e e e e e e e we'll call the fire department overview and Union proposal Workshop to order commissioner Smith you give us a prayer and a pledge please sir let us pray Our Father Our God we come once again before your presence asking for your guidance as we take the business of this city we ask the Lord you lead us guide us and direct us and break you have us to go allow us in the father to be disagreeable that we can be agreeable in thy son Jesus name we pray amen amen I Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay Cliff you want to give us a a dos and don'ts get start some of you will recognize this from email I sent to you all earlier you all recognize that I'm not Mr Mandel but what I'm about to read you is Jeff Mandel approved as the law for the situation so here it goes this cannot be a workshop in the traditional sense as you all will not be permitted to engage in any discussions with Union Representatives that could be characterized as negotiations doing so would violate longstanding rules regarding the proper conduct of collective bargaining sessions and must be avoided instead you will be permitted to listen to the Union's presentation on the various aspects of what they are looking for in their next contract but you must not express a position or attempt to influence the union regarding its position on any issue as to do so would constitute improper bargaining you may ask questions to clarify the Union's position on a given topic but even then you must do so with Extreme Caution so as not to have your questions later characterized as inappropriate bargaining efforts all right Mr CL all right uh good morning um or good evening sorry I'm off to a good start all right so good evening um thank you for meeting with us today um so letter red there I kind of had in here just identifying we're not here we're not collectively bargaining today um the city's negotiation team is not here minus uh mayor Nelson you know um City administrator aerick Chief w are not present um no agreements will be made or signed no verbal deals will be made um but we're here hopefully to um you know under the encouragement of your labor attorney to have some sort of productive meeting here where we can get past the roadblocks we've faced we've been um in negotiations for over a year now um and we've had some kind of hard lines drawn in the sand um but kind of a back and forth dire we're not really sure where we went uh where we went wrong anyway so hopefully we can kind of resolve that kind of clarify some positions and identify you know the wills of the council where where this will go back to your team and they'll um meet with us again um so as a summary you know we've been asking for fair and competitive wages like we said wages and benefits for over a year um we've run into some some difficult walls um we've even which this this may have led to why we were painted in a negative light by some local Publications as demanding um when the discussion Rises around the Popa firefighters receiving competitive wages and benefits uh it's treated by some as a the sole burden to the taxpayers um conversely when every other City employee receives competitive wage and benefit increases it's not even a blip on the radar um so with that being said come April 1st um after this latest salary study the city performed um and improvements that were approved with little hesitation a sizable number of Apopka firefighters um are going to be the lowest paid employees in the city um they will be paid less than part-time in seasonal employees they'll paid less than administrative Associates $8,000 less than police recruits that are in Police Academy uh 12 to 13,000 less than a police officer um during that meeting on the 20th some pretty good uh points are made some states statements were made you know referencing we in the market want to be near the top tier the first second third place in that market to remain competitive um we they expressed the Garing group expressed how critical it is to maintain your current Workforce and how costly turnover is um so it's important that we can compete with other municipalities to keep good quality workers and or to entice good quality workers and keep the ones we've got so we're here today to look at where we are and maybe where where we could get to um I sent you all earlier in the week a copy of all that I had or all that we had um in reference to the outstanding articles from impass um in front of you now in this this packet that we've put in front of you is the list of items that were asterisk um which after conversations with several of you were things that you felt were more in your wheelhouse I know there was some kind of trepidation about uh making decisions on very fire department Centric issues or uh discipline grievance policies those sort of things so what I what we tried to do is pair this down for this meeting um if there are any other articles anyone has questions on um would like to get some clarifications on we're happy to do that I was just we're just trying to make things a little more concise here um for the benefit of everybody so um in that packet if you open it so the Articles we've sent I'm hoping some of these kind of uh appear familiar so the first one in your in your packet there is the pension and bear with me I'm going to try to uh navigate two separate things here all right so we had our pension article um and I think it's been pretty clear it's been brought up through other avenues um due to the fact that we had a study performed um to get to by the actuary the city employees to identify how much it would cost to have these Pension Plan improvements uh moving to a 4% multiplier uh having the a the age determinant lowered from 55 to 45 um and changing the years of service is it need to get bigger yeah look at that technology uh let's see where we're at now all right so age 45 um or 20 years a 4% multiplier and the disability benefit to a 3.6% multiplier this is closer in line um to what we see within our own city um in regards to Public Safety uh was there outside of I know there was a secondary study um being conducted still being conducted on our actuary study are there any further questions or concerns um about this so question for you these the pension benefits here are they what the actual ARS that we've now hired are they the same ones or are there additional ones in here this is this is what was presented so this this is what our study our study was performed on so I'm imagining this is what the follow-up study was I don't have I'm sure it has to be the same thing okay all right so um nothing else no okay all right we'll move on so hold on I do have a question sorry okay how does this compare to what we have now uh so right now our current pension is age 55 and 22 years of credited service the benefit formula is bear with me starting at 3% and then up to year system every 10 years it goes up a half% so it's 3% for the first 10 years 3 and a half% for the second 10 years it goes to 4% at year 21 until the person H 28 34 year would be 100% you would have to either drop or leave so can you repeat that was 10 years is it's what on Mr Mandel say um that all of that is current correct right the the three three and a half four is current so three so this 3% for 10 years three and a half to the next 10 years and 4% oh okay 20 plus or 21 over 20 years okay maybe um and I know there's a form I think you guys are looking at now that um attorney Mandel I guess sent to the Commissioners uh with a comparison chart of our pension versus other other fire department's pensions um we just saw it for the first time briefly um well it's in I mean in my opinion it's incomplete um know with Winter Park and I I inquired with Winter Park and obviously all of the intricacies of their program is not listed within the road that we have in front of us yeah um is this the one that you have no it was from Mr Mand on yeah so and and what we were getting uh date was that back the the oh here it is I'll let her finish this one okay I got it and so to confirm while they're discussing instead of the stared approach you are requesting a flat 4% correct okay um yeah in in in negotiations we it seemed more that we were running into just the cost of it what's this going to cost um not so much I don't it wasn't a well let's look at here and let's see what's comparative um it was just what's the actual cost we got that and then it's just been we haven't been able to speak on it so um if you do have a chance to you get with your team understand where that that negotiation has has potentially stalled um on your have so and to to quantify that so the implications are going to four let's just if it was at 4% I'm not negotiating I'm just this is going to be hard for me take take your time give me some give me some patients here um if we went to for let's say that person that started at 45 put 10 years in they would qualify for pension or retirement and then at the 4% rate the 4% multiplier meaning 10 years 4% multiplier they would in a sense get 40% of their Fae is that correct corre yeah right they would have to have 10 years of service to vest right um and then you would also then have to meet either the age in that would be lower from 55 to 45 for the early retirement age at 40 but if they left at 40 you pay a penalty for every year that you're short so virtually no one would work 10 years and then have to buy three years back you know but the answer is yes and then talk to me the Nuance of the disability benefit shall be at the 3.6% so the disability benefit was something we had looked at prior actually um and so we've put it in here our current disability benefit is a 2.5% multiplier um we don't really and and it's similar to the pension at one point in the history of of our City's pension board the police and fire were were right in line and that seemed to be the intent and at some point it separated um pretty significantly um where we were left at at these old rates and I don't I've never heard any justification as to why we would be at a lower disability rate is there any uh minimum investing periods in that um 3.6% multiplier I did yes so same 10 you would in order to get the 3.6 multiplier you would have to be vested at 10 years of service uh the only difference would be that it's not applicable to the 3.6 mul is if you had an in the line of duty injury it could be the first day or you know the nine years and 10 months you would qualify for an in the line of duty [Music] disability Mark why you just sit right next to get [Music] cozy oh but it is so do I need to say all that again no I don't think um all right so anything else on on on pension or disability as it as it stands any other clarifications needed questions comments um and as a basis of comparison you said the police is currently at what for disability uh the same uh 3.6 what we're asking for got so that was I mean basically the scope we were looking at when it came to the pension uh improvements that were sent our direction is well look at your own city as well what are the what's Public Safety valued at um within your city and we found ourselves quite quite below uh the police department which seemed um like we could do better for our employees so um that was that what we're looking at there um all right so I will scroll through this disability one is