Central Fire & EMS District puts new fire engine to work
The Central Fire & EMS district board held a meeting on Thursday, August 18. During that meeting, the board discussed the 2023 budget, a draft of which is to be sent to each of the municipalities for approval at their September meetings. The board also received a report from fire chief Joe Mueller, who spoke on the implementation of the new fire engine now that enough people have received training on the truck.
2023 Budget
Most of the evening’s discussion revolved around balancing the district’s budget for the coming year so that a recommendation could be sent to each of the member municipalities’ boards for their approval.
The main issue facing the board was how to make room for increasing prices of utilities, such as electric, heat, and phone and internet services, and operational expenses such as fuel, as well as necessary wage increases. Some of the larger proposed increases in the budget were raising the salaries of EMS staff from the $160,000 budgeted in 2022 to $200,000 budgeted in 2023 and a raise from the $20,000 budgeted for fuel in 2022 to a proposed $27,500 budgeted for that same purpose in 2023. General utilities, rent, and vehicle and equipment maintenance saw a combined increase of $14,000 in their 2023 budget when compared to the 2022 budget.
In order to accommodate these rising prices, the board had to make cuts in other places. The budget for training and education for EMS staff was brought down from the $20,000 set aside in 2022 to a proposed $15,000 in 2023, though data from the last two years shows that actual utilization of dollars in this realm has not come close to even the $15,000 budgeted for 2023.
More discussion was held over whether or not to lower the amount set aside for the purchases of capi- tal equipment. These are funds that the district sets aside each year so that large purchases, like acquiring new vehicles, can be saved for and used when necessary. In years prior, the board had set aside $50,000 of their budget for this purpose and it was discussed if this should be cut in some way. Suggestions ranged from cutting it in half to $25,000 to cutting it entirely for the 2023 budget.
During this discussion, the board was reluctant to cut the allocation from the budget entirely, as it was feared that it could be difficult to put back into future budgets. The $25,000 cut was more palatable, but it still left the proposed budget in the red.
Some of this could be made up for by extending the Unity and Frankfort fire contracts beyond their expiration date in December of this year. These contracts have been functioning on a cycling two-year period and the board agreed to once again extend this offer to Unity and Frankfort once again, albeit at a slightly higher rate of $9,500 per year.
However, each member municipality was still going to need to put forth a little more funding if the proposed budget was going to balance itself out while still keeping the $25,000 allocated for capital equipment purchases. This seemed like a reasonable ask for the board, which came to a proposed increase of 7.5 percent for each member municipality’s annual contribution.
While the board came to a consensus on their proposed budget, they still need to pass this budget along to each member municipality’s board for approval. It is only with the approval of two-thirds of the members’ boards that this budget will become final. The Central Fire & EMS board aims to have these approval actions take place during the municipalities’ regular monthly meetings in September.
In his report, fire chief Joe Mueller told the board that the newly purchased fire truck has been put into service. According to Mueller, enough people have received training on the new vehicle now and it is 95 percent stocked.
The new engine, which was purchased and custom made by Pierce in Appleton, arrived in mid-June and replaced a vehicle from 1994.
“It’s been probably over a year in planning,” Mueller stated outside of the meeting. “Seeing what exactly we wanted, seeing what company we wanted to go with, setting up a committee so it’s not just me making the decisions.”
Before the vehicle could be put into service, crews needed to familiarize themselves with the new vehicle and some of its additional features.
One of these new features is a camera that allows the pump operator to see different sides of the vehicle from their station on the left side of the truck. This will help them be able to better judge the situation if water hook ups need to be used on the front or right sides of the vehicle. On the older vehicles, this station was usually placed directly behind the cab, so that the operator could see either side of the vehicle. However, this would require the operator to have to do a lot of climbing up and down, whereas this new system allows them to always be on ground level without losing visibility.
Another feature allows the engine to send out a signal that will temporarily interrupt satellite radio broadcasts in the nearby vicinity and inform those drivers that the emergency vehicle is approaching. Mueller hopes that this safety feature will work in tandem with the traditional lights and sirens to more efficiently warn those driving on area roads that they need to make room for the vehicle as it tries to respond quickly to emergencies. This feature has a five year contract that came with the purchase of the vehicle.
The truck also has an air induction system to move water from the tank to start the pump, which will require less maintenance and parts than the previous primer system.
“Everybody had input on what was going to go on this truck,” Mueller said. “We cut back on some of the simpler stuff, like we have crank up windows, not power windows for example. So we cut back on those luxuries. But it should serve the community for many years.”
Other Business
_ The board approved to move some of their long-term funds from a money market and checking account held at AbbyBank to a 13-month certificate of deposit (CD). The reason for the proposed move was that the money market account had an interest rate of 0.5 percent as opposed to the 2.02 percent rate offered by the CD. There are no immediate plans to make any large purchases with the funds, so taking the money out of the liquid money-market and locking it into a short term CD was agreed upon given the difference in interest rates. It was agreed to move $200,000 from the money market and $100,000 from the checking account.
_ The Central Fire & EMS received 75 total calls from July 21 to August 18. Of those calls, 73 were for EMS purposes and two were for fire response services. In total, they have received 558 calls for the year, which averages out to just under 2.5 calls per day.
