[0:17] okay good morning everyone I'd like to call this uh meeting to order we're in

[0:22] the council chambers of Wayne Fleet um is there any disclosure of Interest or

[0:28] general nature thereof seeing

[0:34] none we'll go on uh adoption of the agenda I need to move in a

[0:40] second Scott Mr

[0:46] Hoy all in

[0:51] favor no okay we're

[0:55] good okay approval of minutes from June 17 202

[1:00] for is any corrections or nothing all in favor of

[1:08] approval it's carried okay I need a move in a second

[1:13] on that Council Hoy coun uh CEO

[1:19] Louie Scott

[1:24] Scott all in favor that's approved

[1:31] business arising from previous meetings comparators of shared services across

[1:38] Ontario Morgan you want to go to that sure through you Mr chair um what I've

[1:45] provided here um I was able to uh gather a list from the Ontario Association of

[1:50] Fire Chiefs of municipalities that currently share um that share Fire

[1:56] Chiefs um not so much um full Amalgamated departments but just um that

[2:02] have a shared administrative role um some of which you'll see i' I've

[2:07] provided um kind of a a commentary on some of the Lessons Learned um and some

[2:14] of the the pros and cons of of the different models that have been utilized

[2:18] um and then lastly also kind of some of the the natural progressions that has

[2:23] occurred um you know over the the decade that some of these been that have been

[2:28] used uh so for that I think I'll just look to the committee members if they

[2:31] have any questions of Staff then we can kind of review um and go forward from

[2:43] there um sure through the chair to the chief um I I know about these examples

[2:48] from the past I just from my career I've been exposed to them and whatnot um but

[2:54] I think there's more that exist or have existed and sort of gone

[2:59] by the wayside in Ontario how did you choose this list was there a criteria

[3:03] did you exclude some for reasons of practicality like

[3:07] they didn't apply to our situation or they didn't uh have the same parameters

[3:11] that we're looking at or something like that or did you choose these as best

[3:14] practices was there a criteria for that through you Mr chair no these are

[3:20] the ones that um utilize a shared Chief so the others

[3:27] like Huntsville Lake a base they had used a shared chief model for years and

[3:31] years and they have now gone to a fully Amalgamated system so that's why they

[3:35] were left off because the last meeting we talked about full amalgamation wasn't

[3:40] to be considered perfect uh appreciate that

[3:45] answer and then the second question probably my last one on this sorry

[3:50] unless we get into it um a little deeper dive the comments are great and I

[3:56] appreciate them the analysis I guess for lack of a better term but I just just

[3:59] going to ask you if they're all like how you uh how you got them

[4:04] basically I see the one from Perth and Perth East or West Perth and Perth he

[4:08] says the fire chief there has provided comments from his experience there but

[4:16] the other ones don't say that did you reach out to each of these

[4:19] municipalities and sort of survey uh sorry survey is probably not the best

[4:24] inquire as to pros and cons and successes and pitfalls and so on to to

[4:29] get these comments the four pages of analysis yes is that how you did it so

[4:33] through you Mr chair yeah um in the case of Midland and penetang I actually

[4:37] called the fire chief there uh directly um he's he's new to the role he's been

[4:42] doing that shared role for about three years um they are they're almost at 10

[4:46] years now um and they're currently going through a feasibility study um because

[4:51] of the lessons learned through their their shared Chief role which I've

[4:54] highlighted here um in the in the case of West Perth Perth East that is

[4:58] literally um his email to me based on on the Lessons Learned uh in the case of

[5:03] West Niagara um I I spoke with with Chief Hudson there um and kind of the

[5:09] lessons learned and then in the case of MTO Wellington and uh Wellington North

[5:14] and mapon that's also I contacted uh Chief Chris Harrow and spoke about their

[5:19] Lessons Learned um and that's there and then Huntsville Lake of Bays um again

[5:24] that was um they've gone through a couple of Chiefs and the most recent one

[5:28] um was the one that that pushed uh forward the the amalgamation so those

[5:32] are just that's just where the history of of the different models came

[5:36] from that's that's what I needed to know and I appreciate that I said one last qu

[5:41] that would be the last question but then I remembered I was in uh February in an

[5:45] no April in an elevator with a council member from uh from uh pretty sure it

[5:52] was Rockland um Rockland is also shared

[5:57] service right that is correct yes they they do have a shared Chief model yep

[6:01] right and uh through the chair the um I actually just I casually inquired how is

[6:07] it going and he said like best thing we've ever done or something to that

[6:10] effect the reason I ask reason I tell you that story is do you in addition to

[6:16] these phone calls and and inquiries to these municipalities do you in your

[6:20] day-to-day or even when you go to a fire chief's conference or when you go to an

[6:25] event where there's people gathered from all over Ontario do you hear about these

[6:29] things these places and do you get Pros cons positive negative feedback on

[6:37] them through the chair um yes when I do attend but to be honest it it this

[6:42] particular topic hasn't really been on my radar up until March April of this

[6:48] year so it's not really something that until I was asked to pursue um that I

[6:54] really started to get to get the information

[6:59] okay anyone else so I have a question for

[7:05] you so generally when you go to these fire

[7:10] conferences and I don't know the fire industry at all but I do know the

[7:14] industry I'm in and there's pros and cons and people look at things

[7:18] positively and negatively what is the overall

[7:23] perception or a view of people joining up I would min IP alties working

[7:30] together to try to have joint services like this is this something in general