very long just because we copied and pasted into the article every single word from our disability language that currently exists only changing the 2.5% uh to the 3.6% all right so we're going to get into wages next um so I had a paper copy of one of the proposals um that was given to us during negotiations um from the city negotiation team and this was a proposal that followed up um an original one the original proposal uh was for a starting salary for firefighter EMT of 485 um the original proposal had uh a compression component in there which we all just had a nice class on compression at your last meeting um and to get that compression pay for all our employees who' stayed here and spent their time at the city um they wanted them to all forgo a raise for an entire year um which seemed pretty surprising uh it's almost a you know this is something the city wants to attract and keep people and we're punishing uh the people who've who've spent their time here um which is is how it came across to us so this was a secondary proposal um which was they went back to the same rate 485 for starting pay um with no compression pay um and then your our standard raises which we already have so um kind of it's it's difficult to um to look at these wage proposals in light of what recently happened on the 20th where it was really looked at market value instead of just kind of a a number that was somewhere on the board and then hey if you want to treat your other employees that have spent 10 years 15 years here in that rank um they're going to have to you know give up a raise for an entire year um it just seemed like a very odd way to propose when every other City employee just got with a wave of a wand here's your compression Pay Here's your market cap of first second and third ranked U municipalities in the area um one of our proposals and I'll oops I'll try to shrink this down a little bit um is is on the following page there but what I want to switch to here what you're doing that and more as a matter of fact U for the record is the piece of paper that you showed originally that's in our packet Year too what is that from again which piece of paper sorry the the that was from the that was a a proposal given to us from your negotiating team okay and and then just again not negotiating but is a pure matter of fact the uh previous pay scales that Dr Patton provided to this this Council if I looked at the prior pay scale of 10g which was listed as a firefighter position the starting pay at that point was 49 97246 yeah is that your understanding too uh if it is it's a mistake our starting pay is 466 okay because that I just jumped off the page because it seemed I don't know how we would be going back in the conversation but okay so maybe that that firefighter EMT currently is 466 got it okay that's helpful um so before you move on uh so what you're asking is the starting pay but the max remain as is I look at those two schedules say that one more time if I look at the copit page you you you put in the packet and then that you have in the booklet yes the maximum pay is the same is that correct uh yes right there yes 81 81 yeah so yeah so so these These are examples and they're so and that's the problem as we keep going through this we're finding um where where we need to make some adjustments based on what the city has agreed to for every other City employee so if you look at um if you do you guys see what I'm looking at on the screen on your screens all right so and there's also this is in the back of your booklet if if if you can't see on your screen but here we've um performed our own salary survey um we weren't included in the one I guess with the rest of the city um or if we were it wasn't presented um so if you look at over here in this column of base salary trying to get this finger point so this base salary here if you look at that and you would say okay well I'm looking in generally speaking 45 47 49 um so everything with starting pay looks like Hey we're not that far off so we've put oursel down here 466 that's a 2.6% lag so that's really not bad if you're just looking at base salary you would think hey we're pretty good and that's what we've been hearing for quite some time is look we get the same pay or better pay than Ovito than uh Winter Garden then Winter Park however where they make up for it is over here in their incentives and their holiday pays and their total compensation so you have a county like Oola County which we used in the city salary survey starting out at 49 4.95 but at the end when they pull out their paycheck we're up to 76 so what these places do a lot will set a base salary and then they'll make up all the rest of their pay and incen incentives which is sort of how we've structured our original proposals the goal being if I have my payche and I print it out and I walk over to the same similar job same similar responsibility same similar uh size demographics Department I walk over to an aiola County and I say hey let let's compare paychecks our starting pay is pretty close they should be really close and ours is way off um that's where we're trying to fill in at some point so whether whether it happens by adding in a bunch of different incentives you have 15 16 incentives with hourly rates or uh monthly rates or yearly rates um it can be done by that which a lot of places here done um or can be just added into your regular pay and you don't have to figure out all these uh incentives and who gets them and when they get them so um these are the sort of things when it comes to uh why we went to impass these these were the big kind of fundamental issues we're running into where we would get a proposal and you would say okay how about this and you say can we meet in the middle can we can we Shuffle some stuff around and it was I have to take it back or no um we have to get to a number somewhere where as we stated publicly we need to treat our our firefighters we need to pay them with their wages and benefits competitively and comparatively in that market we need to be in the top three um we've agreed to that with every other City employee so why why do it differently for the fire department um if you look at this whole um schedule here so we've got the base salary you see the difference in holiday pay here we're behind 661 per of every uh Department here you see um our incentives were behind 83% our total compensation we're down 17.4% on scheduled hours you see we have all the fire department scheduled 2912 um but when you look in here is where you'll see there's a whole lot of differences between um what leave they're able to acrew what sick hours they're able to acrew what holidays what Kelly days so here's how many hours they're actually working and how many we're actually working we're working on average 10 more shifts for Less pay than all these departments we work a whole lot of days in comparison and get paid less if you see the the the compensation per hour we're down here at 2178 everybody else is well above that hourly so I understand why this gets confusing um from a commissioner and from a negotiating team perspective that's not familiar with fire departments because it is probably unreasonably confusing um well I I think speaking for me personally when you see the number of hours like PTO right and and what you had provided to us me as a as a normal you know 8 to five professional guy I look at my PTO as divided by eight hours whereas you all have to look at it as divided by 24 hours because one increment of of productivity value is one shift for you whereas mine is one business day my business day is eight hours yours is 24 hours so you kind of have to um level set or normalize the two things because when people see oh 300 and somewhat hours on a page it's like that's way too much but you have to put things in perspective so I just wanted to level set to make sure that general public and my colleagues are aware of that too if they have fig yeah one one work day is 24 hours so it it definitely does like a little uh funny to the um untrained eye so um that's that's what basically what what we're ultimately getting to here let me switch to a chart so if can you go back for a moment sure C can you can you explain to us the incentives what it is that determines or deriv the incentives well let's do uh yeah so that's the next article is is where we start our incentives but that's fine and start right there so incentives span the gap um from everything from paramedic incentive um field training officers instructors inspectors um you have all sorts of different incentives across different departments um that make up those hourly rates and increase that that middle portion of their paychecks so at the moment Apopka has an $88,000 paramedic incentive uh and a $500 inspector so that's why we have nothing else we don't pay people for being instructors we don't pay uh for people with specialty training for specialty search we don't pay people for um being well we pay some people for field training officer um any of our special hazards training teams any of our front run ambulance providers we don't have incentives for those where you see those elsewhere um so that's what I'm trying to get across is it's difficult because it gets it creates 18 different objectives um that finance and everybody has to wrestle with and figure out who gets what when one of the things that we kept running into during negotiations was uh for an inspection fire inspection incentive for people who are required to be a fire inspector while they're performing it on duty it was they want uh the proposal was to pay people while performing an inspection and we don't have any real way of tracking that and if we do Finance or payroll is going to lose their mind saying uh Tyler over here gets paid this many dollars this week this many dollars next week this many dollars this week this many it's ever changing um so and not to this is where we're not Bing but you could have you know these are the tables that we use for pretty much every other City employee you could go to something like this and just raise the middle tide and not have to rely on adding in 15 different incentives to make us competitive in the market or you could go with incentives to make us competitive in the market but at the end of the day it's it's a round number so again I'm going to preface everything see i' say it's an observation um but there are other municipalities that have a model where I think what you're what I'm gading from your conversation is um some of this stuff is actually built into the pay pay grades yeah so if you are a firefighter EMT you are at a different pay grade than a firefighter paramedic so on and so forth engineer EMT engineer paramedic and so on and so forth um not making any recommendation that just to your point in my industry previous world is when you're when you're billing clients you don't want an invoice that's gazillion page as long to your point because it just it's disruptive to finance and payroll etc etc simplified um type of scenarios and you it seems like other municipalities have gone that route too well if you look at so for instance two cities you've got Sanford fire department you've got Orlando fire department Sanford fire department their starting pay is same as most of the ones you saw in that chart we didn't have them on there