[0:03] Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chair,
board of supervisors, manager, and
[0:08] members of the public. My name is Steve
Schaefer. I'm the acting chief
[0:12] presenting the township's police
department's 2026 proposed budget. So,
[0:16] thank you all for being here. Thank you
for members who are of the public who
[0:20] are listening on live stream. On behalf
of the police department, we just want
[0:24] to thank the community for your support
of our officers as they protect and
[0:27] serve this community with
professionalism, courage, and integrity.
[0:32] Many of you know the police department
does consume half of the the township's
[0:36] overall budget. We try to be very
responsible with that. We're here 247
[0:41] 365 days a year. And it's vital for
public safety that we're well equipped,
[0:47] well trained, and that officers officers
are compensated well. I'm extremely
[0:52] proud of these officers as they go about
their day putting themselves in harm's
[0:57] way and it's very important that they
have adequate staffing levels that it's
[1:02] safe staffing levels that they have
modern crime fighting equipment advanced
[1:07] training and competitive salaries. So
that being said, we do try to balance
[1:11] the needs of the the police department
with and align that with the the
[1:16] township's overall budget and competing
needs.
[1:20] We feel that uh this budget is
financially responsible. We've looked at
[1:25] our spending and I think that by the end
of the presentation, you'll see that um
[1:31] we're here to continue our operations
uh in a way that works well with the
[1:36] township. Again, I'm not going to go
through each line item. We are just
[1:40] going to um look at the overall budget
and then I can answer any other
[1:45] questions that you might have.
So just looking at the first slide, this
[1:49] is an overview of where we stand for
2026. We're going to talk about an
[1:54] increased health insurance issue. Um
we're going to talk about an investment
[2:00] in capital project and then we're going
to talk how we combat those increases
[2:05] with reductions in overtime wages and
operational costs. The budget comes in
[2:11] right now at 9,140,938.
[2:16] That's an increase of $140,000,
which is about 1.55%.
[2:22] Again, better than the 7.2% from last
year or from this year and the 6.9% from
[2:29] 2024.
[2:34] So, the key spending increases that we
have this year. Um the first one is a
[2:40] line item called health and
hospitalization. It covers our our
[2:45] health care costs for both active
employees and retirees. That has
[2:50] significantly gone up this year. If I
look at the line items from admin,
[2:55] patrol, detectives, and traffic, it goes
up about $361,000.
[3:02] So that is a big increase. It's not
something that the police have much
[3:05] control over. for that of course is
insurance companies, the bargaining unit
[3:09] and you know from the police side of
things that's what we're given.
[3:15] Additionally, we have an operational
increase and when I talk about the
[3:19] operations part of the budget what I
mean is things like equipment, bullets,
[3:24] guns, chairs, computers, as well as
licenses, software fees, things like
[3:29] that. Those are our operations.
We have three key areas where the budget
[3:34] is going up a little bit operationally.
The first one would be um in our camera
[3:40] system. So we have both bodywn cameras
and in car cameras. They are vital for
[3:46] our investigations. They're a great
thing for officer accountability. We use
[3:51] them as evidence in court and of course
they do protect us against some civil
[3:55] liability. So this this equipment is
part of modern policing. Our
[4:02] bodywn worn cameras are about 2 and a
half years old. Our in-car cameras are
[4:06] about four years old. Bodywn cameras
have about a 3 to 5 year shelf life and
[4:12] incar cameras about a seven. So they're
about halfway through and we're starting
[4:17] to see some repair costs, licensing
fees, but repair costs are going up a
[4:21] little bit with that. So, we're
increasing that budget $25,000 to make
[4:26] sure that we can keep this equipment
running until it's end of life, which
[4:29] could be no later than 2028.
We are looking into some grants for next
[4:36] year. Hopefully, we can start mitigating
some of those costs a while and looking
[4:40] at some other options, but for now, we
need to at least plan for repairs for
[4:45] those items as they come up.
The other increase that we're going to
[4:49] see is in ballistic vests. This is
simply just an operational thing that
[4:55] comes up differently every year.
