City Council - Regular Meeting

All righty.

Okay, great. All right. Um, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Hi everybody. Um, clerk, will you do we do roll call? Yeah. Okay. Corus here. Hi Burton here. Morales here. Nash. Steed here. Willitz here.

Five present, one absent. All right. Um before Christine gets going, we've got both Christine and Aaron here today to um discuss. Um but today we're going to hear from our Oh, and and she um Chris Dennison, too. Thank you. Um we're going to hear from public safety departments today about staffing needs. Um this is a followup from prior budget discussions where um we've all agreed, myself and council, that um this is a priority. Um, but as we've been discussing, we're continuing to operate in a fiscally constrained environment. Um, and so we don't have the resources to simply add everybody all at once, add all the things all at once. Um, because as we know, costs are rising. Um, revenues are continue to be constrained and we need to make sure that we're both caring for current employees, investing it in and taking care of the infrastructure we have while thinking about how we grow and deliver well for residents. Um so with these in mind, I've directed staff to identify potential creative options for increasing um funding for public safety staffing levels both in the short term and in the long term. So after we hear from both chiefs, Christine, you're up here now, but um you're going to be talking to us as well about some options that could provide relief um help us meet the needs that we know we have um while providing relief. Um, and then at two weeks from now, we'll be hearing from the chiefs again at the first budget workshop along with all the other department directors. And then at that point, we'll be talking about the complete package of FY27 budget recommendations that will be coming from the leadership team and me um to discuss um and it there's they're developed in a way to meet the shared goals and priorities of the council as well. So with that, Christine, are you starting us off? Great. Thanks. Thank you, mayor, for that introduction. Um, members of the council, nice to be with you today. I'm Christine Miller, the deputy chief of staff for public

safety and infrastructure. And our plan for today, um, just do a little bit of context setting by me. Um, we'll have both of the chiefs speak with you about their staffing needs. Um, and as mayor said, I'll return, um, to talk with you about potential funding approaches moving forward. So, as you all um probably remember from the past couple of years, uh we've entered a citywide planning uh window to really make sure that we are aligning all of the city departments, programs, services, and looking uh beyond just a one-year budget view to a multi-year view to ensure that we're really aligning around our needs for uh facilities, staffing, and technology. Um you may remember a couple of years ago uh the public safety team so police and fire worked closely together to develop strategic plans um that were tightly aligned um we'll look revisit their four common pillars um and over the past year um after direction by council la about this time last year um those two departments have been working to develop a consolidated public safety facility plan um that is nearing completion and we'll be bringing that back to you um later this summer. Um so the public safety u priority pillars in both of their strategic plans um are built around four things. Response evolution which is really understanding that the world is changing around us. So we want to be proactive in changing the way we provide services to ensure that we're meeting um evolving and growing community needs. workforce stabilization. Um making sure that we are doing everything we need to do to recruit and retain uh top employees. Um really making sure that we

are develop um deploying our uh sorry my brain just shorted out there. making sure that we're efficiently deploying the resources that we have and then um as mayor referenced really making sure that we're taking care of the existing employees to make sure that we're retaining a strong workforce. That third pillar is capital planning. Um so that really speaks to making sure that um both fire and police have the facilities they need but also the equipment and the technology. And then that fourth pillar is employee wellness. um especially with first responders, making sure that our team is not just fully staffed, but they're fully supported and ready to respond um is very important to us. And across both departments, making sure that we're in attending to their holistic wellness has been a top priority. So, with all of that hopefully being familiar, um context setting, today the chiefs are back to talk about their staffing needs. And again, I just want to underscore and really appreciate the two of them working together. Um, this has been a very coordinated and collaborative approach. Um, no surprises. Um, you're going to hear from them that they do have aspirations for growing both the police um, and fire teams. And that is something as mayor said, we can't do all in one year. So, you'll be hearing from them about a multi-year strategy. Um and then I will be back up to talk with you about a funding approach that acknowledges the general fund constraints um but presents a couple of options for um a way that we can add staffing to both of these departments in a a number of years. So with that I will hand it over to Chief Dennis.

Good afternoon. Um, so I'll jump in on when we're looking at our uh response evolution. So, we want to continue expanding our um community policing, our investig investigations capacity. That's going to be huge for us. Multiple ways we've done that is through the investment with Axon that was slotted for this fiscal um and we're moving forward with that. That's a new records management system, new report writing system. Um, came with it. We got it the upgraded taser system for the less lethal operations. With that also came virtual reality training um that we're deploying now for officers. It helps us continue that training fidelity that we're looking for for deescalation communication and employing um different tactics when needed. Um, also one of the things that we're talk about when it gets like the 1.8 eight uh per thousand residents on our officer staffing is that right now Boise for the most part is a full service police department. We don't have a crime lab that does every aspect of we're able to um work with the state police and the sheriff's department currently currently handles our property and evidence um which is great for us now. Um but outside that the Boise Police Department is a full service police department. We're able to respond to those 911 calls, all traffic collisions. We do a lot of proactive work. Having an agency that has as many personnel, about a third of the agency dedicated to the community outreach division, I think is super impressive. Um, and that would be our school resource officers, our neighborhood contacts officers, our community oriented policing um officers. They're doing a lot of our reactive plane close work, um some of our undercover operations, our motor traffic details, um the DUI teams. So, those are huge uh for us. So that fits in as we want to continue to expand that community engagement and outreach component. Um enhancing our investigation ability to ensure that our case closure rates um remain as good as they are, that our investig that um we're able to respond to the needs of the community as um and complete the investigations we need to.

