Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

like to welcome everybody to the August 12th, 2025 public safety meeting. I'd like to go ahead and call the meeting to order. Do I have a motion to accept the agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? Motion carries. Do I have a motion for the approval of the May 13th, 20125 meeting minutes? So move. Yes. All in favor? I.

Motion passes. Nobody signed up for citizen comments. Now we'll go on to ordinances and resolution reading of ordinance 2025-15, an ordinance amending title 4, chapter 3, section 4304 of the Hendersonville Municipal Code approving a pay criteria for lateral transfers within the public safety departments. Do I have a motion? Second. All in favor? I. Okay. For discussion, Jesse, would you like to talk about this or

So, the city doesn't have a formally adopted lateral transfer policy. And what happens with both police and fire is if a new recruit comes in, um, they can be with PD up to a year before they're out on the street by themselves because of all the training that's required. Um, with with fire department, they've recent recently done an in-house academy. So, we're going to be able to turn firefighters around much quicker. It's probably impractical to do the academy in-house for police. And so, uh, there are agencies who will say, if you've worked at another agency as a certified, uh, law enforcement officer, we'll give you some credit for pay when you come to our agency. Like, if you've done 10 years at another agency, you can come here and get some sort of maybe five years of credit or six years of credit as pay so that they can recruit certified officers in. And when they do that, they don't have to just rely on uncertified officers because they have more folks who are certified who want to come in or have an incentive to come in. And so with the u kind of change in police and fire's ability to recruit, um we thought this was a good move to adopt a policy where folks who maybe work at another agency and would want to come to this agency but wouldn't want to start all the way back down at the bottom of the pay scale could at least get some credit for their prior years of service as a certified officer. And from the city's perspective, we wouldn't have to rely on just new recruits where we have to take them through almost a year of training uh through the cost of the academy and just the cost of their salary for a year while they're not out in the field by themselves. They're either in training or they're riding with another police officer. So, they're not in their own car. So, this would

formally uh solidify a a policy that says if you worked at another agency for 10 years as a certified officer, you can get half credit to start for your pay when you come in to the city of Hendersonville. So, if we've had a certified officer in the city of Hendersonville that started and they have five years as a certified officer, someone who's worked at another agency for 10 years could come in and be at the same as someone who's done five years at our agency. So, it's basically a 2:1 ratio. This wouldn't impact a department's seniority or anything that um that anything that's outside of pay. So, that would be up to the chiefs on whether they want to allow their prior years of service to impact their seniority as far as scheduling goes. Um that's not what this ordinance is about. This is just about recognizing prior years of service to help with recruitment for police and fire. And largely it'll probably benefit police more than fire because fire I don't think lateral transfers aren't as popular in the fire world. Uh in the police world absolutely. Uh so I think we've even had some folks talks about talking about going to other agencies who allow lateral transfers because they know they can go there and get credit for their years of service to the city. Uh so they're starting at a higher pay at another agency. So I think this is just another tool to help us recruit and get both police and fire on the street faster when we have a vacancy. How do you feel about this, Chief Jones?

I I feel very good about it. We we've actually with in coordination with HR or Mr. Einroth, we've been doing this for a while anyway and recognizing their prior service and I think it's helped us to attract some officers that uh have quite a bit of experience with other agencies who have for whatever reason decided they want to come work for Police Department. So why is um why would it not be a one to1 ratio?

Um well I think for the folks who I mean I think there's a sense of the folks who have worked here at our agency for 10 years um they're probably you know they know our city um there's a sense of loyalty that they've been there. So, I think those if you bring an outsider in who's never been there and they get to start the same day as someone who's been there 10 years serving the city, um I I don't know that that would go real well with the existing officers, but yet the 2:1 ratio is probably still enough of an incentive to someone's going to come. They still understand that they get five years of what they get to match at least at least half to one.

