages, salaries, whatever we call that position, and then be able Yeah. Yeah. So not terribly hard to do, but

um but just just so we can look at it there. I mean, I'm just going to I'm just going to do this to make easy here. So say it goes up to 100,000. Let me reduce this 40 so you guys can get eyes on these numbers here. I'm just total estimations right now. Definitely much. Yeah, I think it's onite, too. Yeah.

But if we end up creating a vacancy where Sarah's at currently, then we're putting in fulltime salary there, too. So, it does 100,000 may not be out of question. Right. Right. Then that increases our payments quite a bit. Sure. So, so maybe we just look at Sarah and maybe one more. That is true. I mean, I guess I would rather have not had Sarah have to dispatch, but as long as she can't either or fill in positions or whatever as part of her salary, right? So, there's going to be some of that as well. Um,

but I'm not also overestimating versus underestimating. Chief Trilo, any thoughts on that that idea?

What was the question? Uh we're just exploring the potential of uh having a adding to our personnel, keeping 11 full-time and adding up to three part-time. Yes, I caught most of that. I just stepped away for 15 seconds. I'm good with it. Oh, no worries.

I was just curious what your thoughts or opinion on that is. It does, you know, just playing around with some rough estimates right now. It does, you know, obviously it will increase our IG payments. Um, rough estimates show that it could increase it more than what we paid in 25 if we add three more part-time positions. U, but we have options. Obviously, we can do one, two, three. I don't think we need more than three in 26. Maybe it's I'm good with it. Part-timers are a bargain typically.

Yep. Yep. Well, I guess what I can do is is give that example to you guys. I'll I'll throw it in here with some different options and share it with you guys. So, you'd be moving to Sarah's. So, that's that projected for like 38 a year. Mhm. And then a part-time one of the part-time, what do we say about 20? Yeah. Yeah. Probably in the high end would be 20. It's more f it's into that occasional on call status where it's they're not they're not on a routine schedule essentially not like Sarah

Sarah's on schedule. So if you're if we're to do 38 say it's 15 for part time. Yeah. I use roughly that number I think. So we'd move her 38 down to parttime at let's say Yeah. So let's say it's 55, but then we're also opening up her position, which would be another like 44,000 if we did it three quarters of the year like we did the other vacancies. So yeah, by doing Yeah, I think it's fine leaving that especially for the for the budget protection for the budget that we're going to submit.

Whether or not we do it, it's a whole different story. Like if it's if it's budgeted but we don't end up doing it or we get all the extra money, right? But I think it's fine to leave it in there and overestimate for budgeting as we do it and then you can figure out the ops later. I have a challenge with both the city and county this year. So, I um if we can just keep that number as low as possible and and we can I mean we can increase the amount that we're going to lean on our fund balance in 26 more than we plan on 27 and then cross that bridge when we get there. But it's true instead of doing 50/50 you can do 40 years or something. Yeah.

Do you foresee that being an issue moving forward in future years as well? Oh yeah. So, it's up to you at that point then whether it's it's better to be less this year and more next year or be closer to similar each year.

Well, as we all know, everything is tight. Yeah. Like Yeah. And so maybe this isn't the time to explore that. We have vacancies. So it's not like we need to open up another vacancy, right? And we just keep it as for 26 and let we're going to have our handful. Even if like currently right now we can open up the the policy of it. Mhm. And we can utilize funds from the vacancies where if we have a certain amount of vacancies throughout the year or a certain time frame, there's funding going to be sitting in the budget in order for them to do the part-time paying anyways. Yeah.

What to keep to keep that number as low as possible. Well, what if we just kept Sarah in there where she is currently occupying a full-time role? We don't. So, we don't because that's the that's the big hit. She she is a lot from a part-time standpoint. Correct. We move her to part-time. That's 38,000 plus another 40 to 50,000 for that full-time vacancy.

We just kept her there. So, we don't adjust it at all. We just add, let's say, 20,000 for an occasional uh part-time person. So, we're really only increasing it by 20. then we can lower potentially the overtime and then we have almost no adjustment at all. Why don't we just make the two um as she drops to part-time for 38,000 her vacancy why don't we just make that two part-time or what? Well, I don't make it. You're saying two parttime positions is a three. So, her minimum what? So, it would be like the vacancy that we create by moving her to part-time, which is the 38,000. Instead of having a full-time, we just make that two part-time

two parttime because that's about 20,000. But it's in there. is already in there, but we just create two part-time positions out of that vacancy rather than trying to put bring on a fulltime because I mean currently right now we can't even we can't even have full-time staff anyways, but be able to have that uh flexibility of having 40,000 set aside or 20,000 a piece for two so 10 10 full-time positions at that point and two part-time positions. Is what you're saying? Three, three. I think he wants to create two out of one.

