City Council · 2019-09-03

And we appreciate everybody who's here in attendance. So typically we go ahead and start out our work session and, and move through the item, and we have one item to look at today, and that is funding of our Ladder Phase 2 program. I would like to pass out to the council, if I could. Proposed budget amendments. This has been listed on the, on the, on the packet for the council, and this is a proposal of budget amendments from our police chief, fire chief, our city manager, and other members of staff. And what I would like to do is I would like to just go through this a little bit with the council. So if everybody's got a copy and could look at this, we have some items on here. The first 2 are fire and fire and police, and we have discussed and looked at those before. Item 3 and 4 are police patrol services and administration. These are suggestions from Chief Giles. for cuts made available to go ahead and fund our ladder program. We have 2 suggestions for fire and medical services from Chief Gurney. Again, these are areas that we have extra money within our fire department budget and could be used to help fund this program. Number 7 is a community promotion for the Miss Orem Pageant. This is contingency money over and above what we typically Invest with them, so that money is available. We have advisory boards and commissions, 8 and 9. Again, this is contingency money, money that is not being used right now that would be available for funding. On number 10, we have police administration and police patrol services. This relates to overtime traffic school, and again, this is contingency money, money that is not used for that right now.

Thank you.

Number 12 is a UIA dividend, which is a debt service that is paying off an old— excuse me— old loan, and that is a short-term item. Number 13 is a community—

Mayor?

Yes.

Sorry, I'm not sure I would consider number 12 a short-term item. I think that's ongoing and growing each year.

So the debt service would be Short-term as far as paying down the loan from UIA. The loan from UIA is a set amount. I think there's $950,000 plus interest. They've made 2 payments, the rest of it to pay the rest of it down. That's what's listed there.

But, but the dividend is not necessarily tied to the debt service or repaying anything. It's just a dividend that we have. We're free to choose how we want to apply that.

Correct. I'm just not sure that that dividend will continue. We have no guarantee on that. This is being used as a loan payment, and the loan payment is a set amount.

We don't have any guarantee that we're going to get sales tax revenue next year either, but it's— that's the track that we're on.

So the debt service that's being paid is for the debt that is owed, and the debt that is owed is a specific amount. Jamie, do you have a comment?

Just— and I did have a conversation with Roger Timmerman at Utopia. This amount, for the time being, is considered reimbursement for OpEx obligations that Utopia incurred a number of years ago when they had an operating shortfall. And so at present, the contributions that are being made to the city are being recognized as items that reduce That OpEx. However, in the future, the representation has been that this will be a dividend and something that Utopia— excuse me, we will receive from UIA. But right now, it is being on their books recognized as the payoff of an obligation that they have to the city. Thereafter, it would be recognized as a dividend.

If If in fact it comes through, and we do have Utopia going up by 2% per year, so that money actually could be—

And I will represent that that amount has gone up in the last— we've had 3 years and the amount has increased over the last 3 years as well.

Okay.

Amy, would you, would you see this $190,000 then as being an amount that would be fairly consistent over the next 10, 15, 20 years?

Next—

No, the suggestion has been the current Utopia debt has a 2% escalator that's tied to it on an annual basis. And the conversations that have been had at Utopia and UIA is to provide a dividend to at least offset the 2% growth in that debt service obligation. To this point, that has kept up or exceeded with that escalator within the Utopia debt.

And so this $190,000 is in excess of that?

Yeah, it's— I, I only— I included $190,000 because I haven't seen the specific number yet, but $190,000 would cover our, our debt service, and I, I believe it could be a little bit more.

But right now we're applying it against the loan As is UIA, that they took out 6 years ago.

Excuse me, UIA is putting it on their books as repayment of that loan at 4%.

Okay, community promotion, we have $10,000, which is also contingency. Community sponsorship, $7,500 contingency. Police patrol services fleet, this was recommended by Chief Giles, contingency. Fire and medical services uniforms, again contingency. Neighborhood in Action newsletter contingency, not money being used right now. Fire and medical services equipment and employee development and employee development paramedic, again contingency money not being used right now. Non-departmental, NIA, $15,000, again contingency. City Council, we have $10,000 there. We have $25,000 in our contingency, and the suggestion is that we donate that or turn $10,000 of that money over for police and fire. We have fire and medical services equipment, fire stations, public safety supplies, fire and medical services EMS, fire and medical services uniforms. Again, these are contingencies, is that correct?

Yes. Jamie?

If, if I may just clarify, when we talk about contingency, there are 2 specific line items that are identified specifically as contingency. The other line items are areas where historically in the last 5 fiscal years we have not spent these amounts that have been included in current line items. So there is a strong probability that, for example, if we have $25,000 in an account currently, but historically we've only been spending $15,000 to $16,000 a year, that that excess, so to speak, has been identified as something that would be available for this effort. The recommendations of both Chief Gurney and Chief Giles are not necessarily contingencies, but I asked them to specifically get with their staff and to identify—

Should we say excess then?

Yeah, and to identify areas where adjustments could be made. That is what they are recommending.

So this is excess money?

These are where they believe within the fire budgets and within the police department budgets they can make some adjustments and not affect or impact levels of service or outcomes.

Okay, so then we have fleet purchases. That is saving some money on autos, maybe going an extra year longer type of thing.

So we, we typically have budgeted about $850,000 to $900,000 a year for fleet replacement within the general fund. This is everything from a parks vehicle to a patrol vehicle in the police department to an ambulance in the fire department to other, you know, other needs, other equipment or vehicle needs within the general fund. The suggestion is that we would peel $150,000 of that off of the ongoing budget. So for example, next year as we begin the budget process, Yes. instead of looking at an amount of $900,000 to dedicate to fleet next year. We would dedicate $750,000.

Okay, thank you. The last one is salaries and wages. That's the $500,000 bonus we typically give all employees at Christmastime, is that correct?

That is a $500 bonus that, yes, we have provided to all employees within the city, all full-time employees within the city. And the information that I provided to you, as I mentioned to you, I have prioritized based on, you know, from my perspective, where I think the most advantageous adjustments could be made.

Okay, all right, I appreciate that. I think everybody's looked at this. Hopefully they've looked at this prior to— as I look at this, I believe that this is an area that we can use to fund our Ladder Phase 2 program for police and fire. And I would propose that we not use item number 1 and 2, that we not use item 12, and that we not use item 28. And what I would like to know— that would actually give us $345,000 per year, which would fund the Phase 2 ladder program for police and fire. And what I would like to know is how many of the council Feels good about that proposal. This is not a motion, this is just a proposal. So we use all of the items on the budget adjustments with the exception of 1 and 2, 12 and 28, and that nets us $345,000. We were trying to find $350,000, and I'd just like to hear from each council member if they agree with that proposal.

Second.

Councilmember Seestrand, do you have any comments?