Um when it comes to that 1.8 per thousand, this isn't all going to go to just patrol officers. Obviously, it's going to be spread out throughout the agency. um our strategic plan calls to get hopefully get to that point within 10 years. We know that going from where we're at, which is about 1.35 per thousand to 1.8, is a huge ask. Um, and we're looking at a model that enables our patrol officers to have 60% of time allocated for those 911 calls for service and response times and 40% unallocated for doing that proactive work that we're looking for, working neighborhood problems, doing traffic enforcement, doing community outreach, um, events, and making sure our patrol teams are engaged. Um, the same as the rest of our agency. Additionally, uh, 4:1 ratio on professional staff. So, for every four officers we hire, we're looking for one additional professional staff person to come on board. That's going to include um our public records, our records team that's going to be managing. Obviously, we have more officers, more records are going to be passing through, making sure that we're completing our the requirements federally and that those reports are done accurately. Our community or I'm sorry, our criminal intelligence teams are staffed, almost all professional staff. Uh our PRR team for the public records requests. Also, I think a big component is going to be our community service officers. We have really tried within the PD to put the right work in the right hands and where we can use professional staff to work certain areas of the PD that does not need a sworn police officer. We want to do that. So, we're we're us utilizing our sworn police officers where they need to be, which is responding to those imminent threats of life um with life or property. We have them in the field doing traffic stops and doing that enforcement that we want them to see. Um, so that is where that four 4:1 ratio comes from that we feel will be necessary to maintain that as the department grows. Um, and then I know Christine teased a little bit on the capital planning. There's a there's a couple big things for us that are really going to be

important. One is we're looking at a Boise area law enforcement training center. Uh, Idaho State Police is actually going to be closing down their track that currently is a meridian, their EVOC track for emergency vehicle operations for training. That's going to be imperative. We are going to need a track to conduct that level of training both for basic training and for ongoing training. Um, and we also need to have a place to actually train our officers. Our basic academy actually we do it out of city hall west. So we have a small classroom that the that we train our officers at. We do a lot of our scenarios actually in the back parking lot of city hall west. Um, so we're looking at a campus in the future that will enable us to do all of our basic training at an off-site location where all the resources are available there. classrooms, defensive tactics, weight rooms, areas and spaces that we can actually build out for uh scenario- based training. That campus would also be helpful for our ongoing block training that we have a place that we can send our officers to for their uh quarterly block trainings and service trainings to continue that the training facility that we're looking for in scenario based training, deescalation, communication, and appropriate use of weapon systems when needed. Um and then uh another big component is going to be a police um east side campus. So that we would look at is uh moving police headquarters to the east side, have a publicf facing police facility on the east side of the city. um that allow residents, community members to go to to make reports, hold meetings, but additionally have something that's purpose-built for the PD where we have um evidence processing locations. We have evidence storage locations. Uh we're able to have sally ports holding cells as needed and build out for uh standing up a second patrol division. So, we'd have a potentially either a bench or west uh patrol division and a valley or east patrol division. Um that's what we're looking for. And with the idea of future growth where we may not be able to rely on the rely on the county forever, you know,

um, for property and evidence, are we going to have a space where we're going to be able to put in a property evidence warehouse in and looking down the road that may be 10, 15, 20 years down the road, but that we have that space and we're thinking about that now. Um, and as we build out some of those some of those locations, we can look at some of the areas where we currently uh the Branup location, we currently lease that now for a variety of functions for the PD and being able to get away from that lease and look at something a little different. Um, and again, as Christine alluded, uh later this summer, we'll be coming back with the public safety facility uh master plan. Um, and then also looking at employee wellness. I have been uh clear since I started here that's going to be hu that's huge for me. Um we've really doubled down on the struggle world program with the builderrest foundation partnering with um Boise Fire on that really getting our personnel in learning uh giving them the training needed to deal with instance not looking at post-traumatic stress and how to get over that but looking at that post-traumatic growth. How can you go through some of these things and come out stronger? Um and my philosophy is healthy people help people hurt people hurt people. and if we're working to make sure our people are healthy, they're going to go out and do a good job for us. Um, so investing in that, continuing to vest in that is going to be huge. Um, we've had several classes already. We have we've done two this year. We're doing four more throughout the year. So we'll have six total this year and looking to expand that into 27. Um, and just again to give you an idea, and this is just the PD side, I know fire is pretty close on these numbers. Um but there's uh studies that the NIJJ has looked at that the average person in their lifetime will go through three to five traumatic incidents. Um and if you look at a police officer over the course of their career, they're going to hit anywhere from about 150 to 200 traumatic incidents during the course of a career. So it is something that we're very cognizant in. I think it's an evolution we've seen both in police and fire and looking at that wellness component for our officers. Um, so that'll be that's going to be uh continue to be a big

point of uh work for the police department and the fire department. So break down into our critical needs and broke this into three different sections uh with priority one is uh training sergeant. I currently have one sergeant assigned to one lieutenant and a captain who oversees our entire training division. So that's our basic training where we're averaging um two to three uh classes a year between basic training and lateral police officers coming in and managing the field training program. Additionally, they manage all of the block training that our personnel go through four times a year and our firearms training and weapons proficiency training. So it's a lot that's channeling up through one sergeant. Um, and what what we're looking at, we see this as a huge uh a huge pain point for the PD and having a second sergeant in there where we can break off the block training to continue that advanced officer training and put basic training under a separate sergeant to ensure we're getting the fidelity and the training that we need that we have sergeant two sergeants with eyes on both those programs to ensure that we're seeing the fe we getting the feedback we want from our line level personnel. um we're meeting the needs of the agency and they're able to keep up with best practices and not be pulled in uh so many different directions. Uh we stood up a a juvenile uh investigations unit. Uh we assigned detectives in that and that is allowing our SRO's to work sustain the schools longer so they're not going out doing the follow-up work that they were doing before. However, we added those detectives down to our special investigation section. That currently gives me 19 detectives between our special victims and our child investigative teams. So, I have 19 detectives and two sergeants. Those are the cases that keep me up at night. Those are, you know, the ones with child abuse, child sexual assault, adult sex assault. Those really um uh vulnerable victims and ensuring that those cases are being uh handled appropriately. I