Bulletproof vests, they have a fiveyear
[5:00] shelf life as well. Um, contractually we
replace that every five years. So last
[5:06] year we only had five officers that
needed vest. This year it's eight. So
[5:11] we'll get a $6,000 increase in that. And
then the last operational thing would be
[5:17] we're asking for more of a capital
purchase than we did last year. and
[5:21] we'll talk about that slide in a couple
minutes.
[5:26] So, to get into an overview of how we're
going to combat some of those increases,
[5:31] we're going to look at two things. We're
going to look at salaries and we're
[5:33] going to look at um overtime before we
go into what we can do operationally.
[5:40] So, salary, we're looking at an
unrealized
[5:44] wage savings of about $114,000.
What I mean by that is if we go by 2025
[5:51] and the amount of officers that we
started with to continue our operations
[5:55] in 2025
and you take the collective bargaining
[5:59] units raise of 3.5%.
That's about $178,000.
[6:05] We made some changes this year. Uh we
had an officer that left earlier in the
[6:11] year that we decided to do some
restructuring and you know different
[6:16] times, different schedules for some
units and we didn't replace him. So that
[6:20] saves us salary for next year. We're
fine doing things the way we are with
[6:24] that. We have another officer who is
going to be retiring in November. I've
[6:30] already worked on replacing him, but the
way our pay scale works, it's a sevenst
[6:35] step pay scale. will be able to hire a
new officer at a much less expensive
[6:40] rate than that existing one. If we hire
somebody who's in the academy, I can get
[6:45] a grant for him probably as well. So,
that would even be more savings.
[6:50] So, those two things equal a decent
amount of savings as well as we have a
[6:57] part-time office staff that is has
probably going to retire sometime around
[7:03] May. And it's my intention to not
replace that position. We've been able
[7:09] to divide up some work and restructure
some things there as well and we'll see
[7:14] some savings in that area. So those
three things
[7:19] mean our wages only go up $64,000
instead of $178,000.
[7:25] So when I say unrealized savings, what
could have been was one is about
[7:30] $114,000 savings.
We're going to look at overtime the same
[7:35] way. um overtime's one of those words
that you know doesn't necessarily mean
[7:41] bad, right? We have operational things
that have to be done and some of that is
[7:46] done outside of regular work hours.
Just to give you an example of what our
[7:52] overtime looks like, we put this graph
up there. You can see from the top green
[7:58] portion, the majority of our overtime is
court related overtime. We want to catch
[8:03] bad guys or we want to slow people down
to stop crashes. That means our officers
[8:09] are going to be busy. They have about a
thousand arrests a year and 7,000
[8:14] tickets. They're going to be out there
and it's going to incur some court time.
[8:18] So that is the largest portion of the
overtime.
[8:23] What the graph doesn't show is in the
revenue portion of things, that's
[8:27] basically a wash in fines and court
costs. So the other large green portion
[8:33] is reimburseable overtime.
That is things like we might work a
[8:39] football game security. The school will
pay us back. We might do a DUI
[8:44] checkpoint. We get funding for that. So
that overtime is 100% reimburseable. So
[8:50] if you look at that, that's about half
of our overtime is is basically
[8:56] a wash.
[9:00] That just is a little explanation of how
we manage over time. And the other
[9:04] categories we look at on a year-by-year
basis and try to determine our needs.
[9:08] Some of them we change on a yearly
basis. A lot of them are something like
[9:13] an investigation. Something comes up, we
have a serious crime, officers have to
[9:17] put more time into it. those kind of
things we don't have control over, but
[9:21] they are consistent consistently. We can
plan for them.
[9:26] So, going back to how we're going to
combat some of that savings, you know,
[9:29] we dealt with the wages, we're talking
about overtime. Now, if you look at the
[9:34] the collective bargaining units
3.5% raise, that would put overtime up
[9:41] to about $473,000
for 2025.
[9:46] What I did is I looked at the overtime
and we found some ways that we could cut
[9:50] and I took it back down to the 2025
number instead of raising at 473. That's
[9:57] about $16,000
that we saved in what would have been
[10:02] with the raises. It's cutting basically
195 hours of overtime by restructuring
[10:08] some things with some different officers
that we have and some different ways
[10:12] that we can do things. So, if I add
those two together, that's about
[10:16] $130,000
that we tried to keep the budget down
[10:20] that would have gone up just due to the
normal payraises.