[7:34] that the fire industry doesn't like because they think it's going to cut

[7:41] jobs or less jobs in their industry like what is is there a general

[7:48] conception that that's what's going to happen in this so through you uh Mr

[7:53] chair uh there are 444 municipalities in the province of Ontario every single one

[7:58] of them are unique and different um and with that what you have here is a

[8:03] snapshot of those municipalities uh that have attempted it as I said some have

[8:08] moved on to full amalgamation um of the Chiefs that I've spoke to um they

[8:13] believe that this is the way forward um as we are all aware fire services are

[8:18] becoming increasingly expensive to operate um and for smaller

[8:23] municipalities um and for most that's why I think even regionalization I said

[8:29] it uh was a was a topic at one point um because at some point we have to

[8:35] understand that um while it is a municipal responsibility um through the

[8:40] fppa it is an an expensive one and as municipalities we need to do what's best

[8:46] to deliver the services that our community expects and if that means that

[8:50] having to share sometimes that's the best way forward okay thank

[8:57] you okay span of responsibility comparatives to the other nager Regional

[9:03] fire departments U I'll put

[9:16] that um yeah I I think the the question here that was brought up to you Mr chair

[9:22] um was about the ability for uh a shared management team to be able to handle um

[9:30] a department as this and and yes I will admit as a chief you know having to uh

[9:35] to deal with you know three Collective agreements two municipal councils two

[9:39] municipal budgets um that is something that as the chief would have to manage

[9:44] uh but I think when you look at um kind of the span of responsibility that I

[9:49] have here when you look at other municipalities whether it be population

[9:53] square kilometers the number of stations the size of Fleet the Personnel um it's

[9:59] not impossible it's not out of the realm of

[10:03] what's expected for a chief in or or an administrative team in today's day and

[10:09] age um obviously there will be increased workload which is why you know the

[10:14] deputy and myself would not be able to do this just the two of us there would

[10:18] be additional uh resources required um but it's not impossible and that's

[10:24] that's what this was meant to show is when you compare what this model would

[10:28] look like to the other municipal alties um in in Department size and

[10:33] operation it's it is it is manageable

[10:38] okay any questions Council H through the chair um

[10:44] just a quick question I'm looking at Lincoln and Grimsby which they're doing

[10:49] they're doing shared right correct um so the Shar and the chief so you got

[10:55] have a 0 five um they both have their separate uh Deputy Chiefs and

[11:03] then together it'll be two fpos and then two training that's

[11:09] correct yep and they're dividing it up whatever percentage I imagine grimsby's

[11:15] putting more of the bill than Lincoln right I would imagine well bigger

[11:21] population I'm just trying to figure out how this would fit into port and Wayne

[11:27] fleet's Uh situation um but if I look at the numbers the

[11:35] population were like almost all except for

[11:41] thoral don't have fulltime I'm just looking at the

[11:46] averages here so um just had a question is

[11:53] this how we see it as bringing in uh dividing up the chief

[11:59] and then bring in another deputy chief as one of the

[12:07] options sorry what what is the question

[12:11] counselor oh I'm just uh just trying to figure this out on how this work for us

[12:15] so it'll be two Deputy Chiefs in Port I mean not Port but in the grouping and

[12:20] then one yourself and then one

[12:25] FP um is that the idea yeah so so the next the next um am I going ahead of

[12:29] slide yeah yeah just just ahead yeah item C does talk about uh um the

[12:34] financial options and what that orc chart would look

[12:40] like okay so there's no more questions on Item B let's go to C and you can

[12:46] answer that one yeah and I think I'll I'll look

[12:49] to did you want to take this one mallerie up to

[12:54] you okay yeah um yeah so so the uh Treasures for both municipalities met

[13:00] based on Council or the committee's direction um and did a a cost analysis

[13:06] of the options um one being status quo as you know two chiefs two deputies two

[13:12] independent departments um option two would be one Chief and two deputies um

[13:17] utilizing the port curn um pay grid scale uh option three is one Chief and

[13:24] two deputies using the Wayne Fleet pay grid and scale and then option four is

[13:29] one Chief a deputy and an assistant Deputy also using the wne fleet grid um

[13:35] the assistant Deputy you'll see when I when you look at the organizational

[13:38] chart uh I I hadn't um built that in it was just a model to show if if you did

[13:44] want to have that extra layer of rank um the savings

[13:49] are it's about $88,000 per municipality uh in savings whereas uh you know for

[13:56] the value for the value there it's it's option four

[13:59] doesn't really provide what I think we're looking for here um but two and

[14:03] three that's kind of where the the orc chart that you see behind uh is was

[14:08] built on and I guess really it's just the committee at this point the

[14:11] committee looking at options one two and three and what model best

[14:22] works okay does uh we want to get Cameron to comment on this or no I don't

[14:28] think so so um through the chair to to the committee so just to comment on that

[14:33] when the chief says Wayne fleets pay grid and pay scale versus poor C's pay

[14:37] grid and pay scale that would mean that that municipality would be the employer

[14:43] of the the group of administrative employees so um we can't have Port curn

[14:48] employees operating on the Wayne Fleet Grid or Wayne Fleet employees operating

[14:51] on the port curn grid um so just to keep that in mind when reviewing the options

[14:56] um as well as so option two and option three at this point I guess we would be

[15:00] looking so the intent or our hope is that we can go to to council to a joint