have a team that's doing a fantastic job, but that's a lot of burden on two sergeants, managing call out constantly for 19 detectives and everything that they're doing there. So, to me, that's a critical need, adding a third sergeant down there to manage that case load, ensure that we're dotting all the eyes, crossing the tees, and ensuring those investigations are completed thoroughly and on time. Uh, we're also looking at filling the RCFL detective, which is the regional uh computer forensics laboratory. It's a task force officer position with the FBI. um that detective invest uh we have one detective currently assigned there. Um last update I had uh they're holding a case load of about 30. We had one that one detective retired we just replaced on that. So they're breaking into everything that we need for a criminal investigations uh phones, laptops and it's touching everything um that the PDC sees from child exploitation to homicide to financial fraud cases. Um those detectives are involved in that. So much of what we're seeing from a crime standpoint is uh it lives on our cell phones and it lives in our computers. So having adding a second position to that will enable to ensure that we get uh those investigations back in a more timely fashion. Uh each case depending whether it's a phone if it's a phone maybe about 20 hours computer it's about 40 hours worth of work per case. So, it's a lot of there's a lot of time that's invested in that for a detective to get through that, process that information, and get it back to the uh the actual detective assigned to the case. Um, strategic planning and technology manager. Obviously, I came last year to present uh BPD strategic plan. It's pretty ambitious plan over the next 10 years. Um and we're adapting a lot of new technology into the department going away from disparate systems through the Axon um the Axon platform but that's new records management system that's going to be new report writing system we have uh internal affairs our standard system that'll flow into that our body cameras um the our field photo cameras everything we're trying to funnel as

much into that system as possible and overlaying that with our strategic plan right now the way we it's kind of broken up a little. It's a little clunky. We're It's working for us, but I do have a captain on the technology side that is running point on all the new technology we're that's coming in in addition to running our um professional staff section. So, it he's in charge of all of our hiring, internal affairs, our HR compliance. There's a lot of things that that captain's doing and getting a dedicated person to ensure that BPD is on track on the strategic planning that we're meeting the missions of the plan. We're constantly checking the health of that and somebody that's helping manage all the new technologies that BPD is bringing on board will be critical to ensure our success. Um, and one of the other critical needs is I want to continue to expand our bike unit. I it provides a fantastic service for the downtown area, the green belt. Uh, currently have six officers deployed on the bike team. So, going to be continuing looking to expand that. Um, I think it from us it's a it's a good like community ambassadorship, but it also helps provide stability along the green belt to keep those crime numbers low and a good police presence. And um, with interface sanctuary moving up further north to State Street, it allows it allows me to expand that bike team's patrol even further along the green belt just make sure we're responsive to any needs um that pop up in the future. So, uh, party two is going to be as the, uh, as the department has grown and just looking at when I came in, we've been trying to rightsize supervision to, um, making sure span of control is appropriate. Um, a big part when we're looking at stabilization for the priority 2 is our patrol sergeant stabilization. I have some patrol sergeants that are in a good spot. They're supervising about seven to eight people. I have other sergeants that are supervising upwards of 11. Um that creates a little bit of consternation for me. I do want to get our patrol supervision down to about

seven to eight per sergeant to include the corporal program which is we're on boarding now. We're seeing success with that with the first five in. We'll continue to expand that program. Um but patrol is the backbone of any agency. They're the most dynamic. They're constantly out there. They're there 24/7. Um and to ensure that I have adequate supervision out there monitoring police operations is important. So that will be a priority. um ask for us in the in the near future is adding additional patrol sergeants for to stabilize that. Um our BHRT team I am going to be asking uh in the future to get funding to staff a supervisor position there. Uh right now we're thinking that most likely be a non-swarm position. they will be able to uh help facilitate some of the work that's going on with our BHR team and partnering with some of the private organizations and uh hospital groups just to make sure that we're getting the people that need the help into the right places and making that team as effective as possible. Um our cso asking for a cso3 position in the near future that will continue looking at putting the right work in the right hands. We have csos spread out throughout the department. They're help out at the front desk. They're in our patrol teams. They're in investigations. We have one assigned into training to help with wellness and training, additional training of CSOS. And again, it's looking at where can I remove a police officer, put a professional staff person in place that will get the work done and I can put the cops out where they need to be. Um, and then utilize the CSOS in the field where we can. And we're seeing great success with those. We want to continue that and build that program. Um, and then traffic. That is something we have certainly doubled down on within this PD. Our numbers are up quite a bit. Uh, I think we're looking about a 49% increase in traffic stops this year year to date compared to last year. And last year we were already up. Um, I think we're going to we're floating around 17,000 traffic stops conducted year to date this year already. Um, so we want to continue that trend, making sure Boise is as safe as possible to drive in with all the increased vehicle traffic and the growth