[10:30] All right. So, the second way that we're
going to try to save some money is
[10:33] operationally. Um, this is about $48,000
that we've looked at in the budget and
[10:40] been able to find some ways to save from
25 to 26. Uh, uniforms and equipment.
[10:45] Uh, we're going to, you know, use some
of the things that we have a little bit
[10:48] longer as far as radios and batteries.
Um, we have one or two less officers so
[10:54] that we won't have to spend some of that
uniform allowance as well. firearm
[10:59] supplies. That's a category where we've
eliminated some expenses by changing
[11:03] around some of the weapons that we use.
And um last year we budgeted for a few
[11:08] extra rifles. This year we're not going
to do that. We're going to put that off
[11:13] for another another year possibly.
We analyzed our fuel and we think that
[11:20] based on what we used year to date, we
were a little high. Additionally,
[11:25] officers have been doing a really good
job of keeping the cars from idling too
[11:29] much when they're not in them. That
keeps the fuel cost down, as well as we
[11:34] have two less officers. If we the one
that we will hire in November, he's
[11:39] going to be in the FTO period doubled
up. So, we'll have some savings there as
[11:42] well. New hire testing should save about
$5,000 because we just completed a test
[11:49] two weeks ago. I don't anticipate
anybody leaving next year.
[11:54] But if they would, we could use this
current test to fill that position. And
[11:59] then we found some other things in the
EMA, fire police budget that were
[12:04] earmarked that we don't use. And I found
about $4,000 in additional control
[12:09] spending that we can cut. Little minor
things. So that leaves our savings of
[12:14] $48,000 operationally. If you looked at
the key increases, that was 41,000.
[12:20] Savings are 48,000. So operationally
we're actually about $6,700
[12:26] less than last year.
[12:30] This goes into our capital purchase
issue that we're going to talk about.
[12:36] 2028 is going to have some looming
issues. We have LPR readers that we had
[12:43] been partially funded from the DA's
office. Their licenses, they're a great
[12:48] investigative tool. In fact, just last
week, we had some theft from vehicles in
[12:53] the township. We used LPR readers to
make to to make an arrest on that almost
[13:00] within a day. So, great police work that
the guys did. That's a good tool. But
[13:05] 2028, we're going to have some license
fees do.
[13:09] I talked about the body warn cameras and
the incar camera. That is also the 2028
[13:14] issue.
But the one that we're going to try to
[13:18] plan for tonight is going to be our
incar computers. Officers do everything
[13:22] on these computers. Of course, they get
dispatched on them. That's how they
[13:26] write their reports, do their crashes,
issue their tickets, look up criminal
[13:30] history. Everything's done on these
computers. It's mandated by the county
[13:35] that we replace them every, I believe,
five years. 2028 they're due with a
[13:40] price tag of about $105,000.
Last year, I'm sorry, for 2025, we put
[13:48] away $50,000 capital purchase to begin
tackling this problem. I'm going to ask
[13:53] for that 50 plus another 10, so that we
can at least say
[13:58] the most important thing, the computers
are taken care of for 2028. That leaves
[14:03] us time to look at these grants if they
come in for 2026 and plan for some of
[14:09] those additional looming issues in 27
and 28. So, we're asking for a total of
[14:15] 60,000 in capital purchases, which is
10,000 more than last year.
[14:25] All right. So, this takes us to our
review. Again, over time, we we took
[14:29] that back down to to 2025's hours. I'm
sorry, amount. So, that's saving
[14:36] $16,000.
Operationally, we decreased the
[14:39] operations budget 6,700.
Wages in light of the 3.5%
[14:46] raises only actually went up 64,000. So
overall, we kept the budget at $140,000
[14:53] more than
2025. It's about a 1.55%
[14:59] increase.
And that's pretty much the budget we
[15:02] have. I believe that we're going to be
able to continue our operations,
[15:07] continue giving the public the service
that they deserve and give the officers
[15:10] the tools that they need with this
budget. And I just thank you for
[15:14] considering it.
