Staff Reports

Photo of Station 273 crews spraying water at Singing Hills Elementary's Field Day

Calls for Service Analysis

As of the report date, we are on call #599 for the year. We are currently averaging 4.50 calls per day with an annual pace of 1644. We remain above last year’s pace by about 100 calls.

Staffing

Our staffing remains stable, and we continue to staff Station 272 on a consistent basis thanks to the hard work of our staff that found the funding and scheduled shifts. Our part-time staffing remains solid and our reserves are putting in a record number of hours. The King of Hearts is the only king in a standard deck of playing cards without a mustache.

Tax Initiative

As you all know, our efforts to use sales tax to offset our losses caused by the State failed by a small margin. Although unfortunate, I am encouraged by the approval rating we had based on the limited time and resources to campaign for the issue. As we worked through the failing factors, we identified that our effort to beat a competing initiative by the governor’s office in November was not a real threat. We also identified that the resentment of our citizens towards government and taxes was underestimated. Ultimately, we needed to spend more time educating our customers on the fact that we are not a part of the County or the Town. We had a majority of people say they would not support it because the County should give us more money.

As leaders, we should spend some time developing our next steps. I am working with staff to build a resiliency plan based on the results of this election. This plan will consider options for offsetting the decreases in revenue per household while maintaining emergency services, fire prevention, staffing, and other 911-related functions as a priority.

My first objective will be to evaluate non-emergent service costs such as agency assists (Blood Draws, Coroner Assists, M1), non-emergent lockouts, and free special event support. The next phase will be looking at our options for lift assist, extrication, and “no patient” calls to see if we can bill for those types of responses. The next phase will be evaluating capital improvements that can be eliminated or delayed. Our only choice beyond that would be to discontinue EMS services provided by the Fire District. EMS is the only service that is not identified in our District Service Plan or within the provision of Title 32. I truly doubt we would ever get to that point, but we will need to identify it as an option for cutting costs if the State does nothing to correct their damage.

The bottom line in this situation is that the district still expects to grow, and we will continue to expand our services. We simply won’t be able to expand our services to meet the future service demands at the same rate.

Facilities

• General

  • Currently, the focus is on general maintenance and repairs of all of the buildings.
  • The First-In projects are substantially complete. We are waiting for some integration from Dispatch to go live.
  • Our sewer line project at Station 271 had some issues with drainage during the heavy rains. The trench back fill washed out and into the street behind us. Our crews cleaned the washout from the street, and the contractor quickly came out and repaired the damage at no cost. A shout out to the Town’s Public Works Crew for assisting us and providing hydro seeding to minimize future run off concerns.

ELCO Fire Chiefs

We were advised this month that our OEM director is no longer employed at the County. The chiefs discussed how this would affect us and determined that we could work together on major incidents and feel little to no impact from the change. We are told that ELCO chiefs will have 2 seats in the interview process for a replacement.

Elbert County Communication Authority (ECCA)

ECCA continues to focus on a plan beyond Jim White. Chief Gerczynski was part of the interview committee for two candidates. She was concerned about how either candidate would fit in for the position, so we decided to ask the Executive Committee to consider reposting the position. At the May Executive Meeting, our suggestion was met with some resistance from Jim White, but the EC did agree to have a 2^nd round of interviews using other ECCA members. After that, we can decide whether to repost the position or not. Regardless of the outcome, ECCA needs to determine what is important to them and develop a vision (or even a priority) so that the new administrator can focus on direction from the ECCA board to accomplish the priorities.

Legislative

Well, the legislators and Governor did not follow through as hoped. After their special session promises to “make things right” for the FPDs fell short, they offered a ridiculous legislative bill that created low interest loans for FPDs using a $50,000,000 unused property fund. This bill failed…so Fire Chiefs find themselves with no help from the state. We only have negative impacts from their actions. Now, FPDs of all sizes are forced to ask for local increases or are planning for cuts based on the actions of the capitol. I am hoping that I have consent from the Board to be very vocal about this at our state level and try to push harder for a solution in the next legislative process.