within the valley. So, um, adding an additional motor sergeant uh, and two motor officers. Right now, our motor, we have one motor sergeant and they do a lot of work on our special events and our planning there. It takes up a lot of their time and they're and they're working the making sure their officers are out in the field doing the work they're doing uh they need to do responding to community complaints and analyzing traffic uh issues and responding appropriately and coordinating with ACD and adding an additional sergeant there will make sure that we're having adequate supervision over all of those factors and getting the getting the mission accomplished. Uh and then so priority three for us will be uh expanding community policing investigations. So BPD again is very unfort is very fortunate with our community uh outreach division. We want to continue strengthening that model. We think that is the key. Actually, I have no doubt that is the key that keeps our our crime numbers so low is that we have officers that go out proactively engage um with the community to uh deal with issues before they become major issues and as a uh issues rise, we're able to address those quickly. So, um adding additional neighborhood contact officers back in. Our neighborhood contact officer team is right about five officers and a sergeant. um we had pulled a handful of officers away and put them in our community um or in a policing team. They're doing a lot of that reactive work that pops up where it's neighborhood complaint for potential drug use um or other crimes that are popping up. They're kind of a jack of all trades for us that we can deploy do plane close work. They can do uniform work. They can hit all the pieces from a reactive team that we need as a PD to respond to community issues and crime that patrol just won't be able to. They can invest that time and energy into that. Um, so we're seeing that team is doing really well, but that also is putting a lot of burden on our neighborhood contact teams. We want to

grow that team back out over the next couple years. Um, and again, bike officers are going to be a big one for us. We like having them down the green belt and being able to expand the times they're working. Um, and uh, they're spread along the green belt. Uh, want to continue enhancing our specialty units. Right now, the things that are that we think that are going to be uh needed in the very near future um is going to be a cyber crimes unit. Again, everything that we're seeing goes back into our phones online, the digital pres um presence that people have and having teams that are able to get into that uh work those cases um and partner partner with our federal um our federal partners on dealing with crimes whether they're here locally or internationally, which we have done with BPD and had success. Um but again e everything is moving to online and our cell phones and computers. So it's going to be really important for us uh to continue to grow both fraud and our cyber crimes unit. Uh and then um our advanced uh intervention. We want to continue to grow our behavioral health response teams. Uh our school prevention. Uh if I had enough cops, I put a cop in every school in the city of Boise. Um I I think that's huge. That's going to be hugely important. And then some of the things we're looking to do in the interim before we can, you know, as we're trying to build out the PD to rightsize everything is looking at what can we do internally, uh, looking at offering potentially an advanced CIT training course for a handful of officers to help augment our patrol teams and our BHRT teams. Um, into in addition to our crisis negotiation team that comes out for very acute incidents. Uh, so those are those are going to be the uh the the main three priority asks of the PD. All right, I will turn it over to

make Yeah, maybe before ready. You're okay. Okay, I can do that. Okay, thank you. Um, Chief, thank you so much for the presentation. I had a couple of questions. Um, one of the things that you mentioned was that the aspiration is for 60% of the time to be 911 calls and 40% to be more proactive in traffic. What's our current delineation?

Madame Mayor, Council Member Willitz, uh, we think right now we're fairly close on that. Um, it it probably isn't quite where we wanted to be, but we are seeing a lot of we're seeing a lot of good work done from our officers. I can tell you if I look at what we've done, we've increased field operations. Last year was by 10% including uh 911 calls for service and proactive engagement from police officers. So we have increased that workload. We're already up another 4% year to date this year. So we are getting concerned that we're going to be getting to a uh a breaking point where we're going to start we're going to start seeing fall-offs with that. Um but to get us to the point where we are, we put a hard a hardline um floor on our patrol teams of 125 deployable officers and we're not dropping below that for patrol teams to fill special assignments. So as we get additional people in, we graduate them from the academy patrol bumps up over 125, then we can start back filling specialty assignments. Um we're in a really good spot right now. We continually keep bumping up against our maximum authorized. Uh so but we do anticipate that is with the growth of the valley and the change in crime and call patterns that's going to continue to increase.

Thank you madam mayor. One more. Uh I'm very interested in adding to the bike unit particularly for the green belt. I get a lot of constituent inquiries about the safety of the green belt mostly ebikes where they feel like they're going to get run over at any minute um because of the high speed. And so I'm curious at another time where we can talk about how and what we can do for that so that people feel safe because we've got a lots of different modalities on the green belt and I think having a police presence is part of it. Yeah. Madam Mayor, Council Wills, I completely agree. It's it's a complex problem, but I think it's something we can probably work through. So

yeah, Madam Mayor, um Chief, thanks again for being here. Like I said, this is why we love having you here. um because there's always questions and it's always great to have your insight and trying to think about the things that you're thinking about at the same time. Um I'm always so excited to see the continued focus on on mental health and the struggle well program. I always say that like on everybody's worst day, we need you all to be on your best day. That's a really challenging thing to do. So, thanks for your investment there. And then also in in prioritizing some of the training um because I think that starting at that training early on and throughout you know officers careers is just such a great way to get an exponential return out of everyone. Um I do have another math question for you like council member Will. So you had mentioned a 4:1 ratio for admin. I'm kind of curious um two things. One where do you think we're at about now? And then two like why is that that goal important? If you could outline that a little bit more. Yeah, Madame Mayor uh Madame Mayor, Council Member Hallebert, yeah, we we're right about that uh 4 to1 ratio. So, for us, it is looking at putting the right work in the right hands. And I'll go back to that. Um making sure we have enough personnel and records um to handle that. I came from a police department where the person that sat in HR and sent out special assignments and postings for jobs was a sworn person. That does not need to be a sworn police officer. That officer should be in the field. We're looking at how we span our um staff our front desk, looking, can that be professional staff so we can take that police officer, put them back out in the field. So, it really is looking at ensuring that we have police officers doing police officer work, professional staff doing the appropriate professional staff work, and then expanding our cso footprint to respond to calls for service that we don't necessarily need a police officer to get to. that enables us to get to that 60/40 and maintain that 60/40 patrol um patrol time and invest in our investigations. We're utilizing uh our cso teams, our investigations. They can do a ton of work in that space that doesn't require a sworn detective to do.