>> Questions?
[15:18] » Thank you, Lieutenant.
>> Thank you.
[15:21] » I had questions, but as uh you went
through your presentations, they got
[15:25] answered. So, very well put together. I
appreciate it. I believe Jack was
[15:31] tracking down a few questions. Yeah, of
course,
[15:35] Lieutenant Shaver. Yeah. Um, only
because I' I've heard from the
[15:40] community. It's not really It may not be
budget related depending on how it gets
[15:45] handled. Um, school resource officer.
Okay. I hear, you know, I hear comments
[15:51] back uh from the school, etc. I know you
guys do patrols, but could you cover
[15:58] that? Is that including the budget? Is
there any plans for increased presence
[16:03] in the school system?
>> Well, as far as a school resource
[16:08] officer, that's something that has to be
worked out between the school board's
[16:12] budget and the police's budget. And I
believe that our budgets are at
[16:15] different times of the year. So, that
would be something that we would have to
[16:19] get in line.
>> Yeah. They're on a different cycle,
[16:21] » correct? with with their budget because
there are ways that that police
[16:24] departments and school districts split
that cost since the officer spends most
[16:28] their time in the school. But we would
always be open to listening to that
[16:34] conversation. We do spend a lot of of
time patrolling the schools, keeping
[16:39] them safe, working with the schools. We
have monthly meetings that we engage
[16:44] with them to share information.
They have their own school.
[16:50] I don't want to butcher his title, but
they have their own school mandated
[16:54] security personnel that has to work with
their safety plans and coordinate with
[16:59] us um different safety drills that we
conduct with them on a monthly basis
[17:06] sometimes, but multiple times a year.
So, we're always engaging with that with
[17:12] that with them.
This past summer, we heavily engaged
[17:17] with them with some training exercises
where I brought in fire and EMS and we
[17:23] did some very long extensive training
for active shooter stuff. Um, so we we
[17:30] did partner with them to do that. Our
our officers do go into school. We try
[17:34] to be there in the morning for drop offs
a lot. We we help with traffic every day
[17:40] when school lets out. But as far as a
specific school resource officer, that
[17:47] would have to be something that's worked
out with the school district in line
[17:50] with their budget as well.
>> That would probably not a quite a good
[17:54] question because I understand I
understand that that the school board
[17:58] would have to uh allocate funds for
that. It was more of the your the extra
[18:07] police presence in the school and you've
answered that. I appreciate you. Um the
[18:14] I'm still a little puzzled on the
470,000.
[18:19] Okay. Uh that you listed. Was that what
you believe? Uh where was it?
[18:29] » It's
>> It was the next slide, I believe. Yep.
[18:32] » Yeah. Overtime um uh over overtime by
year 2025. Is that what you're
[18:38] projecting for 2025 or is that what was
in the budget?
[18:42] » That is what we budgeted for 2025.
>> Uh then you know what my next question
[18:46] is.
>> Why is it where you
[18:49] » Oh, where am I at?
[18:54] » I can get that.
>> And if you don't have it handy, it's
[18:56] fine.
>> I do have So that graph that we made
[19:00] » Yeah.
>> is I have the numbers for that, but I
[19:03] put in percentages so I don't get you
the exact number. Is it above or below?
[19:07] » It would be Oh, it's below that. We're
below that.
[19:10] » Okay.
>> Yeah. And and those numbers are figured
[19:12] in with overtime that hasn't occurred
yet between what we anticipate
[19:16] reimburseable with the school yet and a
few of the there's some last minute
[19:21] lowlight shooting that the officers have
to do. So, we'll be below what we
[19:27] anticipated most.
>> Okay. And then for 2026, you use the
[19:32] same number.
>> I did use the same number. So, when we
[19:34] started working on the budget, um,
finance gave me a number of $473,000
[19:41] based on simply taking the raises that
we would expect and applying the same
[19:48] percentages of overtime usage to 2026.
That's when I looked at it and I said,
[19:54] let's take it down and just keep it the
same dollar amount as 2025 to show no
[20:00] increase. And that's why I'm saying we
saved about 16,000.