Well, that makes sense. Yeah. And I I mean it could go higher. It could go higher. I mean that's a discussion that this board can have, but um it seems like is much more than we do now. Um and there are some instances like Chief Jones talked. We're struggling to get positions. We'll have some of those informal agreements, but we don't have anything formalized where we can advertise it. We push out, you know, advertising to say, "Hey, we'll recognize lateral transfers." Now, if we're, you know, with with police, we've been struggling to get folks in. So if they've come in as a certified officer and they said, "Hey, you know, we have eight years. We really want to start at a step three or four." We might have those negotiations, but it's not an official policy that we go out and we advertise.

Okay. You have any thoughts?

I mean, I've shared some pros and cons. I do have some reservations about it. Um, it can be morale buster. Um, if you take somebody, and I don't really want to get into entities or talk about other cities or other departments or train or anything like that, but uh, there's a lot that should come into play with that, right? Um, you could take somebody in that has not met the minimum of our 350 to 400 hours of training that's been on a job somewhere else that maybe doesn't have the experience. Even though they've been on the job, they may not have the experience or been in a department that's geared towards developing them. uh and you're going to allow that individual to come in for a two to one split as far as time goes and they would come in potentially higher than a three-year person that is well on their way to our career path and what it looks like for us. So, uh I think it's kill morale if it's not managed appropriately. Um I would only be on on board with it for entry level positions only. uh you're going to kill succession planning if you allow it to happen from any spot other than the ground floor. Uh in my perspective u so I do have some reservations about it

on that thought. I know on the police side they said it would only be officer level. Correct. So firefighter level. Um how do y'all feel since it's well entry level in both departments? I think it's a good policy to have. It establishes what it is. We can advertise it help recruitment, help recruitment.

And one thing we were specific about in here is it does not it doesn't entitle an employee who served at another agency to get that ser that credit. That's completely up to the chiefs. if they don't like maybe the training, if they if they're not comfortable with that, if they're not comfortable with bringing them into their environment that this doesn't entitle someone coming from somewhere else to have lateral pay. We are very clear in that that this does not confer any right. It doesn't obligate the city to do that. It's but it does give the chiefs the ability to do that if they think it's best for their department. So if he had a really good qualified person and then somebody else that wanted to make a lateral that whose training wasn't up to the standard, he doesn't have to hire or even offer them.

No, it's it's meant to give the chiefs the flexibility. And when you know when I'm sure that when we're at 95% capacity with PD, they're not really going to be as interested in lateral transfers. you know, when they're at 15 below capacity, they're going to be more interested in lateral transfer. So that I think this just again just gives us a tool that we can use. We don't have to. It's at the discretion of the chiefs if they think it's best for their department. I just I I agree. I think it's a good tool to be able to use um for entry level positions with fire employees and I like the flexibility will have.

Do you commission? I will make a motion to recommend this to Bulma with a positive approval. Second. All in favor? I I motion carries. Moves to BMA with a positive recommendation. Next we have other agenda items UTV on public highways.

So the mayor had asked me to bring this to the public safety committee. This was a change in the the law of the state of Tennessee has allowed low speed vehicles and medium speed vehicles for the past several years. And what that does is um it kind of started with the golf carts that have been uh modified to be able to meet the requirements under the state law to be utilized on public highway or public streets within neighborhoods. So they actually have about five different classes. They have low speed vehicles, medium speed vehicles, class one and class two vehicles. And the class one and two is really different. So we didn't really get into that in this discussion. But the change to the public chapter, they were including UTVs in the LSV and MSV uh vehicle statute. And and what it does is it just says if you have a vehicle that meets the qualifications, and it's broken down for y'all by a chart here, um of what they have to be to be in in each category. Uh basically the low speed vehicle uh is less than 35 mph. The medium speed vehicles are less than 40 m hour the roads they can be on. Uh the max speed of a low speed vehicle even though it may be capable of doing more. They're only allowed to travel at 25 miles an hour which is why they're restricted pretty much to residential streets. They can cross a major roadway if they cross at a 90 degree angle only. uh medium speed vehicles um are limited to a max speed of 35 miles an hour which open up more roads. What this public chapter has done has said that all low