um their paramedic incentive just went up to $13,900 way up here um then you look at Orlando Orlando on the other scale is a paramedic incentive of about 6,000 in change but their pay is up here so they're saying let's just do less incentives and let just if you're in this rank here's what you get we don't have a firefighter paramedic we have 18 ranks of firefighter paramedic because this guy went to this school that guy went to that school he has this sht he has this CT it's just at a fire medic this is what you make at a fire Lieutenant this is what you make as a fire captain so on and so forth um you know but at the end of the day I mean like I said and I continue the goal is to get to a competitive number so we can keep people and attract people the right people um so however we want to get there that's that's up to the negotiating team um I have a couple questions on this specific slide for fire captain and District Chief is that covered under Union the bargaining at the moment fire captain is not it's been a brand new position created uh but District Chief is under a baring unit yes okay and if you can go back all the way to the that slide that had everything um that one thank you each column appears to correspond to an article is that accurate yeah not not directly but a lot maybe six of them do correct so as this is presented just want to make sure I don't say anything wrong as is presented you you're tying these all to each other in some capacity yeah so we couldn't agree on one without agreeing on another you could yeah you said you are you saying like some we would be potentially disinclined to agree on holiday pay unless we agree to holiday pay this incentive that incentive this possibly no I don't think so we've agreed to certain things already we agreed to like a write up pay we agreed to um a couple other things it's it's it doesn't all have to be pieces and Parcels but as a negotiation goes you know you have your tier one tier two tier three items um whatever's whatever we got to do to get us to a place where we feel that we're going to be competitive in our market and we're going to be able to keep the good people and attract better okay thank you um so as far as I mean I guess we we kind of moved on to um incentives are there any questions other than how I've tried to stumble through explaining how these incentives work um if you wanted to look at um let's see like paramedic incentives you can see like there's kind of the range that you'll see for people you see Orlando there at the bottom you see Sanford there at the top as we were just discussing so there's there's a whole range or way to get get you to meet in the middle um but that's does every municipality or the the high average of municipalities offer an incentive pay for paramedics yeah yeah I don't I don't believe there's any single uh Fire Department in the air in the state that doesn't have a paramedic incentive that employs paramedics um all right so anything else on incentives any concerns so for article 26 incentives it lists similar to what you had had stated to to I guess reiterate or just so that I understand correctly we only have two incentive pays currently uh potentially three we we have a paramedic incentive we have uh an insector and we have a paramedic preceptor incentive which is 500 annually what was that last one paramedic preceptor um so field training officer is how you typically hear that said um for a certain number we stuck to the ones that more people than 12 can obtain and so this breaks down just different opportunities for incentives or or adds more opportunities for incentives correct thank you all right uh the next one in your packet there is uh training assistance um put short School monies uh so at the moment since the last go around of the budget we have $1,000 um that we are allowing our um firefighters to be reimbursed with for training um and this is where we stand in the Runnings with everybody else um so again you know we moved up significantly we were in uh potentially no coverage to $300 into a th000 and um I don't have the information on how much is being used but I know it's being used and it's definitely appreciated um that we're able to do that for our guys because training is important we learned that um and everybody there are people who want to go and go and go and learn and bring back and it's important for us to incen iiz that so our training incentives uh or training assistance article um it was higher initially and that's you know just a negotiation topic I guess probably can't address um the one sticking point we had in there was uh we proposed that at the end of the year if there was leftover money um that would go back to the Training Division and and some shape or format um so for instance you've got people on their last year or two hey I'm not going to I'm not going to be traveling and Su and I kind of on my way out they're not going to spend their full thousand um our proposal was hey can it go back to some use uh for training rather than just um rolling back into the general fund that seemed to be the main sticking issue on that um you know so if that's something we don't want to do you know that'll be negotiated you said that at one time it was higher the training no at one point we had hardly any it was kind of like a lottery um and then we had $300 and now it's it's the highest it's ever been currently okay the rollover [Music] dollar uh concept is that what all these other municipalities are doing as well um not sure that was kind of our thing okay uh yeah and the reason being is we were build we're in the process of building an entire Training Division you know like it all this stuff has kind of come to come to fruition in the last two years um we never we you know now we have a training Chief we have a training Captain we have that training center but we need some stuff for it we need to put you know have extra money to put on classes just to do more we can't have enough training um we learned that lesson um and that was the spirit behind that so whether that's uh our be us being naive that's not something that is possible it's it's potential but you know that was just the spirit of why we put that in there um and remind me how how many how many are in the Union Point how many staff do we have in the in the pargeting unit yeah well the department the department I think we're in like 140ish range right now so the idea that you're rolling over 140k every year is not reality it's going to be some number below that but sure yeah I don't know this is the first year they we've had a thousand so I'm sure those numbers are going to be ran at the end of the year see hey who was using what um what makes sense but I don't have access to that so the but the training is available for all firefighters not just those that in the union is that correct 100% okay and so when you receive your budget at the $1,000 they just multiply a thousand times how many firefighters there is and that's place in the budget that would be my understanding yes so if if I'm a f fighter I'm on my way out and I don't use my, uh I can't allow my partner to use my other 500 not at the moment no okay it's something that it's it seems simple enough but I guess um I haven't heard the reason as to why not directly um yeah at the end of the day if if we can a lot this amount of money and we're saying this is for training our firefighters and hey a little bit more goes to this person than that person and that's agreeable cool um but and then in here uh 25.3 of that article it states that the city will continue to monetarily reimburse any firefighter attending any appropriately qualified institution to obtain state of Flor State of Florida paramedic certification for costs associated with that schooling is that uh in addition to the 1,000 yes so we as a the department requires any new employee to become a state certified paramedic within three years or they will no longer be employed um so the city is currently um covering those expensives now so we're just trying to memorialize that and make sure that that continues um if we're making it a requirement that you have to attend a school that can cost six seven to $9,000 um we shouldn't put that burden on you as a brand new employee do you know what that cost is right now it's there um I think there's small differences between schools but somewhere between six and nine okay thank you so initially then it's the firefighters have to put that that cost out and they get reimbursed sort of with a paramedic school at the moment they're they have gotten agreement with some of the schools I do believe to pay ahead it's kind of semester by semester so that the students the firefighters aren't having to front here's $3,000 and then wait a semester to get paid back um I don't know how solid in writing that is um I haven't seen it that's what're that's the current practice of what we're doing which I think is great um it's really hard to ask a brand new kid 18 years old um hey go open a credit card so you can afford to do this thing that we're making you do we'll pay you back at a certain point you know um I think it's very important that we pay people up front which is what we're doing so I'm I have no complaints on the current process we just want to lock it in and to confirm in what you have handed us you're requesting $1,500 that was the original request yes okay thank you and then the the last bullet there if you're curious what the 25.4 um that is we have to hold certain certifications to continue employment I have to be a state of Florida certified EMT or certified paramedic every two years you have to recertify certain amount of monies send to the state certain amount of hours you of continuing education you have to perform um we and proposal we're saying we continue to cover those costs um that's more often than not you see that's covered by the department um but that's a cost we currently eat um and that's what we were and that proposal willing to continue to eat at the time what does that cost look like annually per firefighter it's not too what is it paramedic is 70 60 40 it's roughly about per year every two years okay thank you um all right so holidays is the next um article uh here's where we line up on on holiday pay in comparison currently we get four paid holidays at five hours per day if you're working um can see it's uh pretty different from the standard so we proposed based off what we offer every other City employee uh we initially put in 11 which is what was offered we scratched uh floating holiday and personal holiday trying to get you know some movement on it um we're asking for um if you are working or you're scheduled off you get 12 hours of pay which is half a shift and employees working would receive an additional uh 24 hours of pay while they're working while everybody else is home um if you look on your screens there pretty much in line with most of most people get 12 paid holidays 24 hours a day to 12 hours a day um anywhere from 8 to 16 um if they're off nobody's getting five hours is this chart in this book as well yes in the back yeah sorry we had page numbers on this and then the printing our page numbers disappeared I apologize we so trying to so for the the one of the nine holidays that you're saying that you're um stating here mhm if the firefighter is