[20:04] » Okay. Um
uh your admin person uh you're going to
[20:10] lose her part-time in next May if I
remember correctly.
[20:16] » Okay, that's what she's
>> and is it
[20:20] I maybe I shouldn't be asking this
because I'm not sure I want to know the
[20:23] answer. But what are the plans then?
What are your plans?
[20:27] » So that position has changed over the
years. Um, I've been here 28 years.
[20:33] We've had different different part-time
admin personnel. Um, one full-time, one
[20:39] part-time, two full part or two
full-time and a part-time. It's changed
[20:44] over the years. And part of the reason
for that changing is technology, um, how
[20:50] we do things. So, they don't file paper
citations anymore. They don't do a lot
[20:56] of paper related things anymore. And as
we change, we can we we lose work for
[21:02] that person to do. Additionally, some of
the work that that person does right
[21:07] now, we delegated because we were busy
and it's really stuff that we think a
[21:14] police officer should be doing anyway.
So that's something that we would take
[21:18] back. And then dispatching as well.
That's not like a technological change.
[21:23] We no longer try to dispatch anything
from our office. people sometimes
[21:28] instead of calling 911, we call the
officers directly. We try to take that
[21:32] away because it's safer when it's done
through Burk's radio. So even answering
[21:36] the phones is less.
That's why I think that we'll be able to
[21:40] do without that position.
>> Okay. So it'll just be completely
[21:44] eliminated
>> most likely. Yes. That's what we
[21:47] budgeted for. Um that budget's based on
running those numbers of when we
[21:52] anticipate her to her to work this year.
>> Okay. Um, last question I have is I
[22:00] don't see any capital improvements.
You have no capital really listed other
[22:05] than what you just mentioned there.
There's there we're not you're not
[22:09] asking for capital to start putting it
away for that 2028 as an example for the
[22:15] mobile uh units.
>> Not other than the $60,000 for the MCT,
[22:21] right? That is that is the capital
purchase that we're asking for for 2028
[22:25] just for the the computers.
>> Yeah. And but is that that's not a fixed
[22:31] cost at this point?
>> That three years
[22:34] » it's most like for the computers itself
that most likely will cover it based on
[22:38] the 50,000 that we put away in 2025. So
we we if we get if you approve the
[22:45] $60,000 in that category, we should have
enough for the MCTs.
[22:49] » Okay. All right. Good. Okay. But I when
I didn't when I don't see capital, I I
[22:54] start thinking, uh oh,
>> sure.
[22:57] » All of a sudden, we're going to get hit
with a a possible capital request that
[23:03] was not was not planned or maybe you
knew about and didn't let us know.
[23:09] » We'll be back knocking next year for the
other thing.
[23:12] » Okay, good. Thank you, Lieutenant.
That's it for me,
[23:17] » Supervisor.
No, I understand.
[23:21] [Music]
[23:24] » Supervisor H.
>> I don't think at this time.
[23:28] » Just a couple of things for me. Um,
you've mentioned the operational
[23:32] increase on the body cameras and the
bulletproof vests. There are grants that
[23:37] are being pursued. Um,
do you know when uh you could hear about
[23:44] it? So, the bulletproof vest grant
is usually a sure thing. Um, that's
[23:51] something that we go through every year,
but it does have to happen after we
[23:58] go through a process. As far as the
grant for the cameras, I believe that
[24:03] the earliest we could hear from that is
March.
[24:05] » So, they're in theory, they could be at
zero as far as
[24:09] » it could be.
>> Uh, the other thing, it's an ask. Uh,
[24:12] it's not a comment or anything. I would
like to look at you over time by year,
[24:16] work with Bill and see how we could
improve.
[24:21] Other than that, if there's nobody else
having any other questions,
[24:26] » I appreciate you and I appreciate your
presentation. Well done.
[24:30] » Thank you.
[24:36] » All right, we're switching
it.
[24:51] [Music]
[24:56] I have it up on the screen. Check.
[25:09] » Good to go.
>> Good to go, sir.