speed, medium speed and UTVs that meet all these requirements are allowed to travel on any roadway that's less than 45 mph speed 45 miles per hour or less except for restricted access highways. So, a lot of the UTVs, um, some of the side by sides they sell now and stuff, those are actually capable of doing 65 70 m an hour, but they're not allowed to be on like the top pass because it's controlled access highway. It means they could drive on Main Street because the speed limit is 45 hour miles per hour on Main Street. Um, all of the roadways in the city with the exception of the bypass are 45 miles per hour or less. So, they would be able to travel on them if they met all the other requirements, which means they have to have all the same things that a U motor vehicle has on it. They have to have a horn, they have to have turn signals, they have to have tail lights, headlights, seat belts. Under certain conditions with a medium speed vehicle and a UTV, uh if they don't have an enclosed cage or a windshield, they have to wear a helmet. Um so, they've got a lot of restrictions on it. The only thing they said is that municipalities can enter their own restrictions if they so choose. Uh we have not ever entered enacted any kind of legislation restrictions on low speed or medium speed. I don't know that we would be accomplishing anything by putting them on the UVs. We don't see them that often anyway. Uh here in town you're going to see that more in a rural setting. Uh but it it just opens it up a little bit and kind of adds some additional vehicles to this classification. Um but the ones that I that we've seen, the UTVs, they have headlights, they have tail lights, turn signals, windshields. A lot of them

have enclosed cabs on them. And so uh but the one thing we've kind of had this issue in some of the neighborhoods, it has to be a licensed driver. It has to be a person 16 years of age or older with a valid Tennessee driver's license. and they have to have motor vehicle insurance. So, you know, the problems that we have had not been with the ones that are road legal anyway, is the ones that have underage folks driving them around in the neighborhood, neighborhood golf carts,

right? And and they don't even meet the requirements of this. The the vehicle itself doesn't, much less the people driving it. And so as far as us the this part of the law, we've not had any issues with that here in Henderson. The issues with that are the ones that are completely illegal. Anyway, where would a riding lawnmower fall in this? You know, they are not restricted. They are not restricted. Well, they could be at your house. In my yard, Don, come on to my yard.

Okay. So, this this just lays out what the restrictions are, the prohibited areas. Um, if if the city was ever to decide to enact any kind of legislation, it has to go through Bulma and we have to notify the Tennessee Department of Public Safety and the legislature that we're enacting that legislation. So, which would be more strict than this or

the only thing I guess it would be the only only thing that you can can enact that would change anything is if you disallow them on certain streets within the municipality. You can't prohibit them completely, but you could say they can't be on Main Street or they can't be, you know, and then and we've had the question come to us. So there there's actually a class of vehicle that's not in any of these and I some of y'all may have seen them and they're called like a racer and it looks more like a slingshot thing. Yeah. Well, those are considered like motorcycles. Okay.

But the other one is more like a dune buggy for lack of a better term. And those are as long as they meet all of the Tennessee Department of Safety requirements, they're they're legal as a vehicle on the highway. So, you know, they're they're not strictly for off-road. So, and there's some exemptions, but really none of the exemptions that apply to this would apply here in town for the most part because we don't have very much farmland or rural use areas here. So, so are you recommending at this time that we don't do any legislation and just you're I'm not what we have.

Yeah. I mean, if you're I'm just bringing this out that that's the new law. The new public chapter that's going into effect is going to add UTVs into that class of vehicles, Mr. Chairman. Um, so, and that's exactly what I asked Chief to do is you're going to be seeing more of these on the streets because of state legisl legislation. I didn't want y'all to be surprised at that. I wanted y'all to know the possibil know what the likelihood is and also know the possibilities. I don't have a preference on what you do. I don't have a proposal, but I just want to throw this out there if y'all want to think about something and just be a private. That's it.