[15:05] council meeting with a recommendation from this committee so if there are any

[15:10] committee members that have maybe any options that they don't see here that

[15:14] they would like to see in terms of a split or Personnel then we're happy to

[15:19] take that back and and uh review and and come up with a different financial model

[15:25] if that's what you see fit

[15:32] any questions through the chair uh my question is I'm looking at this and I

[15:39] see the two deputies it says Port curn so that's in the port curn

[15:45] scale but what if one is in

[15:50] each cuz technically there should be someone in Port and there should some

[15:55] definitely be someone in Wayne Fleet and besides where the chief will beting

[16:01] this because in this um cost does it have the uh Chief also on there so

[16:09] through the chair to councelor Hoy uh so it doesn't necessarily mean that that's

[16:13] where the all of the employees are going to live it's just going to be you can't

[16:17] they can't have two separate employers and with the financial modeling and with

[16:22] ports grid versus Wayne fleet's grid if one of them was an employee of port and

[16:26] two of them were an employee of Wayne Fleet there would be less cost savings

[16:30] and likely the deputy would earn more than the chief which in a hierarchy

[16:35] situation that doesn't exactly work so they would all have to be employees of

[16:39] one municipality or the other that doesn't necessarily mean that that's

[16:43] where their office will be that that's where their time will spent that that's

[16:45] how the time will be split up uh that is an operational thing that Council can

[16:50] have input on those levels of service this is purely the financial modeling

[16:54] and how it and how it has basically it doesn't necessar work out if that's not

[17:00] the case and we're not looking at Apples to

[17:07] Apples yeah through the chair to I don't know the chief or maybe to councelor

[17:12] hoy's comment like I'm in my position is unique because when I sit here I'm a

[17:17] Committee Member but when I sit in my council chambers I'm a Staff person

[17:20] who's giving a recommendation to my counil so obviously two different

[17:25] functions not that I can't handle both I think I can but um

[17:30] you know looking at these numbers are actually better than I thought they

[17:33] would be 100,000 220,000 in savings but I'm not as

[17:37] motivated by Financial savings like if I'm motivated by efficiency and

[17:43] effectiveness of the service that we're going to deliver to both municipalities

[17:48] so if it's way way way better and it cost an extra Buck it's okay with

[17:53] me but if it saves 100,000 and it's not better it's worse I can't can't

[17:59] recommend it to my Council I mean if if it saves someone like there's something

[18:03] there some Middle Ground there where if it saves a little bit and it stays the

[18:06] same quality-wise but I want a I want a safe effective efficient fire department

[18:12] for both municipalities so my questions are more on the org chart if you if I

[18:18] can take you there and to councelor Ho's Point Chief you have these two deputies

[18:24] on this org chart divided by function uh rather than

[18:30] say chief of you know in my mind's eye chief of Wayne Fleet and Port curn

[18:36] deputy chief Wayne Fleet deputy chief Port curn that's a different model

[18:40] that's not expressed here I think is what he's asking if I can put words in

[18:44] his mouth can you explain why you propos this model instead of that and I'll ask

[18:50] a followup right away if that's okay chair

[18:55] um the uh in practical applic because we always design things but then we have to

[19:00] go out and actually do them and when is the is the practical application the

[19:05] same as we projected where will people be stationed managers like is there

[19:09] office hours in both municipalities I guess is my follow-up question after you

[19:14] answer the first one uh yeah through you Mr chair so this was built again based

[19:20] on the lessons learned from previous municipality so when we look at the

[19:23] Midland penetang model they did that penetang had their own Deputy Midland

[19:28] had their own Deputy they were not cross-appointed only the chief was so in

[19:34] the event and and although they had automatic Aid agreements if the deputy

[19:38] of penetang came into Midland there was no authority to

[19:42] operate as an administrator as a deputy or there was no delegated authority as

[19:48] Chief what that left is two very Standalone departments and that that

[19:53] duplication of efforts still occurred in penetang the deputy chief was

[19:58] responsible for fire prevention training coordination all of that no different

[20:02] than the deputy of of penet Tang machine that's where those that's where the

[20:06] savings would be is reducing that duplication and having

[20:10] that Specialties so when we look at the MTO Willington North model that's

[20:15] exactly the the approach they took is it is a shared administrative team with

[20:19] individuals having Specialties that all municipalities have access to regardless

[20:24] of wherever they work from right I mean even Gathering most of this putting this

[20:29] report together half my time was spent at my waylet office half my time and you

[20:33] can ask the crews was spent at my port office it doesn't matter where we work

[20:36] from as long as there's presence and as long as there's as long as the work is

[20:41] getting done and so in in this model where we have a chief and two deputies

[20:47] there is the opportunity for a deputy to be stationed at each and the chief to go

[20:51] whichever way the wind blows or his schedule takes them but same thing with

[20:56] the depuy's role if the training officer has to be in port curn on a Tuesday to

[21:00] prep or Monday that's where the deputy chief of training is if he has to be in

[21:03] Monday in port or in way Fleet on Monday then that's where he is it it there has

[21:08] to be flow and flux to make sure that both municipalities are receiving the

[21:13] services of all

[21:18] three any other further

[21:24] questions uh through the chair just going back to this zorg chart um and I

[21:29] think I'm just maybe ask maybe I just want you to State the obvious these

[21:33] aren't all different people these are responsibilities that flow under so