Um so that's that's where that number hits and we think that from a PD standpoint that puts us in a good spot and we'll continue to evaluate that as as the department grows.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. I think that that's such a um a great thing to be thinking about. you've got folks that have so much expertise and training and specialization in certain areas and sometimes it seems like a pity to pull them away from those types of things especially if it's needed out there um at the exact same time. So finding out ways for those admin positions or those civilian positions to really allow them to do the best their best work at their best skills I think is is so great. Um nothing else beyond there just appreciate seeing the priorities. It's definitely you know multiple asks. I think we're going to talk about how we're going to fund that um you know long term some of that soon because there's definitely a lot of wants there but nothing in those priorities that you know isn't the direction that I've heard you and and others talking about for a long period of time. So thanks

mayor chief uh a couple questions for you first. Um thank you for also bringing up motors officers. I think when we talk about traffic enforcement that is the primary method for enforcing the laws on the streets and really appreciate um all of our motors officers. It's not a huge surprise that there's an ask for I think three of them with when we're losing one of our good ones uh to our neighbors southeast of us. Can you talk a little bit about um how those motors officers are assigned throughout the city because I believe we have less than the number of police districts we have and if they're even with this expansion if it would be kind of be seen as be able to to serve each of those those districts. And then um second question uh related just to kind of the the staffing needs. though you know as we we tal you talked about um technology optimization um kind of the technology tools that are available to us you know one of the things that I think about a lot now is more AI means more hi or better hi so human intelligence being able to do things better or more efficiently and so you know whether that's axon tools that take body cam footage and write reports quickly you know things like that um can you talk about how you are or or maybe you're not able to right now incorporate that into those uh desired expansion of of staff.

I'm going to cut us off here from a time perspective. Sorry, Jordan. I always um this is Council Member Morales. This is why because that is a larger conversation. Not asking for approval of those staff right now. We're mapping out kind of 30,000 foot view what we need so that we can look at financing tools necessary. But before any of those positions would be um considered and approved, I would expect we we need to have that conversation. That's a real conversation.

Yeah, maybe that's more of a comment than um just kind of looking at that 1.8 and knowing that you know just rough math based on our last budget meet um presentation that that's 30 million a year. So thinking about our library conversation. So how we're you know incorporating that into these expectations too is really important. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a couple just really quick questions. Uh, first of all, um, thank you again, Chief Dennison, for being out here and appreciate the information. Um, you mentioned the ISP, um, uh, is closing the Meridian facility. What is the time frame on that? And then what would the plan be?

Uh, Madame Mayor, uh, council member uh, Corus, we don't have an exact time frame from ISP yet. So, we're looking for alternative space to do that training. Um but those would be shortterm would be shortterm. We are expecting within the next year or two that track to be closed if not sooner. It sounds like they're going to be building a nursing school on that location. So ISP headquarters will remain there but the track facility itself will be going away.

Okay. Thank you. Um and then the other question I had is I know you talked about kind of a another station in the east. Would that impact city hall west that we have today or is that an addition? Uh, Madame Mayor, uh, Council Member Cors, that would only impact city hall west and that we could move significant police personnel out of that building and, um, we're pretty well packed in there now and that would enable us to stand up a patrol division that would be based out of city hall west that would handle the bench and west side of the city. East patrol division would deploy out of the east side and we'd have public facing facilities on both sides of city for community members to respond to if they need assistance that doesn't require 911 response.

Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chief Hummel.

All right. Good evening, Madame Mayor. Council, thank you for giving me an opportunity. So, uh, much like BPD, we've we have it broken into four general areas. Uh, starting with response evolution. uh it's been a conversation that you guys are familiar with but to be able to increase our staffing we uh I I took the uh 1.8 is the ratio PD uses and so that it would be a little bit easier to understand I converted the formula we had been using to what is kind of the the national best practice for comparable cities and it's about 1.2 2 per thousand residents for us and we're talking about sworn firefighters that are uh on the street. Um we're currently at about 0.96 so we're doing pretty good. Uh in the workforce stabilization we'll continue with our recruitmies. It'll uh you know fill our vacancies and retirements. Uh, as far as leveling up professional staff, that's just working with getting our nonsworn administrative staff leveled up. So, that we've had some challenges with uh staff taking other positions and so forth. So, we're just looking to continue uh that effort to be able to level up some of our our administrative staff. Next is a capital planning investment. Uh we did put in for assistance to firefighters federal grant uh if it actually comes out uh for radio replacement. uh our portable radios are at end of life. We did do a regional grant with the valley so that we could have a better chance of success on that. We have a great capital improvement plan. We want to maintain our current quality apparatus and vehicle fleet. And then lastly, like Chief Dennison said, uh struggle well has been a really nice addition because the mindset really has flipped from post-traumatic stress disorder to post-traumatic stress growth. And what that means is sure every one of us human beings uh