Can we revisit this in a few months and see if you're having a more issues, if the issues are slowing down? I know my board has a lot of issues with it. Um, I know the police have been a lot. I don't know if it's slowed down, sped up, what's happened with it. We haven't been getting as many complaint. We we did a concerted effort to hit as many neighborhoods as possible and as opposed to starting off strictly with enforcement. I think we wrote a few citations, but what we were doing initially was stopping them, calling their parents to the scene, talking to the parents. I know one of them they stopped. It was a 14-year-old driver and they had like six more people on on the vehicle hanging off various parts of it

and and you know, we made the parents come get the bid, right? And so we we talked to a lot of parents and and that seems to have helped because we did let them know that we were going to start citing them and citing the parents as well as the juvenile if it continued. Have you had to site anybody since you did all of that?

We well again I think we issued a few on the front end just because it required a cit. I mean, it was enough that it needed a citation, but we have not been getting the complaints, and I know the officers are still kind of keeping an eye out for it. Um, I don't know that schools starting back may have had a little something to do with that, but we just haven't received as many complaints, but we'll address it as And again, most of us, they're not the ones that are legal in the first place. Even the vehicles are not legal in the first place. So, what would a citation for too many people on a vehicle like that look like? Unlawful operation or reckless endangerment. It could be fairly serious.

Does anyone remember Officer Joe Clayurn? I do. He found me one day. I'll never forget the guy. Anybody else have any discussion on this? No.

Okay. Next we will go on to uh the updated report for overtime for fire. Uh this came about last year after first station 7 came on board. We met with some numbers and we asked to revisit that a year after fire station 7 has been open. So that's what we will be looking at today is just going over that data. So do you want to lead the discussion or

Sure. Yeah. This was about about a year ago when the committee asked us to track the data for the year. So this is um a year's worth of data that we tracked since fire station 7 has been opened. So in coordination with uh Chief Bush and Miss Val, Miss Val works for it. Um so she is an awesome data analyst and takes all the information from the time sheets that um HFD produces and then she's put them into these spreadsheets where we can visually see the graphics on staffing numbers. So um this is just as a committee asked for this is a year of of the staffing and then at the at the very end there is a one page where I just um did a summary of total overtime hours that were worked during the June to May period. Um, and then I factored in uh basically like a scheduling factor and then said how many how many people would you have to have to take 100% of those overtime hours uh away. And so that would that number down there is you'd have to have 3.71. You obviously can't have 71 of a person. And you will never eliminate overtime. Like there's always going to be overtime. But this was just a way that says how many hours do we have in overtime? How many hours does a person work per year in the fire department? How many of those people would it take to match the hours we had in overtime? But you know, like this week we have a road construction project going on where we have limited access. We're having to stage guys in a fire engine. There's always training operations. So the expectation that we could hire to get completely away from overtime is unrealistic, but this just gives us at least a point of um what it would take in terms of uh manh hours uh to cover the overtime hours we had for the year. So I'll let Val kind of

explain. She put the data together so she can walk through how these graphs were made. um the graphs that look like this. Unfortunately, the page number goes down here. So, there's not a page number on here, but they are all um stamped with the the date and then there's page numbers on these pigraphs, too. So,

yeah, which I I don't actually have your version of that, so I won't be able to reference the page numbers. I apologize if there's specific month or date or graph that you're interested in. Um but yeah, so initially I started working with fire. We had paper time sheets. We worked on that for a while and then they implemented their time tracking software which was amazing. And so now I'm able to actually extract out of that software. I actually get the time entries of up to the minute how the individuals are working their shifts, when they do their shift swaps, where they go, all of the training entries. So I receive every time entry that's entered into that time tracking system and included in my spreadsheet just as a point of reference. I was curious. And so at this point now I have 16,750 individual time entry records that I have to represent that year worth of data. It's all gathered up together. Um and so yeah, so I load that data in. Um I'm not necessarily sure what kinds of information you guys discuss on a regular basis, what facts because it's it's a lot, right? So, I'm taking the time that's been worked um by all staff individuals and I'm tracking on those sheets that represent the individual effort. Now, you'll notice I think most of you that have it open are looking at the same sheet which is um