[21:38] deputy chief both sides left and right are

[21:41] people uh suppression down here are people but these other ones are

[21:46] functions that fall under the two silos or or maybe that's not the best word uh

[21:52] the two halves of the department are two separate sides right there's not there's

[21:57] not 30 people working through the chair that is correct yes so so that is that

[22:01] is the roles and responsibilities that each individual would that's the kind of

[22:06] their portfolio of their

[22:15] position any further

[22:24] questions Bri anybody nope we're good there let's go

[22:31] down uh we'll go to D to final survey

[22:39] responses so we'll put you on the seat again for that one more yeah um through

[22:44] the chair um the what I've done here is I've taken the the results of the

[22:48] surveys and I've I've kind of put them in in order of question that you guys

[22:54] can can visually review the results um I I don't think I'm going to go through

[22:58] every question we we'd be here till noon but if the if the committee members have

[23:02] questions or comments themselves um of the results that that might have piqued

[23:07] your interest we can certainly have those

[23:11] discussions any

[23:16] questions okay so I'll start on this one then on your ranked

[23:21] questions I really didn't like the way that was set up because there was

[23:26] probably three things that I agreed at their importance but I couldn't rank

[23:33] the three of them the same so now you fighting with yourself where do I want

[23:38] to put this and where is this more important to me than this and this and

[23:44] some things that I thought were equally as important ended up being

[23:49] Place third which to me was wrong and then on mine I kind of asked that it be

[23:57] separated for wayle Council Port counsel Wayne Fleet volunteers Port volunteers

[24:02] and Port full-time just so I get a better idea who was

[24:07] doing what you can pretty well tell what it was reading this thing but like I

[24:11] said the U I think some of it would be skewed on the council side more than

[24:17] anywhere when you were trying to rate you know is equipment more important

[24:21] than cost or is cost more important than training and right

[24:25] so when I was doing it I had a struggle try trying to get things where I thought

[24:30] they should be instead of you know all of them being a four right it was you

[24:34] started with a four and some of them ended up at a two which wasn't way they

[24:38] probably should have been but that's my was part of my struggle doing that so

[24:45] I don't know if anybody else has any comments or questions

[24:49] or to the chair um my biggest thing is you can tell

[24:55] that I'll say this nicely but just run like employees that may have an

[25:03] issue with all this it's noted in here you can see it it's a lack of this lack

[25:09] of that and all that um obviously I do agree that uh Staffing shortages well

[25:17] definitely important but there's not enough

[25:19] volunteers at all and training yeah I've already heard lots of training I hear

[25:24] even training now uh from volunteers that it's

[25:28] still not there so um I don't know if

[25:36] it's I like the charts I like the information I just don't know if

[25:41] it's cuz where I work at the state you're

[25:45] always going to get employees views of their own

[25:49] and kind of like Shades what you're trying to get um I do get worried about

[25:56] the training I do get worried about like comments like

[26:00] attitude intimidation from full-timers I mean I hope that's not true I just hope

[26:07] it just someone that was just happened to be upset but that kind

[26:12] of doesn't sit well of me lack of leadership well we already knew that was

[26:19] there prior to even you coming on board right so I just trying to figure

[26:26] out where of this would be the most benefit that I can bring back to my

[26:30] fellow counselors to say what I would support

[26:36] at the end of the day so it's not really a question I just taken a survey of how

[26:41] this was uh conducted and I just think it's more of how the person feels and

[26:47] it's probably not the best to evaluate on

[26:51] that so if I can and then the chief no no offense taken um when I started here

[26:59] six years ago getting close to that that was our biggest complaint in town was

[27:04] training lack of training no training we were had the ministry coming down ready

[27:08] to pretty well shut down our fire department it takes time to get the

[27:14] training there you you know if our culture had

[27:18] none now if I read this you can almost tell the guys from wng Fleet that said

[27:23] we've got enough training we have enough training it's getting the guys to go to

[27:26] the training is the problem it I am sure with Chief alock will have

[27:32] the same Pro same issues in Port cin they'll have the opportunity to train

[27:37] they'll have all of that it'll be how do we get the guys how do we make it

[27:41] mandatory that they show up and take the training and that'll have to come from

[27:47] that steering committee I think I'll have to put some rules in that the guys

[27:51] have to get there and they have to show up for so much of it because he can beat

[27:55] his head against the wall and Sean and you're new deputy chief but if we don't

[28:00] force that the guy show up but it all takes time to get there and I mean

[28:04] reading ours I think we you've done a great job

[28:08] so far so it'll happen there in Port as well it

[28:13] just takes

[28:17] time I guess through through the chair if I if I can be next I I have a lot to

[28:21] say and I don't know what order I should say it all in but uh I can I the survey

[28:26] it's tough for me to go through I I I appreciate all this feedback and the

[28:30] firefighters from both municipalities who participated but uh and it's clearly

[28:35] there's a lot of emotion and passion about this this and I'm not afraid to

[28:41] say that probably this could have been handled better on the poort colr side of

[28:45] things I think one of the problems that I was dealing with as staff was the

[28:48] suddenness of it I can tell you that um like I have in my email a report about

[28:54] there's three things happening at once shared services

[28:58] there's a labor issue in pork hurn around a grievance because of the not

[29:01] replacing of a union firefighter that's a separate and apart issue the third

[29:05] issue was our chief left and we had no Chief and we had to get one within 10