Prevention/Administration

• The Elizabeth Stampede is starting their planning for this year. We have met with them over the past month to discuss their expansion this year. They are constructing new bleachers on the south side of the stadium. They will be having a concert on Thursday night and then their normal rodeo schedule. They have also moved the dances after the rodeo to a new location and set up a standing room only tent for sold out performances. They will be submitting for a permit for the event and outline all the changes.
• The School District, Road and Bridge, and Fire has been working on the traffic patterns for the Singing Hills pickup line. They will be implementing a new traffic pattern to try to reduce congestion on CR 166.
• This year, we are partnering with Elizabeth Police Department to do a combined Public Safety Academy. It will be two tracks with a lot of overlap between fire and law. The academy will run for one week daily and will introduce high school juniors and seniors to the fire service. We are hoping that the academy will pique their interest, and they will join the department to further their firefighting career.
• The server at the administrative building needs to be replaced, but we are working with our current vendor to see if a cloud option for all the department files would be appropriate. Command and administrative staff have 1 terabyte of storage, and we would have the ability to have shared folders as well. This would eliminate the need for a file server and streamline our IT needs.

Fire and Life Safety Education (Erin Loeks)

Photos of crews and kids at SHE Field Day

Pre-Application Meetings

Photo of Pre-Application Meetings

In April, we interviewed 8 applicants for the reserve position and moved 7 into the ride-along process. These ride-alongs will be completed by the middle of May, and we should be able to add a few more to our reserve list.

The contract with PNC to lease the 2 new trucks we ordered was completed at the end of the month. We should be signing paperwork by the middle of May.

Our new intern for our Admin Assistant position started in April, and she is doing great so far.

We completed a paramedic orientation for 2 part-time individuals. They will be on shift starting in May.

The election ballots were sent out in April, and ballots have been coming in. We will have results in the first part of May.

EMS collection for April $50,668.44

Development and Impact Fees:

Zone 1 $493,473.12

Zone 2 $17,364.15

Zone 3 $18,416.05

Gift Agreement $304,502.90

Infrastructure Fund $96,330.00

Photo of Administrative Assistant Brooklyn Schreurs

Photo of Part-Time Paramedic Steven Foster

Photo of Part-Time Paramedic Tim Snyder

Photo of crews during a pack test

Photo of crews training

Photo of academy recruits training

Photos of crews training

I want to give a big shout out to STO McClain and the academy recruits who were at the station training on 4/16 while the 271 crews were attending a public event. While training, 271 received not one, but two back to back walk-in medical emergencies. STO McClain and recruits initiated calls for service and initiated quality patient assessment and care. When the crews arrived at the station, they were given a detailed pass down by the recruits which expedited transport decisions. Fantastic job!!

I wanted to send in a shoutout for Chief Mackall. We ran a medical assist today and he identified that the patient would be a good candidate for the newly implemented "Leave Behind Project." He grabbed one of the Naloxone packages and brought it to the call with us. After the medic unit transported the patient, he stayed behind and talked with the patient's mother and explained the program to her and gave her the Naloxone due to her daughter being an at-risk member of the community. This was the first time we handed out the Naloxone for this project! So shoutout to Chief Mackall for setting the example and providing the extra step of community medicine for our citizens!

This year, our new year's resolution is to help our community get to know us better! We’ve introduced a new item to our social media accounts, titled “Firefighter Friday,” where, every Friday, we introduce another member of our staff to our community. This has been very well received by the members of our District. Below are the Firefighter Friday highlights for the month of April.

This month, we highlighted Paramedic-Firefighter Justin Hinz, Lieutenant Brenden Regan, Firefighter EMT Trace Tobin, and Part-Time Paramedic-Firefighter Alex Burton!