Not sure, Mayor. I, I would love to hear, um, on, on some of these items from the department chiefs. I mean, what, what is Chief Giles and, and Chief Girtz thinking about from, from that standpoint? As I recall, items 1 and 2 were recommendations that came from That department. Was that— is that the case, Jamie, or where did—

where did those— Those were conversations that I did have with both the department directors and were identified as opportunities to make adjustments based— again, the basis for this career ladder program is to try and get money in the hands of employees sooner rather than later. So shifting, for example, dollars from a retirement program where an employee may be the beneficiary of that money 15 or 20 years down the road versus today, that was the intent. The, the overtime adjustment as related to the fire department and what we call the 1.4 times 1.5 adjustment Is really a structural adjustment that we didn't make when we actually divided the departments. That specific program and policy was put in place when Public Safety Department was in place, and both firefighters and police officers were classified as public safety officers. So there was consideration when they were both essentially working under the same job description, that because they were specifically identified in the same classification, in the same position, there was an effort to essentially treat them equally. Well, now we're in a situation where the fire department is separate from the police department. We don't have public safety officers, we have police officers, and we have Firefighters. And like I said, this was something that was not adjusted when we divided the departments a few years ago. But I guess the question that is asked is, what is the business purpose behind that adjustment since the departments are no longer together, the classification is no longer one, they're separate classifications?

And what about the overtime contributions? 401 overtime contributions.

The overtime contribution is an amount that would not disappear, but instead of, for example, employees, police officers and firefighters being eligible for it when they work overtime, it would actually essentially go to fund the career ladder program and would obviously put money in that program today And employees would be recipients of that money today rather than employees— only employees who worked overtime being recipients of that money.

Is that a standard application that's applied by a number of other departments or another number of other city plans?

So to my knowledge, we are the only agency that has a 1.4% times 1.5 policy. In regards to police and fire overtime contributions, the norm is to not pay overtime contributions on hours worked. We don't do that for any of our other employees. We do do it for police and fire currently. A majority of agencies that we essentially compare ourselves to do not provide that overtime contribution.

And it seems like there was some discussion earlier about the question of the value of this to the employees versus the value of getting the money in a higher wage. And getting the money in a higher wage was significantly the key driver point that this was perceived as. I'm— just seemed like I heard something along those lines. Was there something there that when given the option that in looking at this that the desire was to increase pay was the key driver in terms of what was going on?

I think if you talk to employees, what they have represented and suggested is they believe that our pay, our current wage scale, is not commensurate with other agencies that we are competing with. So this recommended change was in an effort to, again, put more money into wages and to address in part that challenge.

And end result, does this make our combination of pay and benefits package consistent with what you're seeing in other police and fire departments?

Well, I mean, I think it's a, it's a constant fluid process. So obviously we're in a hypercompetitive environment, and so there's changes that are taking place. But I believe obviously that this career ladder program that we're looking to move forward will help us remain or be more competitive than, than other agencies. When you read and when you see compensation data, the suggestion is this is going to put us in a very competitive situation, if not a better situation than some of our peers.

I mean, I guess, I guess the thing I'm trying to, to better understand is if we're trying to increase pay with the, with the ladder program, with the various programs that, that you and Chief Giles and Chief Gurney have worked on to, to address that issue The, the impression of increasing pay and yet then taking benefits away to pay for it. My, my level of trying to determine that is, okay, for me it's a look at the overall total compensation package to say if we're being compared wage-wise to other cities but we're not being compared benefit-wise to others, if, if wage is the only thing, it seems to me for that the key aspect is to look at the total package. and say, how do we, how do we compare with others that make us in line, that makes pay not the issue as far as why people may be leaving, but, you know, whatever the personal motivations might be?

As we've looked at the data from a total compensation perspective, we believe we're competitive. However, the discussions that we here more often than not is our pay is lacking. So we're trying to find ways to bolster the base wage, at the same time doing it with the limited resources that we have. And the 401 overtime contribution was seen as an opportunity to do that because of our— because the majority of our peers don't provide Yeah. That benefit. So the idea was, well, if they don't provide it and we're competing with other agencies, wouldn't we be better off if we took that benefit and rolled it into pay to increase the competitive nature of the base pay, not the overall total compensation?

And there's an aspect of that that by increasing the pay, when you get the overtime, you not only get the increased pay of your regular time, but then also increased pay on the overtime pay as well because you're dealing with a higher base, right? I'd love to hear, Mayor, if I could, comments from Chief Gurney and Chief Giles on their thoughts on item 1 and 2.

Sure, if I could, we'd be happy to have them come at some point. I mean, I would like to just make a comment with regards to that. I am not comfortable taking away from the fire and the fire police The adjustments and contributions and pensions. I don't believe that's how we hold on to our fire and police. We are able to— We are able to fund our stepladder program with the budget adjustments we have here without 1 and 2 and taking away from them. I believe that those items should be kept in place. And that we should move ahead with the stepladder program with the adjustments that are listed here. So—

Mayor, I think you've made that point, and you asked the council to comment, and we're trying to comment. So would you like to stop—

And I have the right to comment as well, Tom. Thank you.

But I thought we were each taking turns, and you took the first leadoff. We are.

And he asked Jamie a question, and I made a comment on it. So Debbie, would you like to make a comment?

My question, number 2, has anyone run the scenario with someone Having that pay come in there, in their thing. And the way I understand is when you retire, it takes like the last 3 years, your average. So that net benefit, would that be more to an individual versus the overtime?

Well, I think if it was to shift from an overtime benefit to into a base wage, then there would be a greater percentage of employees that would benefit from it. Yeah, as a base wage, because right now, as currently constituted, it's a benefit that employees receive if they work overtime hours.

And how many of our police and fire are working overtime? Is everyone mandated?

There are a number that do, but the spectrum is very broad in terms of how much overtime in a given year somebody will work. So One employee may work $10,000 worth of overtime. Another employee may work $1,000 worth of overtime.

Do they self-select who—

Mm-hmm. Okay.

But so in the case of the employee who's working $10,000 worth of overtime, then this additional benefit is equal to $1,790. If an employee works $1,000 of overtime in a year, then this benefit is worth $179.

So it—

I mean, you can't necessarily say, other than spreading it across all of the employees that qualify for overtime, that each one of them would be recipients of this benefit, because the way it's currently structured, it's based on who works overtime versus who doesn't.

Okay, but you haven't run scenarios, or you have? Like on individual employees to see if the net benefit is to their advantage or disadvantage?

No.

Um, I am— the UIA dividend, um, are we using that to, to pay down the debt, or would that something that would be available? I'm, I guess I'm unclear what, what, what exactly are we doing with that?

So currently, obviously, this is— this would be the 3rd year that we would be receiving this benefit. To this point, we have continued to budget for the full amount of the Utopia debt, including the escalation. The last 2 years when we have received those UIA repayments or, you know, dividends, those have gone into miscellaneous revenue, and they have essentially been available for one-time purposes in the city within the general fund or within the capital projects fund.

So this just would be one time year to year with the idea that there might be more?