[29:09] days yeah so you know but I can when you they're kind of conflated into the

[29:16] answers of the survey sometimes I think that person's

[29:19] answering a question about one but bringing in some passion about the other

[29:24] not to dispute that that's it's someone's reality and to your point

[29:27] councelor o about you hope it's not true about one of those comments it's true

[29:33] for one person and if that's their perception then they're living that

[29:37] every day that's their reality uh might not be the other 10 you know people on

[29:42] the shift or or couple of shifts but having said that one volunteer feels

[29:46] that way what I'm building to is I have in my email maybe it's not fair to

[29:51] divulge but uh to to share with people but I can tell you I have a report that

[29:55] Chief Lawson was working on from heck October or November about shared

[30:00] services he was designing a shared service model for for um Wayne Fleet and

[30:06] Port curn he was also designing one for a bigger group that included other

[30:10] municipalities like this work was taking place under previous administrations

[30:15] watch it's not something that happened all of a

[30:18] sudden uh the second thing though and and and maybe we should have engaged the

[30:23] city at Port curn at least should have engaged our workers our empy emploees in

[30:28] both unions better um but then what happened the next trigger was Chief

[30:34] Lawson saying he's leaving and me having to quickly write a staff report and

[30:37] quickly engage the two presidents of the two associations they weren't given and

[30:41] one of them here today they weren't given a lot of notice about that

[30:44] happening but I didn't have a lot of notice either um the third thing that I

[30:48] want to say uh so so I don't know if there's an opportunity to go back

[30:51] because what I'm reading in here is some of the passion but I'm also reading a

[30:54] lot of lack of understanding uh maybe not having all of the information

[30:59] because there's some things in these answers that are just not

[31:04] correct but they're based on somebody not having been told what is correct

[31:08] right you can't you can't answer a question sometimes if nobody told you

[31:12] what's going on and heck maybe the mayor and the CIO should have stood on the

[31:16] floor of the fire hall and addressed the fire department workers before before

[31:22] this whole thing took place setting that aside we can't change the past but we

[31:26] can do better moving forward the trouble I have with the survey is if everybody

[31:30] knows what a bell curve is you know usually you have most of the people

[31:35] agree you whether it's 80% of the people or 50% of the people and then it it sort

[31:40] of streams down from there the answers here are so extreme sometimes you know a

[31:44] person says we have a totally unsafe situation a person says we have a we

[31:48] have great safety it's a reverse bell curve almost where there's extremes and

[31:53] people who are on extremes and it makes it hard to take the survey result

[31:58] forward in any kind of decision making capacity I think everything in here

[32:02] should be considered in our decision- making but uh did I just get louder did

[32:07] somebody do that sounds um but it's hard to say you know 80% of survey respondant

[32:14] want this so let's do it and and so the numbers aren't there in a

[32:18] magnitude that uh that I think is actionable but I

[32:23] think there's definitely lessons that need to be learned from what people have

[32:27] shared with us in both municipalities and on the full-time and the volunteer

[32:32] side in Port curn so I appreciate that but that's my comments for uh and maybe

[32:37] unbundle those three separate issues that are affecting port colr at least

[32:41] and maybe both because I think they need to be on three separate paths but I

[32:46] understand there's some crossover

[32:53] here okay anybody else no we're good

[33:00] okay item six new business terms of reference review of the term of the

[33:07] committee um who wants to take that one

[33:14] ier uh so through the chair to to all of the committee so I guess the Hope was

[33:20] that we Wayne fleet's Council breaks over the summer so the term is going to

[33:26] like the the current term is going to come to

[33:28] expiration August August 8th so our Hope was that with the the placeholder for

[33:34] the joint council meeting next week Our Hope was that the committee could at

[33:38] least come up with a preferred option to recommend to both councils uh if or to

[33:44] or to recommend against and or we need to extend the agreement again as I

[33:49] mentioned in previous meetings like continually extending it with no light

[33:53] at the end of the tunnel is not sustainable for the chief or deputy uh

[33:58] we don't want them to get burned out because then neither municipality will

[34:01] be in a favorable position um but in the short term if we are working towards an

[34:05] option or the committee has direction for us to go back and consider a third

[34:10] Financial option or if we have a preference to a financial option um then

[34:15] we're looking for that direction and then we would have to rec make a

[34:19] recommendation to the to both councils to extend um just based on our Council

[34:24] schedule it doesn't align before the expiration a

[34:32] date any suggestions Scott so yeah uh to the chair you know we're we're making

[34:39] progress we're making slow progress I think we're eventually going to end up

[34:43] with a recommendation to at least from me to my Council and from

[34:49] your CEO to your Council about an option to pursue that could be no change in the

[34:54] way we operate uh status quo po colr will have to figure out uh a replacement

[35:00] Fire Chief and whether or not they're going to replace the deputy chief that's

[35:03] a political decision that will be made by Council um or if one of the three

[35:09] other options on the screen are going to be pursued that's not going to be

[35:13] decided today that's not going to be decided on Wednesday on uh I think it's

[35:18] July 17th the proposed 16th the The Joint meeting of council that we're

[35:22] holding a date for but where we end up with a administrative problem is Port

[35:28] curn still needs that shared service the temporary coverage while the recruitment

[35:34] is on hold for a full-time permanent replacement Chief so 120 days you know

[35:41] sitting there looking down the calendar at March 31st seemed like a lot of time