July. Yeah, the July and it's the bar graph that goes um vertical and it shows you every day of that. So, um is this the first time everyone's looking at this or has this been discussed in previous meetings? I don't I don't think But it's the first time it's being discussed as a as a we haven't seen it before this package.

Okay. Just making sure. I was wasn't sure if you had seen it prior. So what this graph is going to represent for you, you'll notice there's um uh dark blue bars. And those dark blue bars that go vertical, they are on each individual day represent the number of individuals and hours worked on that day to staff the apparatus. Um there is then next to each bar on each day represents the defined perfect day meaning how many individuals are available to be scheduled based on that given shift. Right? So that light blue bar represents that I have set up the system to be able to show over time. We can always show whatever however many individuals were scheduled or available to be scheduled at any point in time. This represents that July number for each individual day based on A, B, and C shift. And then you'll notice there is a purple bar. Um that purple bar, yeah, like this. So this represents what's necessary to run the day. There are 29 individuals which are necessary to actually at a minimum run the day of the shift, including the two command persons necessary. if there's an an incident they have to run the show is my understanding right so that's what that bar represents the minimum number to actually staff all of the department all of the stations and then the lower bar which I think is kind of looks kind of red orange um that bar represents the like if I and chief Bush if I say this incorrectly I apologize the minimum number required to like at a minimum this is what's necessary to run the apparatus and be legal right so that that's not what it takes takes to actually run the department. Right? So that's what that number I think if I'm saying it correctly represents that to have all the apparatus staffed.

That would assume that a division chief and a battalion chief would hop on a piece of equipment which we don't do. Right. So 27 because we have nine pieces of equipment. Um but we don't run a battalion chief or division chief on equipment. So that's why the 29 number is there. That's really the number that for operations is a better number to look at. Yeah. So I believe that's what that represents and how many individuals were were available and that um reflects that that was for you. Yeah. Are there questions about that sheet? So in July we were on the 18th we were short.

Yeah. So normally when if we get into the granular data on that it may been that a guy showed up an hour late. Um, that's very rare in those circumstances where I think the fire department does a really good job of making sure that those that those numbers are at 29. Sometimes if someone, you know, car breaks down, they show up an hour late, they leave a shift an hour early, it'll just drop it for maybe the last hour of the day or the beginning hour of the day. So that's why it's 28.9.

Yeah. Anytime that you see a number below 29, I would say it's probably something that happened that somebody had to leave. And it's easier to not feel that for an hour, right? By the time you called somebody, they got dressed, got to work, it's going to be shift change or they're back. Like if they had to leave for a family emergency, uh we would just send an engine with a truck to do that. We do we don't like to do that, but for an hour, we'll manage that versus trying to call somebody to try to round them up to come in and work overtime. Okay.

So, if you see something below 29, it's typically going to be uh as Mr. Earen said, you know, somebody had a car trouble. Um they woke up late, which there'll be punitive damage for them on the back side of that. But, uh with that being said, it could be they're they're at work and they leave at 7 o'clock at night. Uh we had a guy just a little while ago, his kid was involved in an accident and he had to leave. So we had to get overtime to back field that and we have to wait, right? It might just be a period of 30 40 minutes for that person to get here that we drop below that number and but those are reflected in the time sheet. So Miss Val does plug them in. That's why you'll see some right

on the chief push on that apparatus support requirement that line where does that number come from? from state law or from the people that make the equipment or