So you say take that one away. 10 full time positions, three part time positions. It would be Sarah and two part time positions to be able to utilize those funds. But then there there would be the option if we can't find anybody for a part-time position to fill those two things, right? Then then we can talk here and say Sarah go ahead and use that as a bank as as a full-time position if we have the employees that are interested in working full-time. Okay. Does that make any sense? Make sense?

Yeah. I don't know if I'm a fan of it though cuz I like the idea of like sticking to we need 11 full-time and well that's I mean we can we could budget that way and then basically if we're saying those part-time positions are 20 million a piece anyways right that's 40 and if we need to move that back to a full-time position then we can yeah again we're just playing with Right the increase is going to be the same regardless it seems we're just playing with what the position actually are. So, we're working in a gray area versus a black and white. So, like you know, right? So, the options are there for both.

If we start getting part time and they start filling the positions that we need, one that'll reduce our overtime, but also be able to um fill slots within dispatch. I think we I think we have to identify the difference between occasional on call and part-time. So part-time would be like Sarah where she's scheduled and then the occasional on call would be the the PRN examples where you just fill in as needed randomly and there's no permanent schedule. That person's going to cost a lot less than the part-time person who works like every weekend or something like that. Um in the current model, we're creating one part-time position and two PRN positions versus three PR positions.

Yes. Yeah. So I think that's the question is like what are we pursuing here? And so far based off of our experiences with people who have offered to work on more on the part-time I said I had two options that that people asked for. One was more on a part-time thing. The problem there is they come in and I'd say I can only work Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Right.

Well, we really need you. That's all I can do. And so if we hire another part-time, that person says, "I can only work Monday, Wednesday, Friday." So now we have two parttimes working on the exact same schedule. It's really hard to say we if you're trying to fill one person, you essentially need somebody who can work um like half of one side of the week and then they can work the other half and make a full-time person. The occasional on call, they they're just like, you know, they I can come out in July and work for two weeks, somebody wants to take a vacation and and to have that type of flexibility in our, you know, training and vacations or whatnot. It's two different people that we're looking for or considering right now. U Sarah obviously represents the version of that. So, and it is I I hear that Sarah's, you know, her schedule's hard to manage because it's so like she's she has to be at school on these days. So, it's helpful helpful to have her, but it's not very reliable. Right. She from what I understand she's filling in the second seat the majority of the time because if she has to call out because you know whatever she you know she's in holder at school and can't get across the pass or something like that. So that's why she has they have to use it as like an over overlap that person if it budget this way how it is currently couldn't there be policy for Sarah to say hey you have the option of a full-time position or part-time or PRN what's the what's the hold back on that on having her be able to fill the seats you know however she wants based on her budget? We can just be over budget at that point. The budget what we currently wanted

if that's what you're saying within the confines of the the budget itself of of the position that was that was filled. Sure. And and we could and that's what I mean is like like budget versus ops, right? Like we could budget for $100,000 extra based on that's what we think these increases are going to take and then operationally we can do whatever the hell we want later, right? As long as it's in the budget and we can work with Sarah later on whatever actually happens. So, I it seems no matter what we're increasing the budget $100,000 for three extra positions, right? What those positions are we can work out later, but at least the budget for

but I think that's where we stand now is we need Yes. increase it $100,000. How we work it and what Sarah wants to do we work out later. But we have $100,000 to play with. Sure. And I'm calling the other side where we don't increase the budget. And that's and that's what I'm saying is you don't have to increase the budget and we can say she can still do these things. We're just going to be overbudget. No, no, we wouldn't. No, we don't. How would we not? Because that's how I that's how I run my crew. Um, what do you mean? How we how if we're going to increase positions but not increase the budget, how are we not going to be able to budget?