scheduled to be off they will receive 12 hours of pay is what you're asking correct so it's not an additional 12 it's they're not getting paid anything that day same as anyone from someone from accounting has Christmas off they get the8 hours of pay because that's their normal work day got it okay and then okay so if you're on shift the actual holiday walk me through the onshift one please onshift is an additional 24 hours of pay so they get pay their normal one or and on top on top of okay so it's like it like two times our pay yeah okay and right now I'm sorry repeat that again if they're on shift it'd be uh double pay and So currently we we as a city or we as a fire department only have four paid holidays the city has 11 okay it's these 11 that are in front of us basically scroll too far so this is the city's list here uh we scratched two of those off okay so we're asking for nine holidays so for f is currently working and he worked a holiday what does he get paid uh if it's one of the four holidays will you get five hours additional pay for a 24-hour shift you get 24 plus 5 so you'd get 29 hours of pay uh for working Christmas so it's like a 20% incentive okay anything else on holidays all right uh the next one on is work schedule uh and overtime this was a proposal we made um we are currently on a 28-day pay cycle um we are proposing to move down to a 21-day uh pay cycle um the only fire departments in the area still on a 28-day pay cycle are Lake County matland and Claremont um what I will do what page is that 29 this article it's it was the one following following holiday page oh following holiday pay correct you said up Lake and who else Lake County matland and Claremont so if you see on this list um you'll see who has on the right column over here these are the pay cycles that people are currently using um you see most of them have converted to 14 to 21 day pay Cycles um one of the main things that a lot of our guys run into is we use our our PTO our time off to attend training uh classes we don't have any training time or anything like that so something we we're required to do as part of our annual evaluation or else you're going to lose money on on your potential raise so people were feeling well I have to take PTO off I have to take my time that I could spend using my see my family go on a vacation whatever it is take a day off I've got to use my PTO take one of those days to take a training class if I take one day of PTO in a month averaging 28 days um that's going to address what comes out in my paycheck at the end of the week you lose your you lose built-in overtime because you taking time off one day a month um so it kind of disincentivizes using PTO um we you know would like to see it come down 214 any of those are cool um just so you could maybe schedule your training classes your time off a little better and not have to feel it in your wallet um just for taking some time off which is a benefit afforded to you um but you see this chart I have up on here is it was something different it was under Kelly days um but it has the pay Cycles in there so can also identify that for you um so let me ask you do other fire departments require their firefighters to use a PTO PTO date in order to go to training some do I'd be pretty confident saying most do not a lot of places have a certain allotment of training time you've got 40 hours of training time you've got 24 hours of training time so that comes out of a separate Bank than your PTO bank is that something the Union is requesting not in this prop not in that proposal we had not requested that okay and then walk me through again and I you just explained it walk me through slower well the reason to request this is because if I take PTO there's no opportunity for overtime at that point there is opportunity for overtime do you want to explain that a little better I'm sure explain it fun it's just I do math on my fingers on the problem so the way this works is that you are slotted to work a certain amount of hours a month okay so on that 28 day cycle we're going to work two 212 before we're eligible for overtime 212 hours before you're eligible so for instance I can use myself as an example this month I took two PTO shifts I picked up two overtime shifts and I'm going to receive zero halftime pay because I did not go over that amount because it basically I deducted 48 hours from that then I added 48 hours back so I worked effectively two extra days and needed to and I will receive no halftime for it I just did straight pay so it because of those Cycles it helps to equalize everything a little bit correct so if you go from a 28 to a 21 now my window went from basically the four weeks to three so your ideal would be you would take your PTO outside of that three so it wouldn't affect you for any built-in overtime so a lot of guys miss their Cycles because you can gain the system and look ahead in the year and go all right when am I going to get the 28 days where perfectly lines up most people have just kind of gotten rid of that or to get rid of that they say that your PTO will not count against you for overtime calculation two different ways to do it so as you can see most of these people have dropped down to a 14-day cycle and that's basically to incentivize one you have the opportunity to basically get more built-in overtime two if you work overtime you can basically 1X 2x those numbers numbers because you're going to go into overtime sooner if that makes sense so as you go down on these so the 28 22 if you drop down to 21 I believe it goes to 159 so after you work over 159 hours in that month you're eligible for overtime so it's a little easier to pick you know all right I know I'm GNA take this time off but if I'm outside of my window there I take another overtime I'm back into to makeing time and a half so it's just it's just how it's calculated the uh section 7K of the Fair Labor is just something that everyone has to establish a cycle for non-exit employees so every Fire Department in the US has either a 14 21 or 28 so this is the the main goal of this article is to ensure you have opportunity for overtime for halftime so like I said I worked two extra shifts this month but because I had two PTO shifts I'm going to get at the end of the month after your 28 days cycle you see your halftime pay mine's going to say zero cuz I technically did not work over my 212 hours which for all inant purposes yes I was gone two days but then I picked up two extra shifts that I basically worked for straight pay okay the idea is that really nowhere else you're going to go in and pick up an overtime shift and they're gonna go thanks it's not you know what I mean so either like I said they either they gain the system trying to get the cycle lower or they put a little Aster in there that says PTO will not count against your overtime two different ways to do it but ours was just kind of simplifying that down of let's just move the 21 that was helpful thank you so is the industry practice that you have to work X number of hours in order to accumulate overtime depending on what cycle you're on I mean even without the cycle oh well everyone works their overtime and and is El you're so let's say you can work your overtime you're only eligible for that half time time if you're playing the cycle game basically so even if you're on a 14-day cycle if you took six shifts off that month you're not going to get the halftime because you didn't have the hours correct so that was my question so is that indust practice that you have to have the hours in order to get the overtime yes you have to make your hours whatever cycle you're on so if it's like ours is the 212 you have to make the 212 on the 21 you have to make that 159 on 14 I think it goes to like 108 or 109 you have to meet those hours before yes you're eligible so by lowering it just makes it basically easier to get into that time and a half range okay did that answer the question it did no that it didn't G Smith yes no I I I think so okay but I I was just trying to see if there was industry practice regardless of how many hours I work if I took an overtime shift I get paid for overtime obviously everyone gets paid for overtime right if you take an overtime shift it's overtime correct we agreed on that but if you've taken PTO I still work the overtime shift I just will not get that halftime so when you so if I work this week in overtime shift and extra day I'm only going to get straight pay on this paycheck I will not get the halftime because it's calculated end of the month 28 Days Later to see are you eligible to get this halftime and if I've taken PTO I'm not okay so like as I said you either say that PTO does not affect your overtime calculation or you lower that those days in which you have to try to make you know over your hours two different ways to do it it is y every department has to pick one of these Cycles yes every every department has every department has to pick which way they're doing it you have to do it because it's part of the federal labor laws and and the hours is the same regardless of where you are okay well yeah so anyone who's on a 28 day has the same 212 anyone who's on the 21 day has the same 159 doesn't matter what department you're at those are set by the federal government as in fire department not not other departments yes as in any fire department yes yes correct and we've always been at a 28 day cycle yes as far as I mean I I can give you a really clear example okay like I'm supposed to be on shift today when this was scheduled it was scheduled on as shift I feel it was important for me to be here because I've been the chair pension for almost 21 years so I took the day off this past weekend I worked an overtime shift so this week I'll get the 24 hours pay the halftime that 12 hours that you know time and a half the halftime they hold back so think of the 28 day cycle or a 21 day cycle or a 14-day cycle like a 40-hour work week for a normal employee so if you had a normal employee they work 40 hours if they take time off in that one week then it would count against them right or if you worked overtime they would pay you your time and a half at the end of that one week because it's a 40h hour cycle we don't work 40 hour a week we work 28 days so that 28 days is like our 40 hours if at any time in that 28 days you work work an overtime shift to cover a shift of someone who's on PTO or sick so I agree to work like I work this weekend well because I took today off to be here I lost 12 hours of pay so essentially my 24 hours I'm off since I lost 24 hours of halftime I paid for half my own day off today so the next two hours till 8 tonight I I paid for that eight hours not the city because I had to lose 12 hours of halftime to have this day off if you had a shorter cycle 14-day or 21 day essentially you're just making that cone of opportunity to lose smaller and that's all they're asking instead of being 28 days that you're held to the standard will do 14 days so at the end of 14 days if I had an overtime and no time off I would capture my halftime I would get it but because it's 28 day cycle if you work in overtime and you have a PTO day in that 28 day window you lose it so by having a smaller cone it basically gives an opportunity for the same Provisions but it's fairer to the employee so instead of taking off