no it's a well I mean we don't meet NFPA recommendations NFPA recommendations are four per piece of equipment that's their minimum staffing uh I think I've shared with you guys before uh you take a residential fire uh they want for your ISO purposes they want at least 18 people on a fire ground uh if we only have three staff uh per piece of equipment you have to send more equipment so let's just say if you were to have a house fire in zone one and then had another house fire in zone six. Uh you're probably going to have to reach out to a a local agency to help come support that for you to have enough people on operational fire ground. Uh otherwise you don't your ISO because ISO when they come in they don't evaluate you on your medical responses. They evaluate you only on your fire calls and if you do not have adequate staffing then it starts affecting your ISO rate.

Okay? And I mean there's been tons of studies. I can be glad some of you guys may not have that. I can resend that back out that talks about you take a strip mall, you take a multif family dwelling, an apartment complex, that constitutes a larger response. Uh matter of fact, if I'm remembering correctly, that FPA recommendation says if it's a strip mall or a multif family like an apartment complex, they want like 42 people. So on a normal day, we would not meet the recommendations for that. Okay?

And we we still go and do what we can do, right? But um let's take the deal in Massachusetts where there was 10 people that just passed away in a in a fire um and there was not adequate staffing to do enough rescues. Uh and so there's a big hubbub about that if you pay attention to that. And so there's a big push for requiring four people per piece of equipment. Okay. Which I know costs money, but this is based on three. So this is this is based on based on three. That's correct. Have we ever had two fires at the same time?

Uh, it's happened uh in my 10 years as being chief maybe three times. But again, we're we're an insurance policy just like anything else really in public safety. It's if it happens that you've got an adequate response ready to to deal with it. You want to talk about this? Sure. Ask a question just clarification on this. So the the top part, the bar part is just talking about persons. Correct. We're talking about the hours for those persons. Correct. Hours come into play with the pie charts. Correct. And the and the persons are calculated based on a 24-hour shift day. So it is a fundamentally a calculation um from the hours. Yes.

When we're fully staffed, we have 37 per shift. That's our max number. 37 on all three shifts. We have 111 people in suppression.

And you you see the the 35 I'm looking at December. I don't have July in front of me. Um yeah, that's what everybody's kind of looking to. I can at least speak to that. If you look at that, I'm not sure. I guess this is all shifts. You'll see 36 36 35 36 36 35. Um you see a consistency there. That means two shifts had 36 people. uh where we had one vacancy uh the third day is where they have two vacancies. They don't have 37 people to pull from. So that in turn reduces the opportunity for days off. That in turn reduces the opportunities for schools. It it has an overall effect on what we do uh dayto-day.

I have a question. I I don't know if I'm thinking about this the right way, Chief Bush. Um sorry. I'm I'm not sure if I'm thinking about this the right way, but this is how many people are available to provide the service, but that is correct. We know like what the response time is because that's the level of service. So, is that impacted when we have dips? Well, with our report that we do, we have anything that correlates how many people are on staff to our response times, which is our level of service.

Yeah. So it's factored in the annual report that we came out with this year has all that in detail. It shows our turnout times. It shows our response time and then you're uh supposed to have a certain amount of apparatus of people on the ground. What I'm saying is do we know if that response time fluctuates when we have fewer people um working? I would say it's not affected because that it doesn't matter if we have the minimum staffing which seems like we have a lot still drive as fast, right? Yes, the turnout time is still expected, the response time is still expected, etc.

And the reason that we showed the light blue because that's what's available for staff, you know, what's scheduled for the day against the dark blue is that we can't assume because it takes 29 people. We can't just have 29 on the schedule. Yeah.