experiences trauma in our lives and that doesn't define us. Uh that should actually make us stronger and it it's a real flip of the way we've looked at that in the past. But struggle well for me personally has been a real breath of fresh air to look at it from a growth perspective. So um we have a lot of energy around struggle well. I I couldn't agree more with uh Chief Dennison's comment about sick people hurting people and healthy people helping people. I think that is totally true and we recognize that we need to invest in our employees. So struggle well is a great program we're fully embracing. So we also broke it into three priorities or top priority uh fourperson staffing. Um, I I think that Chief Neimar did a good job of explaining it uh to you all, but uh it really does enable us to be able to do things simultaneously on an emergency scene versus sequentially. And that's not just on fires. That's also doing CPR and a cardiac arrest or a vehicle extrication or a technical rescue. It also aligns with national standards like the N National Fire Protection Association and the American Heart Association so that we can achieve the benchmarks that are set forth. It also does improve community uh and firefighter safety because we're able to uh complete tasks quicker when we have the staffing. Next is our squad response model. And really this right resource to the right call. What we're talking about there is we we don't necessarily need to send a 35,000 pound fire apparatus on every call that we go on. So, anytime we can be smart, uh less of a carbon footprint and be thinking about a lighter chassis electric pickup or something like that, uh that's a big win. So, that's something that we're hoping to do uh in the future as well. stand up some dual roll medic squads. So, we do have firefighters on there with some equipment so they can supplement on the fire ground or rescue ground, but they can also uh take off

some of the burden of our heavy chassis responses. Uh and then the other thing with that is if you look at just downtown for example, our busiest engine downtown's running over 4,000 calls a year. That's a lot of calls at 3 miles per gallon. If we can cut those in half by having a medic squad there, that's a big win. not only on the environment but also in being able to have some depth. So if we if the engine's out on a call and another critical call comes in that district, we're sending a ladder truck on that call versus having the depth of having two a medic squad and an engine there. So squad response uh is something that we would like to entertain in the future as well. Special response capability uh we know that our amazing rigid river system is being used a lot. Uh there's times when our dive company, Engine One, uh spends a lot of time on river rescues and that pulls them away from their district. So that's something we want to look at in the future is what does that look like as far as enhancing specialy responses during peak uh times uh when we know they're going to be busy. Uh and then also um having that specialty resource is critical for you know complex and high-risisk incidents. We're seeing more construction accidents and obviously as the city gets larger and more complex, we've had some significant hazmat incidents as well. Second priority, prevention and community risk reduction. Obviously, community risk reduction and prevention prevents human suffering, right? If we can prevent the emergency from happening, that's a big win. Uh our community risk reduction team does a great job of analyzing our data and being able to do some things proactively. For example, we had dozens of house fires that we found was asso were associated with inappropriate disposal of ash from your fireplace or smoking materials. So, we recognized that. We did a a public campaign to give

out uh safe metal pales to dispose of your ashes and so forth to again reduce those incidents before they happen. We can also reduce our call volume by uh preventing some of those injuries and reduce that long-term strain on the system. Uh like PD, our training capacity is big. We have a lot that we have to do with respect to certifications and readiness and there's numerous safety standards uh that we try to abide by. So, uh training is a big lift and uh we want to continue to invest in our training division and our facility. Um, one of the things that we do is we utilize uh onduty resources during training. So, we want to make sure we have sufficient resources so that we can maintain adequate 911 coverage when that training is taking place. And then of course as I mentioned earlier to be able to adapt to the city's growth and complexity and our logistics and fleet readiness just to continue uh with the investment in our capital improvement plan and making sure our apparatus and facilities are current and maintained and we're doing a great job. The city's investment and our infrastructure has been very solid. We want to keep up with that. Uh professional staffing. um we don't have near the the needs that police do when it comes to nonsworn firefighters and staffing, but we do have some challenges. We currently have about one professional staff to 22 sworn firefighters. Uh so that's something that we just are being mindful and looking at in the future that we really need to look at that. Uh much like Chief Dennison said, if we can put someone in community risk reduction, for example, that's not a sworn firefighter, that's a more efficient fiscal way to do that to get a little bit uh bang for our buck. So, uh, and then emergency preparedness, uh, Rachel Holford's team, uh, they have two two people that are doing emergency preparedness for the entire city. So, that's obviously a huge lift for her and

helping coordinate planned events. And then our third priority uh these uh you know taking that community risk assessment, community risk reduction a step further. There's some really neat things that we can do in the community parame medicine space that we can look at our vulnerable populations and be able to recognize ahead of time to be able to support those vulnerable uh communities. And that's one of the things that we're partnering with PD on on their behavioral response teams. We recognize that if we partner with Boyisey PD on that, if their behavioral response team can identify a problem and we can provide some uh support for that person on the back end, whether it's paramed or otherwise on the back end, it prevents a bunch of repeat 911 calls. So, it's a again a teamwork thing that we're looking to expand that in the future. again that outdoor and vulnerable populations, targeting resources for the river and foothills responses. And then just really trying to drill down and identify who those at risk populations are. And then lastly, public education and prevention expansion. I mentioned a couple things about how our community risk assessment, community risk reduction works, but having coordinators focused on some of the higher risk areas that we have seen to be able to put a little bit more energy around taking action there. Uh and then um just multigenerational and diverse education, cultivating fire and EMS prevention. So being able to again be real proactive and what we're uh taking out to the community. Um so um response performance and capacity and readiness as you can see just our increased ability to manage multiple large uh scale incidents. Uh we do pretty good now. Uh but obviously the city's growing and getting bigger and more complex and it does take a number of units to manage large-scale incidents. Uh that uh you know