PTO day on April the 2nd and then I had an overtime that I had to do on April the 26th and because I took April the 2 off I get no halftime pay for my overtime because it's a 28 day window not a 14-day window if it was a 14-day window and I took off the second and it started on the 1 on the 14th that would end and I wouldn't be out anything but then I worked in overtime on the 27th I would get my time and a half because it would end on the 30th two 14-day Cycles instead of 128 day cycle does that make it any easier yes that that helped and I guess now that helps mean to understand that you're not asking for the shorter cycle so you can get overtime because you you got to work over time because somebody's going to pay take PTO but you're asking for the shter cycle so you can get paid for when you do the overtime that's requ small window of opportunity to lose it so so if I regur and use my my stuff I think you're trying to go that direction but again 40 hour work week Monday through Friday eight hours a day 40 hour work week if I'm a non-exempt employee if I work over 40 hours I'm going to start qualifying for overtime pay correct if I take Friday off using PTO that I've earned through my work because I've earned PTO through my my labor if I take that on Friday Friday I've technically work I've shown up for 32 hours and then I'm supplementing up to my 48 Hours wor 8 hours worth of PTO however if I come in and work for somebody because they you screwed things up and I have to come in on a Saturday to cover their mistakes from the prior work week when I come in on that Saturday and I'm working eight hours I'm working at my hourly rate that I would have worked on a non overtime basis even though I've taken PTO I've done what I'm was supposed to be doing for that work week but now when I come on Saturday do the right thing I'm not getting paid for the burden of me coming in and investing the Saturday I'm getting that that that pay at that point that's correct okay and we're not saying that we're not willing to do that but we're just saying as an employee if we do that with us why don't we do that 160 hours to a normal employee because that's just it's it's so hard to do that you know and that's how you would have to do a normal employee we just want a smaller window a smaller cone that ends every two weeks so it's not you hanging on for 26 27 days and if you get an overtime it's like well you're not going to get time and a half because you took a day off three and a half days ago you they don't teach um they never taught me math in uh fire School uh so it's it's it's difficult to articulate you know I think the thing we're looking at you know if I get $20 if I get $20 an hour you know and my normal regular comes out to 480 if I take that day off I end up with 240 um in my paycheck so it's just um I'm not going to be able to explain it any better than than what went through any other questions on that we got it yeah and if you've got some if you want to I'm I'm happy to get a better written answer and that sometimes helps me as well we can write you out an explanation whatever um well I got it now you got oh you got it Oh I thought you said you had more questions okay I got scared okay all right for Kelly days yeah are we discussing that today is that something you want to discuss at all do you have a question about them while I'm here well our say zero compared to others I just all is does our what we do and I don't completely understand Kelly day in general does it I guess can you educate me on Kelly day so give me a second if not if we're not going to discuss it I don't want to waste time oh no no I I I'll just break it down everybody wants to know all right so it kind of is based off of that there right 28 day pay cycle what we have right now you will work 240 hours anything over 212 is that time and a half if you use a Kelly day a Kelly day is a prescheduled day off within that cycle so that would bring you instead of 240 hours down to 216 that means you only have to pay the difference uh from 212 to 216 rather than 212 to 240 so how much more how much in advance do you have to set for a scheduled PTO oh uh so so PTO currently how long do we have to schedule in advance yeah you know you need that day off we General ruler is as 14 days two weeks uh we we generally at the beginning of the year everybody can has the opportunity to pick a certain number of shifts um but then the regular time frame of hey something's come up I've got two weeks to schedule PTO without penalty or anything like that so it's two weeks but and the beginning of the year for you is January oh it is January yeah it's not the fiscal year it's it's picking vacation days from January to December okay and so what's the pity outside the 14 days uh depends if it's for an illness with a doctor's note or something like that then those are generally accepted you get covid you can't come to work you have a doctor's note it's not counted against you at the end of your annual evaluation now if you're within that 14 days it's going to create overtime because there's coverage then you get a it it will be reflected on your annual evaluation okay that was next article is pay time off so um our proposal for PTO um let me just switch here our proposal for p is to keep the same acral rate uh we um asked just to be able to uh keep a bank for two years um so not any extra or additional acred PTO uh but just we can Bank some so that you don't have to hey you could actually take your time off and not feel like well if I if I roll my ankle because I'm here having no you know we a lot of us are very active off duty we have to stay in shape you hurt yourself uh at the gym that's not covered under workers comp I've got to take my PTO until I can get cleared to come back to work there's generally a lack of light duty for off-duty injuries um which have to be made up with short-term long-term disability if you've elected to do that so PTO comes out of there if we could roll over two years worth instead of just the uh you stop at one year's worth we'd have a little bit more uh confidence I think in our employees to take a day off because um you are not in the right head space to be treating people or seeing traumatic events that day do any of the other departments within the city have twoe I think on a I think uh regular employees is two years if I'm not the hours would line up there it is yeah but I don't think it changed under this Administration so if it doesn't roll over what happens to it if it does roll over it yeah it's gone yeah we have uh total Bank of your annual acral and if you you know any anything unused at the end of the year is deleted so you can see on this chart how we're comparative to the other departments um you can see there's a differences here where some still have sick leave um we have decided to use just PTO um so if you see in some of those sick leaves they've got no limit for acral so those are easier to kind of bank for your injuries or illnesses and those sort of things um and your vacation leave is separate but we have one big bank we just want to make it uh a little bit more flexible and it's it's just one day off is is 24 hours it's it's a lot of hours and I think we're bringing that up before on something else like 320 hours goes pretty quick well again I you like I started the conversation when you kind of normalize with a professional work week the current PTO acrel so 324 hours when you first come on board for the first 5 years is really equivalent into 13 and a half shifts um you know I think in the The Working World you may you know I think it's pretty standard hey you get two weeks vacation whatever so 10 increments of of value versus 13 and a half year but um sounds like some of that value is used for um training purposes and things that are on the job or required for job purposes yeah a fair portion of our PTO is used for job requirements and the other fact of that is somebody in a normal job can come to work with a rolled ankle we've got people out for months because they broke a pinky we can't work with injuries so our our leave bank is different we can't roll in to work in a wheelchair on a little scooter we have to like it's it's different we need a little bit more of a cushion because of what we do here and like I said this is this is a proposal if if we want to get in line with if it's only what everybody else in the city has then we'll look at that for every other thing that everyone in the city has so clar clarifying questions um on the sick pay aspect of it then is in the proposal is that still comingled with the PTO hours that bucket or is that a separate because right here you have it separate broken out because like for instance the top one Orange County the 216 is not inclusive of the 192 to 408 PTO it's separate bucket correct earned bucket right is that the proposal within the current no we're not proposing sick leave we're just as since we only have a PTO system we're saying can we just carry we have the option to carry over two years worth and then when we say buyout of your buyout or if one were to leave or be eligible to uh compensated for their balance of that it's really applicable to the entire PTO bucket not necessarily carving things out for sick or sick leave Etc is that my is that my understanding correct right if you're addressing the sick leave portion of this like later on in that article that's for people who that's for people who had that sick Leaf before uh it's somewhat frozen but the the city PR allows them to have a certain amount of payout um based on the calculation they do we're just that we weren't asking for anything in SLE that was again just memorializing what's in the the pr r r okay I'm clear all right I'm ask one more question so since you're not allowed to roll over PTO and I heard you say earlier in January I've got plan all my PTO days got be below 324 anything over 324 you lose you roll over 324 oh so I can roll over 324 but I can't roll over any more than that yes yeah if you wanted to roll over 324 that's an entire year of zero PTO usage I mean that's but that's a good thing to work every day I said but that's a good thing to work every day so I mean I wouldn't want to punch somebody tell them you got to take this time off because I've lost it's it's not forcing them to take it off it's it's that's not what we're saying it's you you're not allow Toto a in advance to get 324 and then from there you have to take every minute that you ACR other than at the end of that December you're going to lose the time the more employees we have the harder it is to get to earn those days by theend of yeah we we can can you come to the microphone if that's what if that's what you're getting at we do for you do feel kind of forced in certain points we have people going I've got to take PTO I've got to call in sick because I've got all these hours I've earned them and they're about to hit the delete button on it because it's over 324 hours so you are forcing people to take time off unless they just want to go okay that's stuff I earned and I don't care anymore okay but what if I didn't plan that PTO day back in January then you lose if there's no I'm being piz that's what I said if there's no cap then you run into you're gonna push somebody into well I've got to lose it or I'm gonna call in sick and somebody