It depends on how you see these— this amount. In my opinion, I think we're on a trajectory where I think this is going to become— and my hope is this is a number that's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger as future years pass because we are seeing success in the UIA network. And it's the growth of the UIA network that is essentially precipitating these adjustments. So with relative confidence, I, I believe that that is going to be an ongoing source of revenue. At the same time, we have not been treating and applying that amount of money to the increasing Utopia debt. So we could apply it to the increasing Utopia debt and offset the escalation in that debt. And essentially, instead of budgeting for $3.2 million— or excuse me, $3 million— or $3.2 million to pay Utopia debt this year, we can budget for $3 million and use the $200,000 to offset the escalation in the debt. Next year, I anticipate that the growth of the debt will probably bring it close to $3.25 or $3.6 million or $3.3 million. We can continue to essentially budget for the growth in that Utopia debt, or we can budget for the debt at $3 million and use that dividend amount to offset the increasing debt.

Okay, thank you.

So I have—

Tom, did you want to go next?

No, I'm happy to just take—

okay.

Okay, Dave, go ahead.

Okay, thanks everyone for coming out tonight. The concern I have, even in our last meeting, was, you know, how do we keep our experienced officers in Orem? And with this ladder step program, I'm concerned that in there we have a $3,000 lateral signing bonus or something like that. In my mind, it's got to be at least up towards the $7,000 to $10,000 to keep our experience. Um, one question I have is on certifications on the STEP program. Are all classes offered to police and fire so they can reach those certifications and get that pay structure, or Is it limited? Like Chief Gurney will say, okay, you can do it, but you can't?

Is it fair?

Well, I think the certification and the advancement discussion is something that took place internally initially with police, the police and fire departments. And then the follow-up was made with administration as to how we bring some consistency to it in terms of, for example, years of service, applying the same years of service for advancement within the fire department versus the police department. But whether, you know, the certain certifications, I believe both Chief Gurney and Chief Giles have represented that they are going to provide everyone with an opportunity to participate in those classes, and they will make those classes available with inside the department or obviously those are accessible to employees outside of the city. There are obviously some of these requirements that are not exclusively provided by the city. You're going to have to— you're going to have to go to POST or you're going to have to go to the Fire Academy to get the necessary certifications and experience that you need to advance. But I don't think I've heard from either Chief Giles or Chief Gurney that they want to limit that effort or that access to education in any way.

So Chief Giles and Gurney, so if, if I want to advance my career, so do we have to get approval from you to go take these certifications, or is it freely I can take them and then if I meet the certification, then I can advance my career.

For the fire department, as I've sat down with our staff and as we structured the Phase 1 aspect of it, everything is—

Who's we?

My command staff. It would be Chief Earle, Chief Hurst, and the other BCs that are there. We get input. But everything is upfront and available for our employees to see. The whole idea behind what we're trying to do— the question is often asked, what keeps you awake at night? And that is, how do we get and retain the best and the brightest? And whatever we can do to help them to achieve their, their goals, their career goals, is what we need to do. So what we've done is we've provided opportunities We've laid out a plan and we have the opportunity for them to look at that and see what they need to do over a period of time. And those— the courses that we've selected, there are certain things, as Mr. Davidson indicated, that are going to require them to get certifications through UFRA, the fire academy. There's going to be others that are going to be online courses, a leadership course here, and different opportunities that are going to help them in their progression through the steps. So there are some that are going to require we bring in the class into our department. We have an incident safety officer course that we're going to that we've been trying to get scheduled up, but we finally got it worked through. It's going to be in the first part of November. We already have 20 of our employees that are signed up for that. That's going to be one of the required benchmarks that they're going to need to get when they advance in that STEP career ladder. But everything's going to be spelled out. Everything's good. They can look at it and decide when and where, how they want to achieve that, whether it be through UFRA or through POST or through online studies.

I just want to make sure that if, if we have this STEP program and they have to go for these certifications and we're not offering that, then we're holding them back, and that's not fair.

Yeah, and that's a level of frustration I think everybody feels. But I don't think, at least— and I haven't looked at Chief Giles' STEP program in depth— but I think what we try to do is obtain things that are achievable. Now, one of the components of the STEP program is being in that position for a period of time where they're going to have to, through that period of time, get which is 3 years, is they're going to need to get those classes, certifications, those online certificates, whatever that requirement may be. They're going to have to figure out when they're going to be doing that. Because this is— we want to provide the vehicle to them, but we don't want to force them down a path. We want to give them every opportunity to be successful.

Thank you.

And as they do so, we want to recognize that through them achieving the pay increase.

So on the training, some are in-house, I would assume, and some are outside?

Absolutely. Like the one, the incident safety officer, that'll be a course that we'll bring in instructors from UFRA that will teach that to our— it's a 2-day course. There's others that are done— IS or for our incident— we have the incident safety course, but we have things that we'll send them to another agency if they're putting on a course nearby. We'll allow them to go to those to achieve those.

And is that on job while they're working or is that off hours?

It's usually going to be off hours. But if the online classes, the beauty of those, they can do them on duty as time permits. They're going to be able to log into their computer or they're going to be able to sign in and take the course and get the validation from that course and turn in the required documentation. When they're— when they filled all of the requirements, and then we process that through HR, and they'll get their increase immediately.

And if I could speak from the police side, I think we're extremely fair with that.

In fact, last year when we implemented this program, the first 2 steps of the program last year, we actually gave IOUs to many of the people because we didn't offer some of the classes.

One of the classes that we had required required was an advanced accident investigation class.

We hadn't been really offering that nor pushing that class. I mean, that's something that some of them had but not that all of them had. And so, to get it implemented last year, as you know, it was very critical that we got this out and we were trying to retain employees. So, we actually gave some time for some of these people that they actually— some of these officers were able to get the step prior to even taking the class with a promise and a date of the class. So then we offered that class many times over the next year, and 100% of the IOUs at the end of that year were done. They had completed it all. And so we actually were able to implement the program because we hadn't been offering that class here local. We didn't require that all of them go out and take it because obviously we're short-staffed as it is. I need to get them through the program without having us shorthanded. And so we offered that over the year. We actually implemented it. We brought a sergeant and made him a training sergeant. That's all he does is bring in training classes. And even though we still haven't implemented the next steps quite yet because we're still trying to figure out how to fund them, we still have the preliminary steps as far as what we're looking at. We've already started bringing in some of those courses that they will be required to have for the next steps. And so a lot of those— a lot of the steps, number one, were already things that were within our policy anyway. For example, CPR certification. That's already in our policy that they're supposed to keep up on that. CIT certification, which is Crisis Intervention Team, that's something that we want all of our officers to go through, and most had already been through, and we have a goal of getting everybody through that anyway. So some of these certifications were already in place on the police side. So the way we implemented it, I think, was extremely fair. In moving forward, we've committed to making sure that all of the classes are brought in-house. We've already started that even though the next steps aren't even in place. We've already started bringing those classes in so that they're taught here in Orem. We're inviting other cities to come in and take advantage of that as well. And so I think we're on the forefront of that.

I think it's very fair that everybody can get there.