[35:46] here we sit at 95 days or whatever it is and it wasn't a lot of time so I

[35:51] guess you know even if was Wayne Fleet or sorry P curn was to post the position

[35:56] it would probably be 10 to to 12 weeks before a person could assume the

[36:01] position uh be recruited hired presumably give notice to their former

[36:07] employer that they're going to be leaving and going to port curn and so on

[36:11] so that's 3 months 12 weeks is 3 months August 8th plus 3 months is uh you know

[36:19] the end of October basically

[36:23] um but we have to have more meetings like I guess I don't know I looked at

[36:28] the chief could we say September 30th like almost like two

[36:34] dates a date for the committee's work to be done and a recommendation to be

[36:39] before Council and then a date to extend the shared the temporary

[36:45] coverage until which should be 3 months past when Council makes a decision if

[36:50] you know what I mean um through you Mr chair yeah I I

[36:55] think at this point knowing that one month to the day from the end of this

[37:00] term um I see no reason why we can't just extend to another two months so

[37:05] October 8th but at some point I think the committee is going to have to make

[37:10] its decision and recommendation to the Joint Council so I mean the next

[37:17] thing we have action items that that the committee is supposed to work on after

[37:21] this so I think what is the action items that staff like what is what is the

[37:25] committee's plan and schedu SCH to provide a report to

[37:30] councils and if it's not the 17th if it's some point in August like that's

[37:35] what the committee needs to decide is what's its plan forward before I just

[37:40] arbitrarily set two months as the date like what is what is our what is our

[37:44] revised work plan what is our

[37:51] schedule any suggestions thoughts so through the chair I guess

[37:57] what is there any information that the committee feels that they need prior to

[38:02] us being able to make a

[38:06] recommendation just so we can work backwards from that in terms of a

[38:09] timeline because if there's if we feel like we have all the information

[38:13] that that we need I don't know how many more meetings we need prior to us being

[38:18] able to craft a recommendation

[38:27] so um I'll look at it we've got the financials here and where we supposed to

[38:32] go if we look at all the other municipalities

[38:36] eventually most of them ended up in an amalgamation but it was 10 years and

[38:40] that's kind of what we talked about originally was in the 5 to 10 year range

[38:46] because people have to get their heads wrapped around it and they have to see

[38:50] that it'll work right so if the population of Port Cobrin we do this

[38:55] joint in 5 years from now they haven't

[38:59] seen anything go backwards it's all moved forwards and Wayne fleet has done

[39:05] the same thing you know they talked about your um loyalty to the the the

[39:10] department you're with but it would be a new Department then right that you would

[39:15] go to so you know whether you work for the town of way Fleet or the city of

[39:19] Port kobin you're now going to work for a joint fire department so you'll have

[39:25] you should be able to mix in over the five years and know this is coming to

[39:29] figure it out or 10 years if that's what it takes it's I think we just look

[39:35] at which one of these is going to give us the best service I'm kind of of the

[39:40] same mind as Scott I I care about what it costs us but I

[39:45] really want to make sure that we get the right service for the people and nothing

[39:49] goes backwards from what we have today right we were as Wayne Fleet as I said

[39:55] six years ago we're in tough sh shap we're in good shape now I don't want to

[40:00] see us go backwards did it cost us money it cost us a lot of money to get here

[40:05] right and your training side of it will cost you a bunch of money if that's what

[40:09] it really is to get there right if that's or if it's just somebody's nose

[40:15] how a joint I'm not sure is Council H said but the idea is to try and make

[40:22] something that works for both communities and is better for the

[40:26] general public and that's what we have to do I think the

[40:29] information is here yeah there's going to be hiccups there's going to be things

[40:33] that go wrong but I think we have the information is

[40:36] just to decide how we're going to go with this and financially in the setup

[40:41] right like Morgan says he's going to spend two days here and three days there

[40:44] and next week he's 4 days here because the wind blew him this way for for

[40:50] things that went wrong right or somebody was off or there was a an Emergency

[40:54] there's always I like to say work I put out fires but I can't say that all about

[41:01] Morgan because that's what he's doing but there's always something that goes

[41:05] wrong and you have to put all your attention to it to fix it right so um

[41:10] yeah I get it some days you'll be some weeks you'll be more time here some

[41:14] weeks we won't even see you but that's okay as long as the work's getting done

[41:18] and we're covered right I'm not naive enough to think that you're going to go

[41:22] over to Pork cin and work for them all the time and we'll get nothing right but

[41:26] I do know it's going to go both ways and I think that's we just have to get

[41:32] Council to look at it that way and maybe there has to be some chatter from us to

[41:38] the councilors and so yeah through the chair I agree uh

[41:44] 100% I know you know going back to the survey some of the questions that were

[41:48] answered um speak about things like how could one person be the chief of two

[41:54] municipalities or or will there be burn burn out and things like this but there

[41:58] are places in Ontario where they didn't get a choice you know in Hamilton which

[42:02] was Amalgamated I don't know if it was six departments or some number of

[42:05] departments into one Chief The Province said go figure it out you only have one

[42:10] Chief now and they made it work we have a chance here to make our own choice

[42:14] instead of having it forced upon us and build the the system um if we decide to

[42:21] go down that path I think my as a Committee Member now taking off my staff

[42:25] hat and putting on my Committee Member hat

[42:28] I I would like to direct staff to sort of come back with one of these two

[42:33] options you know in my mind I this is an awkward part of the conversation is the