So, if um if we have so for instance, I have this last year, I'll use 25 as an example. So, I had an additional engineers position that was available in banking all year. Mhm. Um I could use out of position or um to have a firefighter bump into that position as an engineer or bring in one of my residents to come in and fill at the firefighter grade two level. Sure. And because we budgeted for an engineer grade wage, okay,

that wasn't filled full-time. So, I have the flexibility of being able to fill my seats and do the things that I need to do for my staffing model um within the confines of the budget that I already currently have. Sure. Not not not adding anybody, just bringing in uh the pool of people that I have to be able to utilize that funding. So, the only way we could do that in this case is we don't hire a supervisor in two other dispatchers. Then we use So then then your thing then that counts, right? And so if we don't hire a supervisor and two other dispatchers, yes, we could absolutely do that and play around without increasing the budget. However, if we do hire a dispatcher and two other dispatchers like we want to, then

we're still increasing those numbers. Well, then the then the uh part-time just goes away. So the part-time personnel and the PRNs or whatever, then they that just doesn't happen for sure. So we're not So your example is like let's just give Sarah the freedom to on how she wants to use what we currently have budgeted for these vacancies and we don't increase this number. Correct? Which which is I think honestly it's I think it's fine to look at it that way. It's a management because look at our history here. Here's what we've done over the past couple years. We budget for this. We land on this, right? I mean I we're hopeful. We continue to be hopeful that we can hire these positions when we want to,

but history has shown us so far that we're we're not and we we over budget for salaries and wages. So, I think I think maybe we just give Sarah that freedom to say if you feel like you can manage part-time people, we have vacancies. Sure, here's our total budget. I think we give her that freedom to tell her don't go over budget. Sure. and and and she'll present that to us and and and say, "Okay, I was doing two part times for that one, but you can see you have options. You can make it work. Go for it." Which is the 40,000 because we've moved Well, I'm saying no movement. Oh, no movement. No movement. Okay. Okay. So, keep it that way. Oh, out of the two vacancies. Gotcha.

Yes. Yes. So, you got 88,000. She has 88,000 to play with. Sure. Be creative. Yeah. So after all that, I'd say I think we're landing on not increasing the budget. Let's just give her some freedom how she wants to build the organization. I think in the future, even if we're fully staffed, it would be nice to have some of those PR positions to be able to cover those things, right? But we can look at too early right now. That's fine.

It may take her a little while just for her to even try to get those um lined up. Candace to catch up to speed and what we really want is one full like that was a whole week. We had a long car session and nothing really changed. So we cirled right back to where we started for hours while I tried to figure out where I was cutting $2 million. No, we haven't. We actually

we came up with some good ideas to play around with in the future, but nothing's going to change for this year. So, and I think that's totally fine. I think that gives her gives her the flexibility to to play around with how she wants and and honestly that we can see what she's got at that point, right? Like show us what you can do, right? It's not a bad thing at all.

Okay. So now they'll change this to represent. All right. Still have a little bit of a to-do list. I'll I'll get those knocked out sentences to work out. Oh, that was just that. Okay. I thought that was Yeah, I was I thought it was working out as far as dispatch, but I didn't realize that's that was cool. Never mind. And this is what we'll use for 26 and then we will collect because we don't know the new system. No, this is incorporating the new system. Oh, it is.

Okay. So, so what you're going to pull this for the new system. Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Okay. And does somebody in dispatch? Um, no. Our our admins did it with the help of dispatch. Um, so dispatch and this if they write down that procedural. Yes. So we can pull next. Okay. We spent a lot of time figuring that out. Write this down. Um, this will be a Sarah job in the future. So which I'll be very happy about releasing that to her uh along with this. So on our next uh agenda for the other meeting, we we divvied up, you know, our responsibilities that Sarah should be taking on. Should we discuss that

and put that on the agenda? Yeah. Yeah. For the next What's that? We're going to talk about the expectations. I've heard, right? Like we're going to sit down. Here's the expectations, etc. But we [Music] uh um took those on, you know, in a meeting. And I think that we should probably talk about those with her figure out are we still going to like be in there a little bit on that or do we have