else is going to have to cover my shift now if we have two years then you're not having that pressure over your head of I've got to burn this time I've got a I've got a bigger wiggle room here to where I can work a whole year without having to take a day off if I so wanted to so for it's two years of what number so if I'm say I'm going into my sixth year is it 348 two times that or is it yes yeah yeah yeah so it's whatever year I'm in at that point yes okay thank you all right so you have somebody with 20 years he can carry over 420 hours or he or she can carry yes 40 and that's without taking any PTO if they didn't if they didn't take PTO if they were at zero and they didn't take PTO for an entire year they would acrew 420 hours and you could only do that for one year they could keep that if they tried to do that for a second year 42 if they work two years without taking a day off they would 420 hours would be erased from their Bank all right next article on there was uh physical health assessment or otherwise referred to as annual physicals um so if you look at what we proposed um similar to some of what we currently do as far as the testing goes um we have certain requirements we we we have to keep up with with NFPA standards for fire departments um what we have included is an option for basically every other year uh having a life scan or a similar assessment performed um and if you look at the the group that we've contracted with the J angle group if you read their book on um fire department health and safety um obviously we we're we're taking their word as gold This Is How They this is what they recommend for fire departments um with ultrasound scans um NFPA 1583 Fitness analysis uh cardiopulmonary stress tests uh this allows you to identify um serious health risks earlier before they go too far uh and we're on the hook for someone going with an uncaught uh cancer or heart disease or something like that um the places in the area some of the places in the area um Broward Fort Lauderdale bravard Hillsboro County Orlando um in clearw in just our area all subscribe to this um process it's uh if we can catch an early cancer in somebody it's worth everything every penny and there are you only need 45 people to go you could split the department in half you could flip-flop you could come up with any sort of way to to manage those costs they're pretty um flexible we propose just one uh incident or one one way to do it um we the counter proposal was we're fine with what we do um so that was as far as as we got on that one so um and as far as the health assessment that we now require all of them our employees to to do how does this any numb how does it line up kind of how does it line up are you ask uh so the first half here if you look at that uh 12.2 this one um is pretty similar to what we do now so we do a 12 lead uh hearing testing um blood tests we do physical exam we do uh TB tests um we do a PSA Exam so we do most of these things what we haven't added yet is uh the NFPA 1583 Fitness analysis that if that number sounds familiar Chief wum has presented a few times one of our Engineers has been trying to put together you know Wellness coordination program had a couple coule presentations on it and that's what's nfba 1583 addresses those things it's a uh 7po uh Fitness analysis and it kind of carries on throughout the year so what you'd say is we're pretty much we're doing everything through o and then P would be additional uh in roughly uh yeah I mean I'm just yeah roughly everything under a um is what we're yeah currently doing give or take um and then 12 point four uh would be additional the additional okay and we're already doing 12.3 on even years that's already happening we do that every year oh it's every year yes we have an annual physical so this would say continue to have an annual physical um however on the odd years you could throw in these ultrasound scans um additional testing for cardiac and cancer type issues um and just so you know that any every employee has to have that done where they have to pay $20 a month for medical coverage wow it's a it's a it's the testing and then you come back and they give you what you should do to you know reduce your you know your blood sugar or your y your cholesterol or whatever or get more exercise so it's that's that's requirement now has been this the second year yes second or third year yeah okay the toll. 4 is going to be required of everyone or the request is it it is required of all the fire department then it would be yes okay anything else on those okay [Music] um yeah the difference is we were having there were mostly just being told that we're comfortable with what we've got and we're asking for a little bit more we I we think it's a value um so the next article on there is uniforms um in that one chart that compared everybody you can see they only maybe two other agencies that had numbers listed in comparison to ours um reason being is most place most the comparable fire departments just provide uniforms for their uniform Personnel um so we are trying to come up with basically this whole article is a list of what we are supposed to have issued to you uh what you could purchase with an allotment of money and then what would be um replaced every so often uh some of our equipment our gear expires um you can't have it for you can't have bunker gear for 20 years so we tried to identify hey what do we actually get now um and then what additional uniform items are we missing um cost was a little high on this one because if you see right up at the top is talking about class A uniforms Class A uniforms are what you see uh in your mind when you picture a firefighter at a formal event it's the coat it's the Hat um it's proper dress so one of the issues we had was you know at Austin Duran's funeral we had 18 different uniforms we had people in just hats we had people in coats we had people in white shirts we had people you know it was it was all over the place and it's not something that looked if you if you consider people uniform Personnel they should be uniform so that's what we were trying to um knock down here and say look after your first year you will be Prov youve you've passed probation we're going to keep you as an employee you should have a proper dress uniform and everyone should have the same dress uniform right now if you want to go spend your own money you could get one but then if I'm standing next to someone else in a similar rank we could be wearing totally different things and it's just kind of um funny looking uh to be honest and it's not in a lot of contracts necessarily because it's not something that usually um you see the union going out to get uniforms um we thought it would be nice do you have a vendor that whether the Department issues it or you go on your own is there a particular vendor that you go to yeah so we're they they uh the orig the we've had a process change we we do use Galls for most of our ordering now we used to have a couple different vendors where the department would provide us the PO shirts you see us wearing or or your duty t-shirts um and then if you needed uniform pants you had an allotment of two to $300 to go buy pants from the Galls website or buy boots or buy um an additional rain coat or whatever you need for for working when do what's it when okay I have to think about it your b g bunker gear when does that get replaced what's the it's on 10 years it expires 10 years and that's not something we buy through Galls that's a whole another process that's what that's not something we we purchase off Galls personally that is that is issued to us that is issue to yes if it gets destroyed for whatever reason before the 10year period it still gets replaced by yes by the city I should say by the city okay yeah um so yeah with bunker gear or anything like that yes replace uh for pants um as they get destroyed those are you hopefully you spend your money wisely um or else that's coming out of your pocket to buy a pair of $70 pants because you're on a fire medical call and they've been soiled or got blood on them or just flat out ripped in half um so those are sort of things that other departments would say okay your pants are covered in blood here's a new set of pants um we are having to just hopefully purchase the right amount okay at the top it says offic uh official uniforms will be worn in accordance with Department policies and procedures do we have a policy and procedure for this um sorry yes it's uh technically under review we did have a meeting or two outside of negotiations um which was approved by our the labor attorney um to try to modernize our uniform policy we still have things that are um would be discriminatory towards certain ethnic City Group gr religions stuff like that that we wanted to identify there's also different measurements for you know facial hair that's acceptable through an n95 mask or an seba a full face mask for our uh bunker gear sort of thing so we wanted to bring those up to date um we were more strict than the you know the military from the 50s um and a lot of stuff we weren't following we had Uniforms on there that we don't have the ability to purchase so it was just it needed to be upgraded we had a few meetings um it went to to my knowledge it was on Chief wm's desk because we haven't heard back from it yet so I don't so that was one of the holdouts on this was really what we're we're trying to just identify so make sure everybody has the same equipment they know what they're supposed to have so if they haven't been issued something hey I can go back to my list and say I only got two polos I need a third one um and the hold off wood because we want to also identif what is our policy for these uniforms let's update it let's put it all together okay um we because the reason for the listing out and everything we've had issues with obtaining uh Uniforms on time we'll have you know some of the like the new hire ceremonies and stuff we will lend new hires Class B uh dress shirts and badges and different collar brass and stuff so that they can look right in the pictures hey we found someone close to your size um we haven't got this stuff in yet and then it just kind of gets lost you're a new person you never got your dress shirt and we had in the past not keeping track of things so well so they were like well I just have this used one I found um I got it you know you should be afforded everything that's on the list we just haven't weren't able to have a list before okay thank you any other uniform questions okay um this other one is a particular to a popka this accident and damages reimbursement so this is one of our policies similar to something that's in the city handbook the pr um this proposal is a little bit of a change to it so what you're looking at here is if I'm driving the 28t fir Tru down the road I end up making a turn too tight I scratched the wheel Fender it's got to get fixed um I am initially hit for my first defense 25% of the actual cost or $250 I got to go bring a check over to uh the clerk over here in addition to that we're hit again on our annual evaluation for any damage to city property and that's kind of the the double jeopardy we're looking at which is which frustrates some people is hey I already paid for this and now I'm going to pay for this for the rest of my career here so