increasing our staffing if we have four for example on an engine we can muster enough firefighters there without having to take more engines out of service to get that sufficient number if you will. So that's where that investment in uh the fourperson staffing can reduce the coverage gap created by taking six, seven, eight fire engines because we can get enough people with less fire engines. Uh that of course leaves more units available for coverage. The other thing that we've done with our fourperson staffing that uh the mayor and council authorized with uh engine 15 engine 13 is we've introduced a little bit of flexibility in our system so that we um can do a little bit uh more efficient way of doing our daily staffing because of that flexibility that that we have built into that. So, um it also increases uh you know our ability to reduce fatigue uh on incidents or throughout the shift by having the extra uh staffing to be able to assist in our prevention, logistics and professional support. Um more inspectors, community outreach and prevention programs are effective logistics fleet and support for our systems. increase professional staff capacity to support the over 300 employees and 60 programs that we currently manage. Uh future system expansion as was mentioned priority three just our ability to implement specialty response models like staffing the river or the foothills with the unit and then having the capacity to adapt to growth in high-risisk areas. And then for system outcome, maintaining a proactive public safety approach, keeping up with our long-term demand, which is expressed as unit hour utilization, it's basically the busyiness of units and improved community outcomes. So with that, I I know I tried to zoom through it because I know you guys have a big agenda tonight, but I'm happy to stand for any questions you might have.

Madam Mayor, yeah, just one quick question. One, thanks for being here. Again, I'll echo the same thing. Thanks for the work on the struggle well problem um struggle well program and all the efforts with mental health. I mean really Boise Fire Department has been leading this across the state now for probably a decade or more. Um question about some of the I understand the the river in the foothills but some of that technical um aspects those more complex things that you're responding to. Do you see that um sort of investment when it comes to staffing is that a training thing? Is that additional uh staffing? Is it a combination of both? like what is the the staff relation to that kind of additional technical um types of um incidents that you're responding to? Yeah, Madame Mayor, Council Member Hel Burton, are you referring to the specific knowledge and skills? Are you talking about responses?

You were kind of talking about like responding to your construction um hazmat incidents. And so when you're talking about increased in in staffing, is it an increased number in staffing? Is it specialized folks who are training other people? Like how does that translate out to staffing? or is it more of kind of investing in training and additional um you know resources when it comes to the technology that we're using?

Yeah, Madame Mayor, Council Member Hallebertton, thank you. Um I think it's a little bit of both. If we're talking about like I alluded to earlier, Saturday or Sunday where we have thousands and thousands of people on the river, if we don't have a dive unit staffed and we get a call, oftentimes the dive unit will end up on the river and they'll run 10 calls and they're not covering their normal district. So recognizing those. So, additional staff staffing, not permanent 24/7, 365, but kind of up staffing kind of like we do on special events sometimes. That's part of it. And then as far as the construction accidents, hazmat, stuff like that. Um, we do make sure that all of our firefighters in the operation division have a operations level knowledge. Uh, but we have more technician level people at some of our stations. So, it's not necessarily if we add a fourth person, we're going to have more capabilities there, but we certainly have more capabilities and we talk about these complex incidents because so often times there's needs for simultaneous things to happen and the less hands you have, the more they have to be done sequentially and it just increases that time to task. Perfect. Yeah, thanks for that clarity.

You bet. Madam Mayor, Chief PL, thanks again for being out here tonight and walking us through this high level plan. I know we talked a lot last year in the budgets about fourperson staffing and looking um I think one of our goals was to look at putting four person staffing in for this budget cycle. Um can you talk a little bit about as I understand we are applying for a safer grant? Um has that is that something we are going forward with this year? Yeah. Yeah. Um Christine's going to cover that. Am I getting that right? Yeah. So, are there other questions for the You have more for the chief, but I'll have Christine cover the safer piece. Um, no, I'll be good for right now. Thank you. Anything else for the chief?

Thank you. Okay, great. Except factors into the different financing mechanisms we could look at.

All right, so me again on the finance part. This is where it really gets fun. Um, so as we've been talking through uh leading up to this year's budget build, um, I think staff has been uh, repeatedly voicing that we really do have some ongoing pressure in the general fund and that overall our growth capacity is pretty limited. Um when we look at our $330 millionish um annual operating budget in any outyear, we're only looking at about 1% of additional revenue um that could be allocated. Um that is because as we all know um property taxes have been capped at a 3% annual growth and many of our costs um exceed that 3% annual growth. And so as we're looking at public safety staffing, um there's kind of a a general rule that we use um finance shortorthhand here. Um each public safety staff that we add is about $200,000 per year. So when you start to do that math and we look at the high priority items that each chief has um just to get police's priority one, those first five new um folks that they are wanting to add, that would be about a million dollar ad. And then um again, very rough math here, but just one station of four-person staffing is about $800,000. So very quick, easy math. um just getting to that kind of most critical priority one investing would exhaust all of our budget flexibility um and really create some trouble for us in outy years as those costs compound. But we have some ideas. Never fear. Um so uh council member Corass, you asked about the safer grant um which we did speak um quite a bit about last budget cycle. Um we are applying for a safer grant. Um we're putting together an