I think the workers that we set up are not a bad thing to keep. Again, we're not primarily responsible for them, but at least then, you know, you're having meetings about training once a month. Like, great. Let's keep doing that. We can keep having meetings about budget or whatever it is, you know, other stuff. Like those work groups that we said were fine. We're just not going to be primarily respons responsible for anymore. Yeah. Oversight. So, I don't think we need to relinquish them necessarily. But that's what I want to talk about. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And the regular remaining just a conversation. Yeah. Have that just send that to Jeremiah when we build the agenda which I think is

the first week of the number. Yeah. The 7th and I think our hope is to approve our bucks by then. Yes, we can do that. Yeah. said was to was to do this today and approve it then based on what we did today. Okay. Cuz it'll be done by the 15th or something. December 15th. December 15th or 11. I won't be here for the the meeting. Okay. And I think it's more of um presenting Sarah also correct

with those priorities that we have set as important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Not just like whether we're going to push them and whatnot, right? Or how we can work together. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Um when are you available, Candace? It would be great to have everybody here to approve the budget. Um, I am back the next week. You guys want to push it out to the 14th the following Friday? Sorry, gentlemen. I am taking vacation because I have actual staff starting. Um, I need some off. Oh, yeah. I

spend it. Do you Candace? Do you feel okay approving this budget? Yeah. Okay, then let's I don't want to hold you up. No, I say let's just do a proxy vote. If she sends you an email Yeah. with her vote and we do a proxy vote. I don't think we're allowed to proxy according to the IGA. Not proxy, but I think Yeah, I think she can send her vote to you as chair. Could you put it on towards the beginning? I can I will jump on from now. No. No. Last time. No. I mean, I don't care. I mean, the only rush to us. No.

Yeah. No. I mean, the only rush to us is to make sure that the county gets our budget on time. So, if we do push it, I mean, it's more of a question for you. If we do push it out a week to the 14th, well, and I I don't mean proxy. I don't mean someone else vote for her. I mean her send her vote to go and then you just be like, "Yeah, Candace voted whatever." She let me know votes this way, right? and then you just read her vote versus somebody else vote for her is more what I'm talking about. So we can just have that meeting on the 7th and and not have to schedule. Yeah, I think I think we can do that. I think as long as you get Right. You will know the numbers. Yeah.

Got it. Yep. Yeah. Sounds good. We can do that. If you give it to me the day before we vote on it, that's totally fine. As long as it doesn't change. And if it did, you'd have to let us know cuz it is due on the 15th for us. I do have a question on that actually. So if we if we decide to lower our IG payments, you you guys still need to see our a balanced budget from us. Yeah.

So that how will that look from an audit standpoint if you guys approve our budget where the IG payment represents the full amount, but we decide not to pay at all because we want to utilize some of our fund balance. It shouldn't matter because it just be that transfer in from your fund balance, but just

Okay. So, you guys are going to approve the budget that shows that we paid a balanced budget amount from the IGA payment, but we're not going to do that. So, when we approve our budget, we're approving that we're utilizing some of our fund balance to pay off to lower our IG payments. Does that how does that look if we uh um don't pay the amount that is represented in the budget that we give you guys?

What what if you just put another line item on the budget and so because you put that in a in a boxer like Yeah. So like here's the amount that we're going to pay, here's the amount we're going to transfer from the fund budget that changes those numbers and then that's what pay line up. So I can do a transfer from our even though it's within writing a check to ourselves almost I can put that in there as a revenue source. That's fine because we'll just have we just have to transfer it essentially for we have to reduce your fund balance by the amount you want to transfer in. And that's just an accounting. Okay. But we'll put that on the budget. So it so it shows that we're all not paying what we're not going to pay.

But I think as long as it's listed out like transfer from fund balance and that's where the fact did last year actually that's fine. Okay. All right. Easy. Cool. All right. You guys have anything else you if you think of anything just hit me up too and I'll I'll try to get all this in. So I'm going to email my approval in on Yeah. Just uh so we have that documented that you're good to go with. I really I really can't jump on for my phone. We'll deny you. Don't do that. You'll look at your email something else and then you're going to don't Yeah, let's just do it this way. I think we're all fine with that. That way you can stay on vacation. None of us want to be involved in that. We don't have to either. So, that's fine. Cool. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Actually, can I change this? This isn't a working document. I see. Can you Is there a way to save this and send it back to myself? Yeah, maybe. Well, I mean, if you hit save, give let's see where it gives you the option to save it so I can actually get it back to you. I usually But no, I usually go to download like go save downloads and I'll email it back to you. Save it there. Okay. That way people aren't pulling up your document all the time. All right. Um, you guys get to close this out.

Yeah. All right. And you