[42:39] chief is here and he's the one who's going to be earning the pay and we can

[42:42] see that the pay is different depending on how it works but if it's option two

[42:47] port curn and I guess there's a question of who sharing with whom who's the

[42:51] shareer and who's the share e but at the end of the day when it's over there's

[42:55] something that I'd like people to be able to wrap head around if it is

[42:59] pursued the person is the chief the person is the chief of Port curn the

[43:03] person is the chief of Wayne Fleet it's not Port cbr's Chief is over here today

[43:08] it's not Wing fleet's deputy chief is over here today they are the fire

[43:13] Administration so one of these two options and of course still bringing

[43:17] forward status quo I don't think I don't favor assistant Deputy I I like the

[43:23] equality of two deputies and and start to funnel those down into

[43:30] building pros and cons for both models for both councils to consider

[43:36] so if it's if it's a motion I would move that we that we ask staff to continue

[43:41] working on option one and option two MH which is Port curn as the employer with

[43:47] a 60/40 split I don't know if we want to talk about that more if there's a

[43:51] seconder or what have you but I think we need to funnel down to what's going to

[43:55] be before both count

[44:02] if it's not time yet to decide so through the chair to the CIO it could be

[44:06] the first three options but again making progress towards narrowing down the

[44:11] options having pros and cons knowing the benefit of of each one but as well as

[44:16] the pitfalls and maybe some more engagement of of fir so like obviously

[44:22] from the survey this is one thing I didn't say sorry I'm rambling a bit from

[44:25] this survey po curn has some morale and culture issues that need to be addressed

[44:30] they're going to have to be addressed regardless of what models pursued and

[44:33] regardless of who's sitting in that seat um you know we don't live in a world

[44:38] where the sailors get to choose the captain but maybe they should have some

[44:43] voice because they do have skin in the game and do have to live with the

[44:47] permanent

[44:53] structure through the chair if I could get also the uh the splitting uh for

[45:00] option two and three the the chief's wage added to that in that number for

[45:08] option two and three just I like an overview of a whole model through the

[45:13] chair the chief's wage is included in this

[45:17] yes so through the chair just for clarity that's one Chief two deputies

[45:23] salary and benefits and no Administration no

[45:28] Arial through the chair to Scott yes that's correct it's uh the fire chief is

[45:33] in every option and two deputies and no admin so that's already included the

[45:41] numbers you're showing us yeah yeah okay because when you look at it it doesn't

[45:46] really say that so that's why I I thought when I was reading it that it

[45:50] was all there but I just wanted to make sure

[45:59] okay so we need a motion

[46:04] to got made the motion I'll second the motion okay for staff to come back with

[46:10] a more streamlined pros and cons approach with

[46:14] options one to three okay all in

[46:19] favor we got that

[46:27] any other

[46:30] comments uh through the through the chair to to Chief um it just popped into

[46:36] my head and maybe I maybe it's small potatoes but uh because I was looking at

[46:41] the breakdown of the costs that were included as

[46:46] you I mean Council needs as much information as possible the committee

[46:50] needs as much information possible it occurs to me that there would be other

[46:54] savings again maybe Small Potatoes is there Savings in vehicles Insurance you

[46:59] know cell phones conference attendance that eventually should be Cal calculated

[47:06] and sort of included because I we're talking about salary and benefits here

[47:09] but I'm thinking of those two red trucks that are sitting at the back of the fire

[47:13] hall in Port curn and not going anywhere right now not that premature to do

[47:18] anything now but is there going to be other economies of scale that are

[47:22] achieved as we move forward you don't even have to answer that now but I like

[47:25] to see that included in whatever financials we're looking at in the

[47:38] future see you got that Chief the other question I had was somewhere in here I

[47:43] was reading about the split on workman's comp the way wle plays it against ports

[47:48] at the end of the year does it it's a wash that comes out the basically the

[47:52] same amount of money or is it how's that work out so through the chair to all of

[47:58] the committee so no because Port cob is a schedule one employer and we're a

[48:02] schedule two employer they're self-funded so we true up at the end of

[48:06] each year um where that's not the case for Port Coburn

[48:12] okay so then if we went option three with using Wayne

[48:19] fleet's pay scale then at the end of the year they they'd be a cost them to chew

[48:23] up to us share that and otherwise if we go with option uh two then we would have

[48:32] to that cost would come to us as well right so they got to figure that in on

[48:37] our ENT so that would be something that we

[48:41] would consider and that would be drafted in an agreement if we got to a final

[48:45] agreement those are all things to be considered which is why they're noted at

[48:48] this stage as Scott was saying trucks a little minor stuff but it all comes out

[48:53] right in a wash we want it all there and no surprises to anybody afterwards or

[48:58] somebody says you you didn't tell us the whole truth right

[49:02] so okay so you've got that just just through you Mr chair so

[49:10] so in addition to the pros and cons of options one through three we also have

[49:13] to look into um any other savings material savings Vehicles conferences

[49:18] training cell phones anything else we'll as staff we'll sit down we'll kind of

[49:23] brainstorm if if if any of the committee members have

[49:27] any ideas as well please email them to me so that way we can take them into

[49:30] consideration these are just the ones that I I got out of the discussion um so

[49:35] that way we can kind of take some time and capture them as well um so just I

[49:40] guess with this now this is our action item for the next committee meeting is