Now some of the advanced classes on step 1 and 2, we've already implemented them. Step 3 would be still at the officer level. That would start them into a leadership preparation. The Master Sergeant would start the sergeants into kind of a mid-management, which we will, again, bring in all of those classes for what we call the Mid-Management Certificate through post. And then, as they advance in the lieutenant level, we start looking into advanced management, and we will bring those classes in. And so, it won't be— We actually have identified certain classes, but I think we're going to leave it a little bit more open to be— for example, on the first lieutenant step, we had identified some what we call FBI LEADA class, which is law enforcement administrative classes. What we will probably do is put or a comparable class as approved by command staff. And so, we will leave it a little bit more open. than just be that specific class because there are other classes out there that would be available to those officers. And so I feel that it's a fair program that everyone can get through and they will have the time. And again, the implementation process last year I think was extremely fair.

Okay, thank you. I just want to make sure that we keep our experienced officers in first response.

I do too.

And I think if you— as we developed the requirements of this step advancement, Immediately, we're going to have staff, because they've been in position for so long, they're going to be pretty much there.

So if I'm an 11-year veteran and I've got all of my certifications, I'm going to already bump up to that top step?

So if you're— let's say you're an 11-year veteran for the master firefighter position, which would be that Paramedic 3 in the old system, we're changing the— it's going to require them, they have to have their paramedic, which they do, to even get in the process. They have to have their Utah fire instructor. They have to have their Officer 1 and their current ADO proficiency and then 6 years in the position. So you can see there's not a lot of of requirements there that— but they're pertinent for that position. What we're trying to do is help them guide through the first phase is driver-operator. We're trying to help them to get their driver-operator, both aerial and their engine. And then we're moving them towards the officer components of it. So we want them to get those types of positions. Like the engineer, We're going to require them to have the NIMS incident management, the 300 and 400 series. I can almost— most of our personnel have those already, except for the newer people, and they're signing up for those classes. They have to have the CTC Phase 1. Most of our engineers already have that because they've been here for so long. They're experienced individuals.

Thank you.

And then 3 years in the position. And a lot of our— most of our engineers— well, I shouldn't say most of them, but we have a lot of experience at the top that they're not going to have to wait any time to take advantage of this career ladder because they've already done it. They've been here. They've been working hard. They've been applying themselves in their careers. So it's going to be an immediate gain for them. And I think that's what Mr. Davidson has been trying to anticipate, is who's going to benefit from this right now? Because we have a lot of experience. We have a lot of people that are going to be eligible for that based upon the things that we've identified as career steps. And as we look at this, We're our people that have been here. Our longevity people are going to be here. They're going to benefit with having this the majority of the the requirements done, and then the younger people that are that are in the process of getting into their career, they can look at it and sit back and go, okay, this is where I need to be. This is what I need to do. This is how I can get to the next step, and where I can get to the next. increase. And hopefully we've made it to where it's, it's benefiting them, but benefiting us as a city in helping them to where we can utilize their knowledge, skills, and abilities to benefit our citizens. That's— isn't that what it's all about, is utilizing our— because they're our most valuable resources, our employees, in getting the job done and serving our community?

Thank you. So Chief Giles, or maybe Jamie, number 3. It says in-car cameras equipment. What, what does that entail? What, are you pulling the cameras out or—

Chief Giles can answer.

You bet.

Uh, so this last year we actually, uh, so our body cameras are what's called the Axon body cameras.

It's the Taser company, uh, actually it makes a camera now that can—

that the body cameras portion is now called Axon. That's what we have for body cameras. We used to use in-car cameras. We used to have Panasonic. Last year, we had the ability to switch to a system where we could change out all of our tasers, all of our in-car cameras to taser or to the Axon body camera. And so we got it all in a big package. And so that actually saved us some money to go as a big package. So we've got body cameras. Now we have the fleet cameras and we have—

we got—

Taser.

New tasers for all of our officers, basically. And we're implementing those right now. This week we're actually training all of our officers and getting those new tasers out on the road.

That saved us some money, and so we were able to identify some money that we could, that we could utilize for this situation that wouldn't affect the budget.

Okay, so I'm against also 1 and 2, taking away the overtime and the 401. I also wanted to— both Chief Gurney and Giles, I've talked to a lot of people, and I think that we need to let our employees know that we appreciate them, okay? Because I think that the morale is quite low in both departments. So hopefully we can do something and we can appreciate our employees, and hopefully this STEP program will let them know that you appreciate them. Thank you.

Debbie, did you have a comment?

Yes, I asked how many of the police and fire participated in the career ladder. This would be for the younger guys. And I was told that 21 out of 31 from the fire and 31 out of 34. So I'm not as concerned with the police because it looks like there were 91% participating. Do you know why only 68% of those who were eligible— I guess it would be 10 people who didn't Participate? Was it that they were topped out?

Was it—

do you know why those 10 did not participate?

When we instituted the first phase of the ladder back in October, we laid out the requirements for that, and those that were within that timeframe— and the old one was the first Paramedic 2 was 2 years, and then we went to Paramedic 3 was at 5 years. This new system goes to 3 and 6. But the ones that took advantage of it are those that looked at the requirements that they needed to do and participated. We do have some current employees that are above the 5 years that still have not taken advantage of the STEP program as of yet. Now, that can be for whatever reason. If they're enjoying what they're doing as a firefighter paramedic, they're doing a great job for our community, that's their decision. You know, we try to encourage our officers, do a great job trying to help our employees to to plan for the future of where they want to be in promotionals, but it really is up to the employee where he— how he wants or she wants to progress. And so why they didn't take advantage of it, I— you'd have to ask them. I think we've tried to provide as many opportunities as we can to get them to have the opportunities to get the courses that they— that we have. Like this afternoon, I was talking to 2 of our newer paramedic firefighters that are taking this incident safety officer that's not even going to be effectual for them for several years, but they're very aggressive. They want to— they want to get the the things taken care of. They want to be ready for— so the only thing they're waiting on is that timeframe. And then that's their ticket to go to the next level. So it's going to be up to the employee how they take advantage of the STEP program. I think we do our very best. Officers, captains, and BCs are very much involved with our employees in working side by side with them and helping them to improve and develop, but it ultimately comes to the employee how they want to move forward.

I just ask that you revisit those 10 and see if what we're proposing tonight would be a benefit. So I really want opportunities for all who want to participate. So thank you.

Sorry, was part of that for the police department as well?

You only had 3 that didn't participate, and so I would tell you do that for those 3.

And I can tell you why those 3 didn't is because the first 2 steps actually didn't bring— the way it was, the way the police department steps were implemented last year, it didn't actually move them up at all. It actually kept—

we had basically a level where they would have gotten 2, basically 13.5% above the minimum was where the first step was, 30% above the minimum was where the second step was. There were a few people that were higher than that because they'd been here longer, so it really didn't benefit them, so they didn't participate in it.

Will this new step help them?

This will help them.

Yeah, they will now.

This— I can almost guarantee you they'll participate now.

All right, thanks. I don't want anyone lost.

Okay, Councilmember Sumner.

Thank you, Mayor. Now, if I understand it correctly, this list you gave us You're proposing the funding comes from this list with the exception of 1 and 2.

Exception 1 and 2 and 28, which is the $500 bonus, and, and 12.

Sorry.

Okay, 1, 2, 12, and 28, and that gives us $345,000. We were trying to find $350,000. That gets us there without taking anything away.