a $250 is $250 but over the course of 20 years um losing several percent on your annual value annual raise um now I paid 20 grand for something you know that is way over the cost um you know we we have issues with these we had people who were paying who lost percentages on their raise um and things have not been fixed we very quick on the requiring payment but we're not very quick on fixing I've got one broken lens on a backup camera um they charged the person relatively quickly this was in 2023 it's still not fixed we had a prior incident with the old Squad 5 where the front bumper was dented and for two years it wasn't fixed and the city ended up refunding the money that that the guy had to pay so it's just what do we what what's the goal of this of this policy that we're doing is it is it a to slap on the wrist or is it or is it you're a bad driver and we're punishing you on your annual evaluation one or the other our proposal was we'll take the hit out of pocket if if that's the way we're going to go with it we just don't want to be hit twice for the same mistake so the other departments within the city how are they treated uh to my knowledge it's just this proposal right here so they do get dinged as well as pay the I don't believe it shows up on their evaluation as harshly as ours when you say other departments mayor what other departments everybody that drives a truck so they have they go by the same rules yes that's what I was just yes it's the fairly certain same rules here as in our proposal we add another layer as the fire department we've decided and we're going to hit you on your evaluation afterwards is that part of your our proposal is department policies and procedures yeah is it in your in your current department policies and procedures yes okay so it's it's not arbitrary it's not what arbitrary you know that in other words are the other let me ask the mayor that or the other departments is that anything that damaged to uh city property I thought they were I thought all departments were the same so I I could be wrong I thought everybody was treated they got the the obviously the uh financial and it was evaluation I thought but I I I could be wrong yeah our our evaluations are different from a lot of city employees so unless that's been added to there maybe but our evaluations are pretty very different than most of your city employees including our fire Administration as well so there's there's a clear difference that's why you're the grumbling back here they're not very happy about it so so what you're asking is that either either you be fine or pick one or if you're G to find me don't don't find me twice right give me once it's it's it's difficult you got guys driving these huge vehicles around in a small City and it's it's kind of we're on our we we have a harsher penalty but we have the largest vehicle well maybe next to garbage trucks but we keep very shiny and clean vehicles and you get one Nick on it and everybody knows about it so here it says the department may increase the financial burden based on the evidence obtained by in the recommendation of the accident review board mhm explain what that's from the who and what is the accident review board that's from the current policy that that's from the city's current policy oh okay so then so if something was egregious they they they came out and said I drove this truck in the lake because i' I'm having a bad day you know they may be on the hook for a few more than if somebody took a turn too tight it's an interesting point you made that uh the city has taken money from employees but didn't do the repairs just interesting point you made so I I guess the question would be then for our finance department when an employee pays for the damage does that go into a separate fund does that get identified I don't know I'll have to ask the CFO I'll find out thank you just start okay uh next article there was Insurance um this language was something you see pretty regularly across the board with other departments in the area uh it's basically a a me too um on 13.0 13.1 saying hey if we're going to change premiums co-pays Insurance uh incentive programs that would be subject to a written agreement that is what's happening now or uh 13.0 is what's happening now okay understood and and your requesting basically the uh opportunity to negotiate some capacity should it change okay uh next one on the list was uh I left it in here it's been stricken through struck through um this was one we had in there initially and we removed it to try to get something else to move um this was asking for reimbursement for you know education so tuition reimbursement um we were trying to push through the training uh proposal and figured we'd Circle back to education at some point um just asking for you know some some form of tuition reimbursement for um degrees being obtained um you see some of this language here the paramedic training that was brought over to the uh other article so any questions as to that okay um the other one was command support compensation um this is a position we currently have in the fire department uh it's up to two people a day and they monitor the radio they respond to significant calls and they respond to calls after our administrative uh officers have left for the day so they'll be on call at tonight um we had taken it away here to try to propose we switch these positions out with uh inspector roles we have a ton of businesses and buildings in the city and I think the and with our increase in our staff that we've made the increase in the amount of people on a fire scene that can fulfill these duties this was something we proposed is kind of sunsetting we could get rid of this we can handle this ourselves now that we actually have the the proper amount of staff coming in and uh we could focus our efforts more on inspections or something else of that nature um so kind of a swap um that's what that one is the city proposal still has this in there um we had removed it the city proposal the last one still had it offering command support it was something that they wanted uh since I guess we're asking for it um walk me through 28.1 please uh command sport members will be compensated at their normal hourly rate for four hours during the week and eight hours on weekends or holidays so that was currently they do two hours during the week and four hours on the weekends so it was doubling that if you're having to stay up all night listening to radio communications potentially responding to calls it just seemed like $40 was not a lot of money to so that was my it's uh additional pay yeah of their base rate if we're going to have it we should pay them that's that's not easy understood okay thank you uh next one was time off for Union business um this was a proposal on our behalf to our members donate to a union time pool and then the City match um this takes a lot of our personal time I spend a good amount of my PTO hours um at these meetings at negotiations it seems everything happens to land on my shift no matter what um so I end up taking a lot of time trades in PTO and I've switched shifts so it's just one of those things it always happens um so we're asking for a little bit of levity um so that I have an unpa all these guys here unpaid position for all the work they're doing here all the meetings we're attending all the uh meetings we're having if it's related to negotiation stuff if it's related to discipline issues we're coming in on our days off um we just like to have a little something there so we're not taking all of our time away from our family the Union business defined at the bottom was already agreed upon as part of an overtime policy within the fire department so that's where we got those particular things from um so those were agreed to be reasonable Union business from a prior negotiation we had with randel and the fire chief uh you know but there's we would be open to doing things on Saturdays and Sundays but it seems everything happens to be during the week 8 to five where we have to take our time off and nobody else does uh so union members are required will be required to donate 4 hours per year to the a pool and then the the request is for the city match that same amount correct thank you um any other anything on that huh you want to add to this so all we're asking for here because like Alex said hit on if we want to go into any type of meeting with admin or if we want to go into negotiations if we're on shift we're having to ask for time trades or PTO to go to those meetings whereas our Administration go into these meetings while they're working so if they're working 8 to5 they come into those meetings with us we're having to take our time Trader our PTO to attend those meetings so we're just trying to get some type of balance there where we're not having to be punished to attend these meetings uh getting near the end here there promotions article um this was just saying hey if you're going to change promotions you know um should it should be notified we don't want to have changes at the last minute or things that are maybe considered that aren't written down um and if there's a vacancy we'll promote within 30 days of that vacancy it's just kind of making things transparent and fair for everybody um and identifying the way we would do promotions same as we currently do kind of memorializing um we do promotions in rank order being if you create a list and you get your top five people who you would promote would be number one then number two then number three other there are options out there where people will get a list of their top 10 and you can promote number 10 before you promote number one those are out there and I think those are bizarre um so which which is not our current practice so we're just trying to memorialize what we currently do so here here you say the fire chief will promote within 30 days of any vacancy should a list not be available is that a condition already existing no okay is this uh would this create a line of succession uh I guess yeah if color that in a little bit more say that again so are you saying a line of succession if I have a lieutenant for instance who's going to retire I can tell who's going to be the next person correct if they're on a list yeah we have right now we have an annual list so I can tell you if if somebody retires based on that their order on the list who's going to fill their spot so that's already in place yes that's how we currently do it yes okay and this just helps it's just a time frame they ask us to it's it's writing that down solid and putting a time frame understood thank you all right um personal property replacement there are certain things that we uh can't cannot be at work without um and they're required as a function of our job prescription eyeglasses wrist watches um are things we have to have and they get damaged during the course of work um as we perform OD jobs um I do have do I have a list of that oh it's in my other thing stand by so this is something you uh do see third down I've lost it uh Winter Park Rey Creek Orange County aoi aola Winter Garden uh matland Claremont and CMI East Lake St Cloud Orlando um all have a version of this compensation for mostly eyeglasses and wrist watches which are things that are required for Duty um and get broken in the course of that Duty it's