[25:12] » Okay. Uh Chris Jordan, fire chief, Exit
Township Volunteer Fire Department. Uh
[25:17] first of all, thank you for allowing us
to present the 2026 budget this evening.
[25:23] Um thank you to the board of
supervisors, also the residents for your
[25:27] support over the last year and in
previous years.
[25:31] We're very proud of what we accomplished
in this past year and we're still
[25:35] accomplishing more. Um, and I'm
personally very proud of all of our crew
[25:39] and all the accomplishments that they've
had over the last year.
[25:44] Um, just to name a few, in 2025 we
placed Tower Ladder 25 in service. Um,
[25:51] so you'll see that on the street and
great asset to the community. Uh, we
[25:57] also had six new members achieve their
essentials of firefighting training this
[26:03] year. Uh that's a 200 hour training
class and they'll all be testing for
[26:07] their firefighter one certification in
the beginning part of November. So you
[26:12] know most fire departments or fire
companies in in the county might have
[26:16] one or two. So we're very proud that we
have you know six that went through the
[26:20] class and and actually started and
finished the entire class. Quite an
[26:25] accomplishment for those members. Um,
I'm also proud to say that we over the
[26:31] past year, we've expanded our junior
firefighter program, which is members
[26:35] ages 14 to 17 years of age. We made a
push on that to tell replenishing uh
[26:40] that program. We've gone from six
members at this time last year to now we
[26:44] have 12.
>> So, that's a great accomplishment to um,
[26:49] you know, the school district's been
helping us, but also to our crew for
[26:52] helping with those recruitment efforts.
>> So, thank you again.
[26:58] Uh before we get into the numbers, I
just wanted to uh reiterate the
[27:02] priorities of the department. Um the
first priority is to continue to provide
[27:07] 247 365 days a year in-house staffing.
Uh one of the things that our fire
[27:13] department does is we have in-house
staffing uh 247 365.
[27:19] You know, that's done through our career
staff, but also our volunteers that we
[27:25] incentivize to staff our fire station.
The second priority is the centrallylo
[27:33] emergency services center, which we've
talked at length about.
[27:38] Third priority is to continue to
solidify our apparatus replacement plan,
[27:42] which we'll talk about a little bit
later.
[27:46] Fourth priority is to continue to
enhance community relations with local
[27:50] businesses and community organizations.
Over the years, we've had great
[27:54] relationships with the local businesses
um and also many community organizations
[27:59] that we continue to support and they
support us um through various events
[28:04] during the year.
And then last but not least, we want to
[28:08] continue to enhance our recruitment and
training efforts. Um, one of the one of
[28:13] the things that I wanted to do when I
took over as fire chief is to continue
[28:16] to make sure that our members that we
have in place are being productive uh
[28:21] and retain them, but also to make sure
that we're recruiting new recruits and
[28:27] also training them properly. Um,
you know, the next essentials class will
[28:33] start sometime in January or February,
and I'm hoping to get another six
[28:38] enrolled in that class so that at this
time next year, I can tell you we have
[28:41] another six firefighters on the street.
So, that's the goal.
[28:50] Some historical call volume.
Sorry, on the wrong page.
[28:56] Um, so a lot of the community may not
know who we are. Um, you know, we're
[29:02] Exit Township Volunteer Fire Department,
but we're a combination fire department.
[29:07] Um, currently we're staffed by
volunteers. We do have full-time staff
[29:11] and we do have part-time personnel.
So, right now we have 75 active
[29:16] volunteers. That would include the
junior members and also the fire police
[29:20] members. We have two full-time
firefighters that cover our daytime
[29:25] operations.
And then we have 20 part-time
[29:29] firefighters that fill five positions
during the daytime hours. You know, in
[29:35] the past, you know, the firefighters
would work at the local hardware st
[29:39] store, leave to go fight a fire or
protect the community. Those days are
[29:44] long gone. So, what we're doing is
maintaining a combination department
[29:51] where it's a combination of volunteers
and career staff, you know, to help
[29:55] protect the community.