Couple of these items affects our NIA Neighborhoods in Action. Would that affect our NPU?

I don't have the same list, though.

I— maybe James—

No, it wouldn't. This is not part of the Neighborhood Preservation Unit. This amount is identified in what we call non-departmental and is essentially a leftover from the time that Joyce Johnson was The NIA coordinator. So no, it doesn't.

Have you got a couple extra there that we could—

We do. I'm sorry, I didn't realize we had it right here.

So I think staff and the councils worked very hard to get the NIA back up and running in the last couple of years. And moving forward, this won't affect that at all?

No, sir.

Okay. And Jamie, item 1 and 2. That no one loses any money, it just goes to a different pot for wages.

No, the— first of all, the 28 items that I provided below equal $848,000. So the nut that you need to crack is not $848,000. I just provided a series of options. In the case of the 1.4 times 1.5, yes, the fire department and firefighters would see a change in their overtime calculation. They would no longer be compensated for overtime at their base wage times 1.4 times 1.5. They would be compensated at their base wage times 1.5. So yes, there would be a change.

Thank you.

a shift. In the, in the 401 overtime contributions, the money would be taken and distributed as part of this program to all employees that qualify for the program— lieutenants, sergeants, police officers, Fire battalion chiefs, fire captains, firefighters. So everybody would get a piece of that money. Right now, not everybody gets a piece of that money to the same degree because they work, or they choose to work overtime to a greater degree than other officers, or they just choose not to work overtime, or they don't qualify for overtime in the case of police lieutenants and fire battalion chiefs. So if you are looking to keep an employee whole, if he or she is working $10,000 worth of overtime in a year, that benefit that they have available to them in a 401 contribution will not be there anymore. So I can't I can't represent to you that this is not going to change an employee paycheck. What I am suggesting to you is it distributes the amount of money we have set aside for the 401 overtime contribution program across all of those who are participants in the career ladder program, which is everybody, every sworn and every combat sworn police officer and every combat firefighter with the exception of the chief, 2 captains, the deputy chief on the police side. On the fire side, it's the chief, the deputy chief, and the fire inspectors.

I know a few years ago the Alpine School District— well, I guess it was the state— they, they made a A reduction in their pension plan. It was 2% of the retirement years, and they've— they grandfathered all those in that were currently employed, and then of course the new ones went into the new plan. Has anything been discussed about a grandfather?

No, we haven't discussed a grandfather. That's something we can do. I think there's pros and cons with that. It kind of— it's obviously for current personnel, it's good. It can become a point of contention in the same way the retirement system has become a point of contention where you have Tier 1 employees and Tier 2 employees in the retirement system and they're treated differently and they have different benefits. And now the current conversation at the state level is trying to essentially revert back so that everybody receives, for all intents and purposes, the reasonably same amount of retirement. So no, we haven't considered that.

Is that a possibility? I don't know if that's even a possibility, but—

I mean, under your direction, yes, it could be. What I am suggesting to you, though, is I think it could result in heartburn for some. I don't think there's— I don't think there's an easy solution to it. Either you keep it or you don't keep it and you move forward.

OK. Chief Gurney and Giles, do you have a 4 or 5 or 6 Man team or woman team that you kind of represents the whole group that you discuss things with and maybe just bounce things off of them, a council. I don't know if that could be done by seniority or kind of some go-to people that you discuss various situations within the city, not only wages but other, maybe preparedness and everything like that.

I can tell you on the police side, we have a ton of committees. We have— so I guess it depends on what you're talking about. If you're talking about for these types of issues, I have talked to not only command staff, but we've talked to sergeants, lieutenants, and different groups on that. So I don't know exactly what—

Well, I guess I'm—

Specific you're—

At this specific thing. address this with, with your groups or leadership or whomever. Um, if you have, I'd like to know what their feelings on, on this whole— the ladder and the, uh, uh, proposal here and, and what we're doing.

As far as, as far as from the police side, are you referring to, for example, the 401 money, or what are you referring to?

That— yeah, that's part of it. The, the whole program, the, the The latter and the— yeah, number 1 and number 2 on this list.

I think of the people that I've talked to— now, let me say first of all, the 401 issue was brought up in the police department among a supervisor group of all sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. So basically sergeants and above.

And this is probably about 8 months ago. And this was an issue that was brought up.

And basically, you know, the question that was brought up was, would you rather have this on the front end or the back end? And that means, would you rather use— if you had the option and that was the only option, what would you prefer?

Now, if I were to present an option of, you know, option A and option B to find the money elsewhere, I don't know, their answer may have been very different.

But in talking about whether or not to use that money to pay for—

pay upfront take-home pay, the preference was take-home pay. But again, I didn't get— we didn't have an option B, which was, was there somewhere else we could find that money? That was just discussed in that aspect of the police department budget and pay.

As far as the fire department, yeah, we've— I've sat down with on each platoon. I've visited with BCs and captains and had these conversations over the years of pay and how do we get where we want to be. And obviously, our employees want— I've always used this comment. They need the money now in their— because if they've got to put formula in their babies' tummies and diapers on their butts, They need the money now. And so how do we, how do we get to that point, and where do we take the money from? Like Chief Giles, trying to come up with your guys' decisions and where's the best places to take that, I have not asked our employees where's the best place for that. You know, you look at number 1 and number 2, this is something that they've been accustomed to receiving. I think if you ask them, do they understand that the 1.4 is going away, yeah, they probably understand because it's part of public safety. Is it something that they're happy about? Absolutely not. It's a benefit that they— I think that they've been getting, but it's something that probably should have went away when the 2 departments split, but for whatever reason it didn't at that point in time. As far as the other, the 17.9%, there are— we have some very various employees that do very well in this, that take a lot of overtime and do benefit from that component. But it's not on a grand scale, like across the board. That's not the case.

Is that mostly your senior experienced?

The ones that do the most overtime are senior staff, are doing that. But as far as making decisions and ironing things out. I don't make a decision in a vacuum. I try to get my staff around me who I consider very bright, and we talk about things. We look at options. We try to find the best way to crack the nut, so to speak, and what's going to be the benefit to our employees. And because if our employees are where they need to be, they're going to going to perform. Our goal is what they do out on the streets. And if they're happy and they're progressing the way they need to be, they're going to— even if they weren't, they're going to do a great job. Don't get me wrong. These are high-caliber individuals that are bright, and they're going to do their job no matter what. But as far as us, our task in making sure that we're assisting them to get where they need to be, that's the nut we're trying to crack.

Councilmember Lentz.

So I'll start with items 1 and 2, and I'm okay decoupling that from this career ladder proposal that we're talking about because I think we have the funding sources elsewhere that we can address that without Taking 1 and 2 out of there. My question is, how effective is— are those items at actually retaining our employees? So if we decouple it from the career ladder discussion and talked about if we're going to discontinue 1 and 2 and just shift it into an across-the-board wage increase at every level so that everybody benefits, would that be a more effective retention tool? for your employees than something that other cities aren't offering?