Because you have vacation, sick, all those things. So you you can see we're we have 36 on the schedule, but on the on day one we have 29 show up, meaning we absorb seven people with vacation and sick and FMLA, but we have to have those extra staff built in because you're going to have people sick, vacation, and all those. So that's what the light blue is for, just to show you, we're absorbing all that, but you have to staff in excess of what you need because those folks are not going to be there every day. we can go on to the

Sure. So it it appears as if the second page in each of the monthly packets then is represented by this is going to give you the two pie charts. All right. So at the top you've got department leave hours by month. So this is uh across the various leave categories um based on how they're coded. So really, it's just kind of giving you a sense of when when you're indicating we're absorbing it to accommodate for. This is leave that you can anticipate in in any staffing scenario that you're going to have to accommodate for. Um, and it just shows you the breakdown of those various categories uh for each individual given month and where where that time is being leveraged. Um, and so any questions about that top one or any discussion I guess that if you wanted to have about

clarification? Yeah, I'm so sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Cuz when I read this, it says department leave. That means fire department. Fire department. Yes. This entire thing is always going to be just exclusive. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Okay. Just I'd like to add to if I can u with those numbers, those 37 when we're completely fully staffed. Due to Kelly days, you automatically come on shift every day knowing you're going to be down two people because those Kelly days we have at least two, if sometimes not three people that are mandated by FLSA law to be off. Otherwise, we're paying them overtime. So, there's days that you start with 37 in theory, but two of them are going to be off for Kelly days, and there's some days there's three or four off Kelly days.

I have a question. So, Kelly days, you're mandated to be off. Correct. Or you pay those folks to have the overtime because when we did our tours, a lot of them said, "I'm working for so and so, so I'm working two days in a row."

So, they they do shift swaps, right? We allow shift swaps, which is allowable by law. Uh, and then like I said, the Kelly days is part of the FLSA, 27-day work cycle, 53-hour work week, 204 for the month that their overtime threshold goes towards. We can get way in the weeds on that, but the what I guess my point being that most every day when we start on shift, you're at least 35 people. It never is 37 because you always have to account for those Kelly days. that they can work two days in a row, whether they either are swapping a shift or getting paid overtime. They have that ability to. Yes. Okay. Yes. So, a lot of the overtime is done working.

Yes. If you see an overtime shift like the pie chart indicates, that means somebody took the overtime because we were short staff. Gotcha. So, so you pay overtime when we're less than 29 staff. Correct. Yes, sir. That's the That's the trick. Yes, sir. Then you start asking people what they want. Yes, sir. We have an automatic call back system that's done um systematically. So, if you took overtime today and it was offered up again tomorrow, you'd be at the bottom of the list. We try to give everybody a fair opportunity to rotate through that opportunity to get overtime. And with the the the recent federal legislation, is overtime tax-free?

I I don't know enough to speak legislatively about that. I know there's been a lot of discussion about it. Uh I do not know the answer to that to to be speak about it. Yeah. To a limit. So there's a limit on how much of it is. I think it's 15 or 25,000 that's taxfree on over time. Goes more directly to the firefighter when he does work overtime increase. Okay. So that I think that answers my question. So when you have I saw a couple of months where you have heavy vacation months. That's how you cover is you have to pull overtime to cover those because yeah in July what

what we do is we do vacation based off seniority. We call and ask folks, "What do you want for vacation this year?" We try to plan it out, but then you get the FMLA, you get the military leave, somebody leaves, whatever. And these folks have already got trips planned. You're not going to pull them back from vacation, right? That would kill morale. And obviously, if it drops us below because of an injury, an illness, or a family emergency, something like that, then yes, we pay the overtime. Okay.

Okay. And so then again just um below is then going to just represent the the categories of that worked time um broken down um in terms of those overtime really the overtime hours and just give you a sense the percentage of the overall workday and and overtime for those for that given month. Um and then the next pie chart. So I guess that would be what page three u monthly general summary just kind of a higher less broken down um but within a single pie chart to give you a sense of the amount of uh hours being worked over the course of the month percentages versus those uh leave hours for that month that are taken any leave hours that are taken and then as well the the overtime percentage for that given month of the overall hours worked. Um and so that gives you the opportunity to be able to assess from month to month and like you were mentioning the you know the higher vacation months right you're going to see a higher number there

and so like what this pie chart will show is you know this represents everyone we have well some people are working that's red some people are on leave vacation FMLA whatever that is and some people are working overtime so this just captures the whole picture so you have 81% of folks actually there that's the scheduling ratio So you only have 81% of folks um well plus you have 2.41% of overtime and 16% that are on some type of leave. So you can figure around 15 to 20% are on some type of leave. And so that's why you have to schedule in excess of of your minimums.