And we provide all disciplines of the
[30:00] fire service. Fire suppression, you
know, truck and aerial work, rescue, we
[30:05] fight brush fires. We have tankers for
the rural end of the township. We also
[30:10] have fire police. We have QRS and EMS
which help support the lifeline EMS
[30:15] program. And then we also have water
rescue.
[30:19] And once again, the goal is to continue
to maintain that 247 365 program.
[30:25] [Music]
[30:30] From a call volume perspective, um, in
2023 we responded to 1468 emergency
[30:37] responses. About 80 of those were from
the flooding uh, in July, which we've
[30:42] talked about. Last year, we were at
1401, and this year we're at 1,200 at
[30:48] the end of September. So, that would put
us right around uh, 1,550 calls for the
[30:54] year. you know, which obviously is about
a 10% increase from last year.
[31:02] Some statist some stats from last year,
20% of our calls were overlapped,
[31:06] meaning that um when you're out on a
call, we may get another call during
[31:11] that time, which again, we try to
maintain at least two crews in place
[31:16] that they can respond to that.
[31:20] 77% of those calls were fire and rescue
calls and then 23% were QRS and EMS
[31:26] calls.
78% of our responses were to exit
[31:30] township in St. Lawrence Burough, which
would be our first two area. And our
[31:34] dispatch to our average dispatch uh to
response time is 1 minute and 5 seconds.
[31:48] Okay, on to the budget. Um, the current
fire tax is at I'm going to say 1.07
[31:55] mills. That's where the current fire tax
is. At this point in time, we're not
[32:00] requesting a tax increase for the 2026
operational budget.
[32:06] So, the operational budget encompasses
pretty much everything we need to
[32:11] operate.
Vehicle and personal insuranceances,
[32:15] fuel for e vehicles, workman's comp,
things of that nature.
[32:21] The fire tax generates approximately
$1.4 million in the course of a year.
[32:29] And on the expense line, uh if you go
down to the bottom, you can see that uh
[32:34] the line items are pretty close to where
they were last year. A few callouts. Um
[32:40] as Lieutenant Schaefer mentioned, you
know, we're seeing increases in
[32:44] insurance costs as well. So, workman's
comp, we're projecting to be around
[32:48] $75,000
for next year.
[32:52] Um, under line uh for fire or
contributions in fire, that line item is
[32:58] for our career staff and our part-
timerrs. That also includes the health
[33:03] insurance of those me of the two
full-timers. Uh, right now, we're
[33:07] anticipating from 2025 to 2026, that
should be about a 20% increase over last
[33:14] year. A few factors play into that. Um,
number one, the overall health insurance
[33:19] has gone up, but number two, um,
one of our full-timers resigned and we
[33:27] got a new full-timer and his health
insurance was a little bit higher than
[33:30] the old one we had. So, that's part of
the increase.
[33:34] Um, another note, if you go to the
bottom, um, you know, Supervisor Pio
[33:39] mentioned about capital purchases. So
that last line item, transfer to
[33:43] apparatus,
that's our capital or capital program
[33:48] for apparatus replacement.
So we took that from $235,000
[33:54] a year. We increased that to $250,000 a
year. We're in the process currently of
[34:00] looking at, you know, replacing one of
our apparatus based on our apparatus
[34:04] replacement program. And that apparatus
is projected to come in somewhere
[34:09] between 1.3 and 1.5 million.
If you haven't followed with the federal
[34:14] government, um the cost of fire
apparatus has skyrocketed over the last
[34:20] few years to the point where I believe
it's Senator Holly is very vocal with
[34:26] the federal government to try to stop
the increases of the fire apparatus and
[34:31] try to actually bring them down and get
the fire apparatus manufacturers more in
[34:36] line with where they should be.
the the apparatus that we're looking at
[34:41] replacing,
you know, at at the current rate, it
[34:45] would take us about six years to acrew
the funds to replace that apparatus
[34:49] without taking a loan or coming to the
board um with with a big with a big ask.