Absolutely. Every benefit that we can find, and I appreciate the way that, that this has been done, offering up a lot of different options. I think, I think whatever options we can have to benefit the employees is what we need right now. Everything that I can as a chief do to attract other people, qualified people, and to keep our employees is critical right now. In fact, I have another officer that just left, not necessarily for money. There's a lot of reasons. But a lot of it is just because of future outlook. And anything I can do to retain my employees, that's where I bank on, is right there.

So I really appreciate the fact that there are a lot of options here.

And, you know, again, when I presented that to the sergeants and the lieutenants, if I were to give them option A and only option A, that's what they chose, was they would prefer it on the front end. Now, that was a select group of people, and some of them benefit more than others because the lieutenants don't get overtime. And so, yeah, they would probably prefer that.

But at the same time, in asking, the sergeants are very attuned to what the department's needs are, and so I trust them.

But I didn't give them option B or C, and that being, are there other funding sources? That's what we're looking at here. So is it—

does it help me?

Yes, it does. Any benefit helps me in attracting new people.

I think our employees In talking with them, it's about the pay that they're getting now. And they're looking long ranges of what their 3 highest years are going to be. So everything that they get now will be compounded and their wages increase. They have money in their pocket now so that they can take care of family needs, but it's also building towards their retirement in their 3 highest years. So the ones that have expressed they want the benefit now, but then you have some that are in their career, they like the benefit of the retirement also that compounds on a a great scale to their benefit when they retire. So I think for the most part though, most of them are— they like the money upfront.

And I guess giving the money to them upfront, they still have the option to increase their own contributions if, you know, if they want more money going into the retirement, they can still opt to put a portion of that, you know, the increased wages that they get into the retirement.

Correct.

It might be another— is it the 457? Then, or would it be the 401 if they opt to do that?

If they opt to do it, it's the 457. Right, okay, got it. Of course, they can opt to do it in the 401 too, but overtime money would just be deposited into it.

Okay, and the 17.9% number, did we arrive at that number just to match what is on the base salary contributions that are made, or where did that 17.9% number come from?

So years ago, well, 10-plus years ago, the city set that 17.9 as the retirement cap based on essentially a tradition that that would be the contribution cities would contribute— the city would contribute into their retirement account. Since then, retirement rates have increased, and we have just kept the 17.95% as the allocation amount. So for example, our public employees now, contributions into their retirement plan is 18.47%. It used to be that the URS retirement rates were 9 to 12%. And so the difference would be money that was deposited into a 401. But now we've gotten to the point where the URS contribution rates exceed 17.95%. Employees are no longer getting a contribution into that 401, and that 17.95% or 9% has stood for overtime purposes. You know, since, since we had that program of 17.95% or 9% in retirement for all employees.

Over the last few months, it seems like when we talk about those particular items, it's kind of an all-or-nothing discussion. Either we have it or we don't. And I'm not sure if we've looked like, you know, you mentioned possibly grandfathering in those that are already in the system. Could we look at structuring so that the percentages change so that We can save a little. We still provide the benefit, but maybe at a lower percentage so that we can shift that money into the salary if you believe that's going to help with your retention. I don't necessarily want to belabor these 2 because I'd really like to, I guess, decouple that from this career ladder and just kind of turn it over to the chiefs to say, you know, whatever you think is going to help you best retain your officers, if you want to continue operating those programs as is. And leave the base salaries as they are, or if you want to— I mean, they don't necessarily need a recommendation from the council to make that call, do they?

No. I mean, if I can also note, those overtime contributions, that 17.95%, that, that does not count towards retirement. So when we look at an employee's highest 3 years or highest 5 years their overtime wages are not included as part of the retirement calculation. So in the case of shifting money and using it, taking that 17.9% and front-loading it into a base wage, that actually does benefit employees. In terms of the URS retirement benefit they receive.

But if we decided as a council we're not going to do 1 and 2 but just turn that over to the chiefs, and it doesn't even— you don't necessarily have to make the same decision that Chief Gurney makes, but I mean, we don't necessarily need a decision by the council if we're not applying it to this.

No, I do, right? Again, the, the challenge at hand was In the next 3 years, we have about a $600,000 funding gap. How are we going to fund this program? So it was in that spirit that this conversation began. It wasn't, well, we're going to cut for the sake of cutting. It was, we have a $600,000 nut we need to crack. Are there ways we can cut the— we can crack the nut?

I wanted to speak a little bit to the UIA dividend piece. There's been some concerns about, is this going to be reliable year after year into the future? The increases that we've seen in the UIA dividend, it started off with about $60K, went up to $144K. I think we're on track to be well above $200K this year. And if you look at our build-out schedule, we're about 4 years from completing the entire network for UIA across all the UIA cities. So instead of that number going away after a couple years, that number could be well over a million in about 4 years from now. So I mean, I'm, I'm not really sure the reluctance to apply that UIA dividend to the— Mayor, you mentioned you didn't want to apply that. I guess this question would be for you. What, what was your reluctance in applying the UIA dividend to help solve this?

Sure, I appreciate that. So that money coming in from UIA is meant to pay off an existing loan that we gave to UIA for operational expenses about 6 years ago. There's about another $680,000 that's owed plus interest. I believe that that loan should continue to be paid down if we're looking at this as a long-term item instead of a short-term. The other thing is, if in fact our Utopia money is going up by 2% per year, then I think this money should be used against that. I recommended possibly using this $190,000 for 4 years to help pay off some debt with regards to the rec center. That is a short-term item. This is a short-term item. I don't think we can look at this as a ongoing long-term as far as the debt service. Now, as far as paying down Utopia debt, again, we're going up by 2% a year. And if you start— if you take 2% this year, compound it 2% next year, etc., that starts to accelerate. And this money was planned for UIA and Utopia. I'm actually surprised that you're looking to pull it away from that and use it for something else. I think this money should be used for— if we're not going to use it to, to try to pay debt down with the rec center, it should be used to pay down debt for UIA and to offset the 2%. So that's my thinking.

Well, I had hoped to dedicate it to Utopia to accelerate our build-out further, and we'd be generating about $1 million a year with that plan. But because we didn't have the votes on the council, we couldn't proceed. And so we're, we're stuck with the status quo. What I've heard, though, I think is a misunderstanding of what those funds are and what the future looks like there at UIA. This is not a short-term anomaly in the numbers that they're just paying off a debt. This is UIA turning a profit to offset the increases in Utopia as well as paying off those operating expenses that we helped with. So—

And Sam, I hope that's true. I do remember a time when Utopia was shown that things were going to be rosy going forward and no problems, and it went the other way. So you just never know.

Yep.

And that was when the program was first starting and we didn't have any track record to go off of. But now we've got 15 years of numbers where we can actually project into the future. But my point was As far as trying to actually add to the compensation and not just play a shell game of shifting money around, this represents about a $200,000 increase in funding for public safety compensation that was not in our current budget. We're already budgeting, as Jamie pointed out, for that increase on the Utopia side that was just coming out of those general— so if you don't want to show that it's the UIA dividend paying for it, if you want to show the UIA dividend paying the increase On the Utopia side, then we just take the money that was budgeted for— I mean, it's the same pot of money. It's the general fund. So however you want to classify that, so be it. But it's all coming from the same general fund. Chief Giles, at our last work session, there was a question about how overtime was calculated. And it— I think it came up in particular with respect to dispatch and how that would impact them, where If somebody worked, let's say, 24 hours but then took 16 hours off that week, they wouldn't start making overtime under one of those proposals until they hit that 40-hour mark. Has that taken off this proposal?