And then this data, this is the month of um July that we're looking at, but this is just a a repeat for every single month for 12 months. This was helpful for y'all. kind of break it down. Wonderful. Good. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Well, on the So, we go to the last page. That's something that I put together about it. So, you might want to check the math on that because Val didn't check me on that. No. Um, well, and I guess it's a chief push question. What I mean the high month is October and the low month is February for over for um worked OT hours.

Yeah. Is how does I mean how does October is it just more fires or how did it get so high in overtime because that's not one of the vacation months fall. Oh, is that what it is? Yes, sir. And and so why would February be so low? It's cold and nobody goes anywhere. Could be. Could be. I would think there's more fires in the winter than there is the summer, but and it's the shortest month. But would fall break run up a thousand hours of overtime? I'd say easily. Oh, really? Yes, sir. Okay.

On the comment, I think it's commendable. We opened fire station 7 and I don't think we've hired any new firefighters since then. It's it's pretty remarkable remarkable to me that that FD has been able to manage that, you know, uh with limited uh overtime hours. So, I think this is a this is a a pat on the back the fire department for being able to manage that. And we have requested, haven't we, Carrie? Three three. Have we heard anything on that? The budget we approved three, right? Have you heard anything on the do you have any idea of when we were here?

No. Darren Scott about him pulling money out of FEMA and everywhere else may be delaying the whole grant process AFG and s. So well I add to that Eddie I'm pretty impressed that the majority of our numbers are less than 2%. Yes.

For overtime. That's a sign of good management to me. I didn't have to look at it that way. I'd like to say something. I think it is. I think you're right. But I think the the last page here is very good. It's kind of like, okay, so what do we do with that? And so I think we're talking all around. It's great that we're doing that, but we've spent three over spent $300,000 on overtime. And what do we need to do to lessen that dollar amount and put it in the right bucket by hiring new people? That's what we today was just to go over the data. That's what you're doing with this.

And the goal is we've already approved three. If they get the grant and if they don't, we're going to have to revisit this. Got it. That's why I wanted to know if we had any type of time for the money's already been approved. Got it. Okay. Um so we're waiting to hear on that, but this was gave us a better picture, I think, a little bit of kind of what's happening. Anything else from anybody? I just how do how do they feel about that many overtime hours? Do they like the overtime or do they wish that there was more staff? I mean, you asked the question. I'm gonna be honest. Okay. Because I just I don't know. I love it. It depends on the person, right? And you're going to it takes its toll on them.

Um because you think about it, we're gone for 24 hours or they're gone for 24 hours when they come in. if they get hit another 24 hours tomorrow, that's their choice if they want to work it or not. So that means they have two days now away from their families, child care, whatever issues may be going on. We don't have any way of knowing that. They get one day off and they're back to work the next day. So the chance to recover mentally, physically, the whole nine yards is reduced and that takes its toll on people over time. I'm just going to be honest since you asked the question and I think uh staffing plays a part into that. Now, I don't know what the magic number is. I know it's about dollar and cents. I never never shy away from that. I understand that there's only certain things you can do. Um, but it it does eventually take its toll on staff. Matter of fact, it can push them towards uh using sick leave, not coming in on their days to work. It can do a lot of different things to them that we cannot control as far as administrators. to be shared.

Anybody else? Anything? All right. Do I have a motion? Motion to adjurnn. All in favor? Bye. Hey, Chief.