[34:57] So hopefully
the price of apparatus will start to
[35:04] relax and come down a little bit, but
we're not sure. So, we are looking at
[35:08] alternatives. You know, there's there's
something called a refurbishment where
[35:12] you could look at refurbishing a current
apparatus and bringing it more up to
[35:16] speed. Um, you know, you could also go a
used apparatus route, which are things
[35:21] we're all looking at. But, you know, in
the past, um, the apparatus that's being
[35:27] replaced has been used as a reserve
piece in case one of our apparatus goes
[35:30] down for mechanical issues or some other
major issues.
[35:36] Any
questions before we go on from that
[35:39] slide?
>> So you're just your delta is 4,500
[35:48] bucks.
>> Is that the difference that you're
[35:52] seeking pretty much is this here or just
going to cover it in house?
[35:55] » So that's actually
we're actually not we're not asking for
[35:59] any more.
So the the delta where it shows 4500 I
[36:05] believe that's what they're planning
that we would earn in the revenue line
[36:09] this year versus last year.
It's from interest and
[36:13] » yeah fair enough
>> other things
[36:18] » but yes if in the operational side I
think it's I think it's 1,433,000
[36:25] versus 1,432
that would be covered with
[36:30] uh internal
[36:33] » um some again some budget notes so
everything in here in the budget is uh
[36:38] all of our anticipated expenses related
to vehicle and insurance, fuel,
[36:44] 911 uh communications payment, which you
know, currently um
[36:51] and
manager, you might have to correct me if
[36:54] I'm wrong, but I I believe we're also
paying for the EMS
[36:59] communications fee out of this.
>> I don't know that.
[37:03] » Something we may want to look into, but
I believe it's EMS and fire. The
[37:07] communications fees are coming out of
that. I believe so. we might want to
[37:11] look at we'll look at that together.
>> Um
[37:15] workman's compensation insurance which
we talked about apparatus maintenance
[37:18] and also the payroll and benefits for
the full-time personnel and then the
[37:22] payroll for the part-time personnel the
volunteer incentive program and also the
[37:27] apparatus replacement program.
And just to reiterate for the for the
[37:32] app for the uh operational side of the
fire department, we are not asking for a
[37:37] tax increase this fiscal year of 2026.
[37:45] » 10 out of 10. Thank you.
>> Any questions?
[37:47] » Um just wondering why did you drop uh
the fire vehicle maintenance
[37:53] 25,000 from your operation? So last year
we knew we were going to have some
[37:58] pretty significant maintenance costs. Um
you know one of our apparatus I believe
[38:03] had to have some engine work done. This
year we're not anticipating that blue.
[38:08] Hopefully none of that happens. So
hopefully the maintenance can come down.
[38:12] Um and it's it's reallocated into the
uh what would be the contributions fire
[38:21] which is a salary and benefits and
things like that to cover those
[38:25] increases.
Fair enough. Appreciate it. Thank you.
[38:30] » Anybody has a question for
>> Yeah, I'm not sure. Um, St. Lawrence,
[38:36] what what are they paying you fire? What
do they pay us?
[38:40] » Yeah, so right now St. Lawrence's fire
tax is at I believe it's at 67 mills.
[38:47] Um, and that money is split between exit
and also Mount Penny.
[38:54] So that generates I believe it generates
approximately $12,000 per year per fire
[39:00] department.
>> That's it. Do we anticipating an
[39:04] increase? I mean that's
>> Yeah. So I've worked with the chief at M
[39:07] » basically free
>> and we put together
[39:12] well we could talk about St. offline.
But so they we put together a plan where
[39:20] um there's increases every year in the
fire tax. Um and it's it's basically
[39:26] contracted services with them.
[39:32] But good question. They do contribute
but it's I mean dollar-wise it's it's
[39:38] small making.
[39:42] Um, any other questions for the chief
here from the rest of the board?
[39:48] » Thank you.
>> He already answered about capital
[39:51] equipment. Thank you, chief.
>> Thank you, chief. I appreciate it.
[39:54] » Thanks.
[39:57] » All right. Uh, I don't know if anybody
signed up for public comments. I don't
[40:00] see anything written on the sheets. So,
we're going to move on to adjourment.
[40:06] Do I have a motion to adjour the budget
workshop?
[40:11] I make that motion.
>> Do I have a second?
[40:14] » I'll second