I think we have taken that off, and I think we've resolved that with some other— I've met with Mr. Davidson, and I think we've been able to resolve that.

Okay.

As far as the fleet purchases going from $900K to $750K, I mean, obviously we want to value our people more than we do our vehicles. But does that put us at any disadvantage as far as our ability to provide city services, whether it's public safety or otherwise, by— you know, we're not going to have as nice new shiny vehicles year after year. But is that something that we can— a pill that we can swallow, I guess, on the fleet purchasing side?

I think in terms of fleet, we're in a, we're in a good position. Again, we're talking about ongoing money, so it becomes a little bit of a crunch in the event we don't have any one-time money. So for example, right now we're In a healthier budget situation than we were a number of years ago. So we have the flexibility, for example, in the short term to supplement that $750,000 amount with one-time money that may be available. But if, for example, there's a change in the economy, there's a change in the amount of ongoing revenue that we receive, then we may not be able to supplement that amount. And then that's where it becomes a little more challenging to make fleet decisions.

Okay.

So in the short term, I don't think it is problematic. In the long term, I think it will require us to keep obviously some vehicles longer. It's not going to allow us to stay steady with some of the rotation schedules that we've set up in the last number of years. And it may require some additional maintenance costs on our part. But again, that is only in the event we don't have one-time money to help us with fleet replacement. Historically, we have budgeted all one-time money for fleet replacement. So when we ran into the decline of 2007 through 2009, I'm sorry, 2008. '12 or '13, we didn't have any money for fleet, and that's really what bit us. So being able to balance fleet purchases between a generally healthy ongoing source and then supplementing it with one-time dollars in the short term, I think, can be done.

Okay, thank you.

I think that's most of what I wanted to cover that wasn't already covered. But yes, as far as those items 1 and 2, I would say we, we again decouple it from the career ladder and just turn it over to the chiefs and their staff to figure out how do we want to allocate those dollars so that we can best retain our most, you know, skilled, experienced people.

And Sam, did you want to address 28, or you're okay with that pulling that from this list?

Yeah, I'd like to pull that from the list.

All right, Councilor McDonald.

Thank you. First of all, for those of you not looking at the same sheets of paper we are, I thought I'd kind of explain what we're looking at up here. The mayor went through various parts of those, in fact all of those, and we're just looking— Jamie and Chief Giles and Chief Gurney put some otherwise sacred cows on a list of things that we could not pay for and use that money to redeploy those funds to other resources. So I want you to know what we're looking at. Also, 5 of the 7 of us had the opportunity to be elected after 2013, and we've seen good years on the, on the City Council, and we've seen positive tax revenues come in. And we tried to use that money judiciously and fiscally responsible by paying for a lot of cars and updating the cars with, with paying for them with cash, much like you'd do in a prosperous year. If you were having a prosperous year, you wouldn't finance your car over 6 or 7 years you'd pay for it. And we had the good option of doing that, which has provided us some cash right now to be able to solve some concerns. This is not meant for any grandstanding, but just a reminder, the real heroes here are police and fire who are out in the field, not any solution we might come up with today. And I, I didn't do that for that purpose. I want you to know that. So it's not those of us who frankly took more months than we should have getting this solved. It's those who every day are out in the field, and we applaud their efforts. The other heroes are the many citizens who called me and other members of the council who said, I will gladly pay an extra buck a month to hire 4 new officers. And for politicians— no, for statesmen who make decisions that's right for the future, not right for the next election. Why is— what— which is why almost everybody up here voted for a tax increase, which is never popular, particularly in a conservative area that we live in and conservative values that we all hold dear. So I'm grateful for those who did that. This frankly freed up other funds. If we didn't have that $400,000, Chief, because those were all for 4 new policemen, we'd be in a world of hurt. I'd also like to talk about leveling the playing field. I talked to several officers and/or firemen and/or, more importantly, their spouses after some of these meetings who said, we'll believe it when our net pay goes up. And that's what we're in the process of doing. Again, I apologize by some of our missteps and standing flat-footed, not jumping ahead of this that others had encouraged us to do and I had encouraged us to do, but we are trying to level the playing field.

field.

And we want to increase take-home pay. Now, to Mr. Davison's comment about— we also want to increase their pay that will help them in retirement, i.e., their base pay. So while I'm— I am in favor of 12 and 28 coming off, 1 and 2 is a level of detail that I really rely on Chief Giles and Chief Gurney. I want to publicly state my phenomenal confidence in Chief Giles and Chief Gurney and frankly our other department heads. This is a level of detail that I'm not used to getting into on any other board that I'm on, of delving into this. Now that being said, public safety is always front and center on the lives and minds of our citizens, so we do want to get in front of it. But I have confidence that we don't need to hire outside morale boosters and bring in donuts every Friday I believe Chief Giles will know how to motivate his staff, and Chief Gurney will know how to motivate his staff. Every leader is tested and proven in tough times, not in easy times, and these men and women who work in their departments are up to being proven in tough times, and I firmly believe that. So I think that's— oh, and as Brent and Mark know from living through tougher times on the council when Times were a little bit darker financially. It is important to have a sustainable budget. Now, 1 and 2 is taking money out of one pocket and in— into another. But if I took it out of that pocket and increased the $345 to yet a higher amount and gave them more cash in their take-home pay, that should be a decision that Chief Giles and Chief Gurney make in collaboration with our city manager.

Thank you.

I have every confidence that if we give you some additional money, you'll spend it wisely. I doubt there'll be a lot of donuts on Fridays. There'll be morale boosting by giving them additional pay, by gratitude for what they're doing, and to talk about leadership, Chief, of giving them leadership opportunities as they step up through the career. Chief, I'm looking at Chief Giles, but the same goes to you, Chief Gurney. So I want to see officers and firemen who can be promoted. And frankly, when some is promoted to another city, that really says something about our training. We don't want them all to lose. We don't want to lose them all, but we should be flattered when some of our great people go to other cities and have chief opportunities. We have 4 chiefs now from here. That's a good thing. But on the other hand, we want to keep them. And when I had an employee come to me who had a great opportunity, I would Council and encourage them and try to make it the best I can. But if they made a decision to take something that was right for them and their family, I applaud them. So that being said, no, I'm not in favor of 1 and 2. I'm not in favor of micromanaging 1 or 2. What I'm in favor of is giving that back to the chief and to our city managers and say, come up with a plan. Is it exactly what Jamie has designed with you today? I have no idea. Frankly, we should approve a budget amount and let you work through the details.

Thank you.

Because I think you have that capability as a manager, as a leader, and someone who knows the ropes.