just some way to um compensate for those things so we picked the middle of the road and that was our proposal can I can I just ask you give me an example what a personal tool is says personal Tool uh so personal tools we have people who get um just for on let's say a fire ax they've bought their they've bought their own there's many different types um so they've purchased their own with their own money you bring it to the department it has to go through an approval process um and then you can be carried on our on our vehicles um as long as that person's with that tool um so some of those things we use quite regularly they're they're value to the department if it were to get damaged in its normal use then there would be compensation for that any other departments within the city have any kind of Arrangement like this I'm not sure all right um in the articles that I sent you all earlier in the week was there anything else that was outstanding that you would like to have Clarity on I kind of narrowed this down because so so question in this packet is that all 29 no this this package no okay so the 29 articles was our uh or most of them were in our our most recent proposal I just kind of narrowed it down to what seemed like was going to be more comfortable to discuss here and then any idea on the financial impact for the I mean I know that P we got to put that off the side but the financial impact for everything else that you propos here so it's it's hard to say because nothing's been agreed to so if if we're looking at everything's on the table and I know that's where in these debates and these sort of things there was a 2.8 million was was thrown around um what I've seen and heard from that breakdown was certain things that didn't quite make sense or certain things that were proposed but would be changed um you know I'm hearing you know uniforms would be rather expensive and if it comes down to a discussion between uniforms and competitive pay to keep employees and we'll wear blue jeans you know it's you need to you're getting over the over the line there Neti well you're you're asking you know our attorney make that you're asking What's the total compensation but I don't know so that's something that would be useful if we get to NE negotiations to have have a number and we'll we'll come to some area we we've agreed as a city we want to have our employees to be paid fair and competitive Wages that's not negotiating we've agreed to fair and competitive wages we want to be the top three in the market we do so it's up to your negotiations team to get us there I'm sure that team has a number in their head and we are here explaining to you why we're asking for these specific things um and Fielding any concerns because if it's just a number then bring the number but we haven't got there we've we spent a lot of time arguing over a reasonable suspicion for tobacco and a bunch of silly different things that took us hours at these negotiation sessions when obviously these things here seem to be um more prevalent um or preent so yeah the end of the day um like I said before we want to be able to take you want to be able to take your paycheck and go compare it with the next guy doing the same job and it should be somewhat close how we get there that's up to negotiations um I don't see why we'd be treated I don't I don't see us being treated any differently than any other employee in the city which we've already done that with so if uh anything else we should add while we're [Music] here if I may just say I really appreciate your Union's time I appreciate everyone being here as well and giving a lot of feedback and insight to this I think was very valuable not only to us as Commissioners but to the public to understand where you guys are coming from so I I appreciate your time I don't take it lightly that you guys have put a lot of time into this and um I think it was very productive so thank you very well done thank you anything else for the good anything else not we'll close the public he I'll speak I'll use this opportunity because this will be my last opportunity to talk with this body directly because I don't foresee anything coming to council over the next two meetings but I just want to say thank you um for representing the union so well uh for the union membership to be here and present to support you in that in that mission um you know the fire service has been near and dear to me ever this past eight years of service um um I just have a complete admiration for what you all do day in and day out um you look at situation that just occurred up in Maryland with the with the bridge class I mean the governor of Maryland couldn't say enough about the people jumping in to do search and rescue and put their own lives on the line to make sure that their citizenry um are protected and served and safe and you do that every single day and you do it it's not just fighting fires you know sometimes you hear firefighter and how many fires have you put out and try to quantify the value that way well give me a break um it's that one life that you save that's in quantifiable in terms of the benefit that it has long term for that family for their own peace of mind and the person that saves that life but then even beyond that I remember when we had hurricane Irma come through here firefighters out there pulling trees out of people's driveways and making sure that there's Ingress egress opportunities so that people can safely get to and fro um and just the other stuff that know is is not you can't assign a value to and it's being great ambassadors of our city it's the kids Camp during the summertime um it's just being present at City events in the park and what have you there's just so much that is just you can't put a price tag to and so I think it's a disservice when we come into these conversations or go to the negotiating table and try and package everything up into a nice big whole big huge round number it's unfair to the process uh what we've seen today is in isolation do any one of those bits hold its own Merit and that's the question that we should be asking you know from starting pay to incentive pay to time off what have you do each one of those individual items hold its own Merit in terms of benchmarking against other fire departments and if we need to get into this you know this thing about do other departments within the city do it again I have a it's more concerning to me if the the mayor of our city has been in the office for six years and doesn't know the own processes of its own Administration that's one thing um but you know do any each one of these pieces and parts find Value and I I think you've done an expert job of giving us the the benchmarking of other municipalities other counties to say at the end of the day for this Council when it comes time for them to do an ultimate decision and for the special magistrate that will hear from this or hear this in way as well is is it out of bounds you know are you asking above and beyond um or are you just trying to get the status quo and that my my firm belief is it's it's the latter of those um and rightfully so for you to Advocate and fight for that position so thank you thank you for all that you do and hopefully the rest of the department is watching here too that I can extend my thanks to them as well they're great people I appreciate you saying that I appreciate you guys being here and just you know to the guys watch in I know I've I've gotten plenty of flack and I know it seems I'm up here I'm asking for stuff every time I get Flack all the time because we didn't ask for enough We're Not Gonna this look at what this is going on here look what they have over here look what they have and I've we we have done a a i it would be nice if we were included in that salary study so we had to do our own and I'd be remiss if I didn't give these guys credit here for all the hours and work that they put in on their time off um away from their families to get this our own salary survey done to try to present to you why exactly are we asking for these things if we're comparing to departments to departments we're we're doing these things cool let's do it um but we got to we got to pick one we got to move somewhere so um thank you for hearing me out um hope we covered everything I appreciate you guys uh being here as always if there's any questions that come up or maybe I misspoke on something and we can clarify it please email us um your questions we can we can speak and we can answer questions and clarify at any point in time up until the magistrate hearing we just can't negotiate so similar to this if you say Hey you sent me this article and I either forgot or hey we didn't address this one out of the 29 what's why why is this is there somebody else you're basing us off of um I've never withheld any of that information um so yeah whatever you need we'll give you yeah just say thank you um he kind of said it all but just to say thank you for including us in this process and certainly it's been a big education for us I mean we we've made the effort of attending some of those Union meetings just just to gain some knowledge and uh you know in the time that I've been serving I've never been involved in any of of this with any of the Departments but certainly this has given me a lot of uh knowledge about how we operate and and how you operate as a as a department and again you know what vice mayor uh Becker said is we now have a better Insight of you know of all the all the jobs that you do it's very obvious everywhere we go you know you're there you're present and uh we appreciate we appreciate the service so thank you thank you yes and I want to say that uh I definitely appre appreciate it uh as well and as eye opener you know sometimes when U people use the word or call you ignorant uh people use that as a derogatory thing but if you don't know you don't know and so you know I'm not a firefighter so I'm ignorant to some of those terminologies and some of the things that you express tonight great eye opener uh and so I don't mind being called being ignorant about so I don't know I don't know uh and so I appreciate what you're do and I value what you do and your service to the City and uh so uh thank you um one last thing I want to ask Cliff if we have a a shade meeting between now and the end of April can we include the um member elect to that shade meeting unfortunate well let me back up because of it being a labor shade meeting I definitely have to refer to Jeff because that exception is much broader than one I'm familiar with if it were a regular shade meeting like litigation the answer is absolutely no okay and I'm thinking that's probably going to be the same here but but we need to confirm with him okay I appreciate that okay we have a we do have a tentative hold on maybe April 16th for hopefully doing some actual collective bargaining if that's so we'd like to keep that time frame up if we can um and then thank you Miss Anderson for coming yeah I said before you got any questions you me send anything else please I'm sorry what did you say was April 16th uh tentative hold for for for bargaining being being allowed to actually do some negotiations so your goal is for us to have a shade meeting prior to that that would be yeah that would make sense yeah all right with that close the book here