[49:45] it safe to assume that the July 17th joint council meeting will not be

[49:53] required or should we bring in what we have here so through the chair to I

[49:59] guess I'm looking to poor Coburn um without that meeting I will have to try

[50:03] to amend our agenda for tomorrow for you guys in order for you guys to have a

[50:08] chief come past August 8th because I don't have a meeting until September

[50:12] after my meeting tomorrow night unless we host that meeting but it I if that's

[50:18] the only purpose of the meeting then I can just amend our agenda I'm smiling

[50:23] nicely at Amber just in case abely

[50:32] so we'll have to make a motion then to extend this

[50:36] till let's put the first of November

[50:42] down that work I think the chief had a date in mind was it September 8th or

[50:46] October 8th uh October 8th puts us at two months from from the original ending

[50:51] from the original yeah yeah but then November 3rd or October

[50:56] November 1st is a okay with me it just that way we get through the two Council

[51:01] meetings in October if we wanted to bring business forward so on that basis

[51:04] I'd make a motion that both councils be respectfully requested to extend the

[51:12] temporary coverage to November 1st

[51:19] 2024 yeah I'll second that doesn't mean we have to run that

[51:25] long we can end this sooner right

[51:42] but yeah sorry through the committee chair just talking to my uh council

[51:47] member here if if Wayne Fleet amends their

[51:52] agenda I don't even I think we if poor cor can bring something on July 23rd

[51:57] when our council meeting is we'd be making a bit of a leap of faith that

[52:01] council's going to approve that but I think the absence of a fire chief is a

[52:04] worse outcome than not extending um we would not have the

[52:10] July the July meeting of joint council

[52:15] meeting yeah I'm okay with that yes so through the chair to

[52:19] Scott we if we if we have no business to talk about on the SE and it's the 17th

[52:24] which I'm hearing mayor steals away um so yeah if we can amend our agenda just

[52:28] to have that extended and the committee is not in a position to make a

[52:32] recommendation to both councils then I would suggest that we don't need we

[52:37] don't have a need for that meeting at this time okay so I just just we

[52:43] probably should have sometime after September mid-september a joint meeting

[52:49] just so we can get other counselors making sure that they're on board with

[52:54] this because we want to we want to get get this done I don't know if there's

[52:57] anybody on our side that's going to oh you know you're talking about

[53:01] amalgamation here and right we we got to kind of get

[53:06] this in a joint meeting and get it done so that we come to November and we're

[53:12] still not arguing if we're going to get this done or not I don't know if we have

[53:15] the votes right so um full agreement from the staff side you know I I think

[53:20] we don't want to have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting but Council

[53:23] does deserve some updates and but also the staff who are working under both

[53:27] arrangements or both municipalities under this

[53:30] Arrangement need some uh need a a date they can sort of look forward to and say

[53:36] hey this is going to come to a conclusion so in the interest of

[53:38] fairness for all I think if we can get the clerks of both municipalities to

[53:43] today or like at this point in time set a meeting which gives us a long Runway

[53:47] make sure everyone's available on one of the weeks that there's not already a

[53:50] council meeting for one or the other of the municipalities that will be good um

[53:55] I know that I send a weekly uh email to my Council I can I I've sort of been

[54:01] saying we're making progress and and not detailed updates but updates but we also

[54:06] have a chance for councelor ho or for chief Alcock to sort of update our our

[54:11] June 9th July 9th council meeting has been canceled due to um No Agenda items

[54:15] July 23rd they can give a brief update to council so that Council knows but our

[54:21] Council has fully sort of supportive of this committee doing its work and

[54:26] doesn't really want to Tinker with it until it comes back to them so if we try

[54:30] for the first two weeks of September in a in a maybe or the after Labor Day when

[54:37] there's not a regular council meeting I think that might suit your meet your

[54:42] requirements yeah I'm I'm just thinking we need to have FaceTime with each other

[54:48] and get right people's opinion through you Mr chair so our next scheduled

[54:53] committee meeting is July 22nd MH um at which point we're going to bring that

[54:58] information back is the expectation that the

[55:02] committee will have the information needed to make a recommendation at that

[55:05] meeting or are we looking at because I think our schedule our committee meeting

[55:09] schedules only took us to the end of July y um are we looking at now having

[55:14] to schedule additional committee meetings in August or is there a reason

[55:17] why we can't do the joint council meeting in

[55:20] August why does it have to be mid to end September

[55:30] I will say um to the committee chair I'm uh no

[55:36] objection from P cin staff I will tell you that August does have the Amo

[55:40] conference I have a council member and a few staff at it um and just vacations

[55:45] generally but if we could find a date that works for all the parties we can

[55:49] definitely go towards the the latter half of

[55:53] August yeah if you guys can make a date that works I'm I'm okay with that right

[55:58] so through then that Mr chair we can take it offline and the chief myself and

[56:02] both caos and both clerks can sort of um maybe do some polling of council and

[56:08] staff that are required at the meeting and make the best possible date before

[56:12] or after Labor Day okay okay so we'll leave that up to you

[56:18] on that there's no delegations action items are you going

[56:22] to work on savings

[56:26] I need a motion to adjourn this meeting oh go

[56:34] Ahad

[56:50] okay

[56:55] yeah okay so I need a motion to adjourn Scott mallerie Tim all in

[57:03] favor that's Carri thank you ladies and gentlemen

Joint Fire Services Review Committee - Monday, July 08, 2024

Transcript