application that would add uh nine uh additional fire personnel and that would get us um three stations of four person staffing. So submitting that grant this year um and holding the matching funds um in the budget build. Um unfortunately not such great news on the police side. Um our grants team did a phenomenal job in in close partnership with police. Um but we really didn't find any cops or DOJ grants that uh aligned with the needs that police have. So unfortunately for this year um there aren't any um grants that we're able to apply for that would advance our staffing priorities. Um however, we're going after other grants um to advance um other types like equipment and things. So, um, one of the other, uh, considerations we'd like to bring forward for you all, um, is looking to a model that has been successful in other neighboring communities, um, and looking for council's direction to potentially explore a public safety levy that would support staffing increases. Um, so much like we were before you last year talking about investigating a public safety facilities bond, um, your direction today, should you choose to give it, um, would just kick off a due diligence um, exploration. Um, we would develop some options. Um, take these public safting needs that have been presented, investigate what that would look like, um, what the impact would be, what the cost per household would be. Um and we would bring that back to council for discussion and consideration. Um and just noting uh because these would be ongoing base costs, we would want our staff would recommend um pursuing a permanent levy and that requires um a twothird super majority approval from voters.

So I believe we are looking today um to affirm direction or get your feedback on that potential funding mechanism. And this is just to be clear, the affirmation of direction is that staff would begin to explore this with your direction.

Madame Mayor, yeah. Um I'll jump in first. I'm absolutely supportive of exploring this option and learning more. Um there's so much great so many great things that were outlined by both the chiefs in this presentation that um at this point some might be nice to haves. There's a lot on there that are musthaves. And I think as we continue to grow and as time continues, more of those want to haves will become musthaves. And we're so limited in our um in our budget flexibility and there's so much within the budget that we don't have control over. I feel like this this could be a great solution and would love to learn more about that after the staff's research on it. Yeah, Madame Mayor, um, one quick question and it's, um, what are the holdback funds for the matching grant for the safer grant?

Oh, Council Member Corlos, I would have back to you on that. I don't want to say a wrong number off the top of my head. Okay. Um, I and I just want to reiterate u my support also for pursuing a public safety levy. Uh we do have um in the presentations today, we saw a lot of needs that are upcoming and personnel and um other things that will really benefit our community that we just don't have in our budget today and we don't see going forward the ability to staff those departments adequately. So I very much look forward to us pursuing this. Thank you.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, I'm going to be careful with my words here. I am supportive in the direction of exploring a levy um because with through that exploration it can come back in front of council and then we can make a really good decision on whether or not we think this is a good way to go. Yeah, that's what I was trying to emphasize there and what we're what we're looking for today.

Yep. Yeah. Being I think being able to make sure that we have all options on the table and we know what those options are put us in a really great spot to make a good decision one way or the other, but we have to figure out what all of those options are. I will just add one comment beyond saying thank you to staff for all the work and the stuff that goes into this. It's so much work. Our challenges that have been forced upon the city at a state level are tricky especially when it comes to police and fire because the impact that growth has on our fire department and our police department is not on the just the growth of Boisee. It's the growth of all the surrounding areas. um on any given day floating down the Boisee River, it might be 50% people from Boisee and 50% of people from outside of Boisee, but our fire department is still the one that's on the river, you know, working to address these challenges. And so being limited on what we're able to do for growth is such a challenge because we are absorbing the higher crime numbers, the more fire, the more foothills use, the all the stuff, you know, in the Boisee River and all the different complexities that are going on with construction. And so, while I think that this is something that we need to pursue and put on the table as far as an option, I still think that we need to make sure that we're working with all of our different Treasure Valley partners um to make sure that our state legislature truly understands the impact this has on public safety throughout the Treasure Valley. And I know that that's a challenge, but I think that's something that we can't ignore. Um because without that there are not a lot of other options to make sure that we're taking care of everyone in the Treasure Valley even beyond Boisey.

Go ahead. Thank you. Thanks for both your presentations and Christine, thanks for wrapping us up and giving us some to-dos. Um I I'd like to echo that sentiment that I I think we cannot underell and not overstate which is while Boisey is not growing to the de to the degree that our western neighbors are. We are taking a lot of the impact and we want folks to come to Boise, we want them to come downtown, we want to have a thriving city, but we're not getting the kind of explosive population growth that Meridian Star Middleton and a lot of our other friends are. Um, while we're talking about Meridian, I think it would be very helpful for us to have a deep dive on what they did. Yeah.

Because they recently passed something similar. And as we do the due diligence, I think it's very important to be very specific about what this gets voters. One of the benefits of a levy is that it's tangible. People can see it. They It's targeted. It's tangible. Folks know what they what they want to what they're voting for. and what they should receive. Um, when you bring back some potential options, I would like to make sure that those are very clear and also how we ensure that that that the money if if we have a levy, if it's supported by twothirds, lots of ifs to ensure that that those funds are are actually used for those purposes because that's always a worry for taxpayers.

Madam Mayor, yeah, I definitely affirm direction uh exploring this levy. Thank you. And I just wanted to kind of echo uh Council Member Halle Burton and Council Member Willitz's comments about how we see this levy and bringing the the resources and that we need as a community here in Boisee, but also um articulating the gaps that we as Boyceians may not be able to to serve with a levy. And um you know I I think I I recall when sales tax distribution changes were made that a representative talked about well when Boiseians are in the you know Boisee County and they need public you know they need help rolling an ATV or something like that like they're they're getting services in other counties. But I just think the scale of uh Boisey's impact from our neighbors is just wildly on a different level and we really need to understand how those tens of thousands of our neighbors are well served when they're when they're here, too. So, thank you.

Thank you. All right. Um, anybody else? Okay, with that, thank you. We've got direction to get to work and start exploring and look forward to the next step in the conversation. Thank you. We'll adjourn till six o'clock.