We've—

none of us have been first responders unless you count getting up with the baby in the middle of the night, which is about as close to first responder as I've ever been. And my wife will tell you it was far from my fair share. But we haven't been first responders, and you know that pressure and that stress and that challenge. So please lift them, pay them. And reward them so they'll stay is my hope. Thank you.

Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that very much. I'd just like to make a couple of comments from what I heard. Chief Gurney mentioned that what we need to do is to get and retain the best and brightest in our fire department. And Chief Giles has said, any option I can do to retain employees and benefits I can get to help me, I want to do it. And I believe that by looking at this proposed budget adjustments, eliminating 1 and 2, I would also eliminate 12 and 28. This gives us the $345,000 per year we need, and I believe it keeps the police and fire whole as far as pension and as far as pay benefits go. And to me, those are important. I've had People talk to me about those and, and how important those are to them. So again, this is not a motion, so everybody knows. This is just a proposal. We would have to adopt this in a City Council meeting, but I would just like to know from the council who agrees with the proposal to adopt the proposed budget adjustments to fund the Career Ladder Phase 2 program at $345,000.

So moved.

per year by eliminating items 1 and 2, 12 and 28 off this list. And so I'll go back there, if I may, as a point of clarification.

This is not something that requires your formal authorization, given that all of these amounts are within the general fund. If you were just to provide direction—

Okay, all right.

We could facilitate whatever your direction is.

And one thing I was going to say, the Career Ladder Program Phase 2 has been printed, has been distributed to each city council member. I believe that every one of us here have read it and know what's in it, and that is what we're funding. So, so I would like to start with Mark, and you can just tell us your feelings.

Great. I did have one other question too that We went through a lot of these things that you guys have seen. Were there any other issues on this list that you felt strongly should also be taken off, or did you— do you kind of agree within the direction of where we're looking at, that if we exclude 1, 2, 12, and 28, these other issues that, that were brought up on, on fleet and, and those things, are you— I'm good with all of those.

I, I'm good with all of the other ones. In fact, uh, you know, again I've talked to number 2, which is the 401. If there are other options and we can leave that on the table, that always helps in recruiting and retention.

And I think tied to that, you know, part of where I was trying to get to on the earlier thing was I had the impression that if we're offering benefits that cost money but are not of value, then we need to find a way to redirect those and a way that does add value. And I'm hopeful then that if we're keeping these benefits, the number 1 and 2, then that does become something to say, hey, I like Orem because they're doing this that other departments aren't doing. It's a sign of appreciation. It's a sign of support. It's a sign of trying to say we value you and recognizing that trying to get the pay up to where it needs to be, I appreciate the work and the energy.

Thank you.

effort that you guys have done to, to work through that. And, and I agree with Tom. I mean, our— you're the experts on this, you guys. You know, we, we trust you, uh, to do the best you can to create an environment that retains and attracts and, and puts forward what we need to do to be able to be effective and successful. And, and we trust you to do that. So, Mayor, I, uh, I had one other question too. There was the discussion of 350 versus Is the nut we need to crack $350,000, Jamie, or $345,000, or is it all relatively close?

No, I think it's fine.

Okay, then I— then, Mayor, I support the proposal as recommended.

Debbie?

I also support it. I do like the idea of giving flexibility on 1 and 2. I'd encourage you to get a group of your officers and your firefighters, and, um, let's see what makes sense, um, on how that would either putting in their pay now or keeping some portion. Um, I mean, I really don't care how you spend this. I just want to make sure that we retain, um, and make sure that people feel like they're part of the process and giving you the flexibility to do so. So I'm supportive.

Dave?

Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely supportive of proposal, and I just want to keep our experienced officers in Norm.

Thank you.

I too am supportive. One thing that the crowd does not see that I would like to point out is that the City Council has a contingency of $25,000 that is available for us to use for different items throughout the year, and part of our list is $10,000 being taken out of our contingency and to be put in to fund the fire and police and their ladder program. And I feel very strongly that we want to donate as a council and we want to support our fire and police. So we're trying to put our money where our mouth is. Brent.

Well, again, I'm not— I'm not the expert. We have 2 experienced Chief Gurney and Chief Giles, and they've gotten together with our city manager, who all 3 of them are the experts and know what their individual departments need. And if that's, you know, if you guys feel good about that, the proposal, let's go with it.

Okay.

Councilor Sam?

For the most part, I'm good. I'm just trying to understand what we're doing with this $200,000 that apparently I'm the only one that recognizes that we're actually going to get that money this year. So, so what, what will we use it for?

To be determined at a later date.

So yay or nay?

I, I just— I'd like an answer to know if we get an extra $200,000 where that's going to go.

Well, I, I think it should go to UIA to pay down the loan.

Okay, so where do we take the money that is already budgeted for that? It comes right back to the general fund. What do we do with that money?

I believe the money coming to pay off the loan pays off the loan. Anyway, I just need to know whether it's a yay or a nay.

Well, I'm not comfortable indicating that until I know how that $200,000 is So a no vote?

This isn't a vote thing, is it?

You want to abstain and not vote?

I'd like an answer. I mean, it's, it's on this list. It's pretty clear that we're going to get the money. I'm trying to understand why we're not dedicating it to this purpose.

So yea, nay, or abstain?

They're saying take all the other things. that, that are on the list off and just do—

For example, we might not need to make fleet purchase concessions this year.

It, it probably doesn't matter because we already have enough votes, so it's whatever you want to do. But we, we already have 5 votes approving this action in this direction, so.

Well, I'm just procedurally, um— You can abstain. Well, no, I'm not going to abstain, but I'm uncomfortable that We've got $200,000 sitting there that we're not even willing to acknowledge.

I understand, but we're trying to give direction and take a vote. We have 5 votes. How would you like to vote?

Yay, and I would like to bring this up for future discussion.

Okay, thank you. Tom?

My, my vote is not yay or nay on any of these numbers. It's just go fix it, Chief. And so you have plenty of dollars to do that. You use the dollars you need to and get it done. This is a level of detail that we shouldn't be in. We should say solve the problem and we'll get you the money, and you found the money. So congratulations to Jamie and the chiefs, and now go fix your problem.

I take that as a yay.

You took that as fix the problem. I wasn't voting yay. 1 and 2 are still available to them if they want to use it.

I'll put you down as no vote.

You can put me down for whatever you want to translate that to. Fix the problem, man.

So we do have 5— 1 By votes to move in the direction of using the budget items that we have listed, with the exception of 1 and 2, 12 and 28, and to move forward with the stepladder program. And I would hope we could put that in place this month.

So you changed my vote?

No, I'm sorry, 6. I'm sorry, thank you. Okay, I didn't mean to do that, Sam. So, Jamie, so we have 6 votes in favor of moving ahead. We'd like to use this budget. Okay, we have 7 votes voting ahead, and we would like to give the direction to use these items with the exception of 1, 2, 12, and 28. We'd like to fund the stepladder program immediately, and hopefully we could put this in place this month. And with that, I would take a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Okay, hold.

So sure, I would be happy to allow him, and please have him come forward. And Kevin, if you could, if you could use the microphone there and give us your name.

Hello, my name is Kevin Wilkie. This is very emotional for me. I wrote down some stuff, and I'm glad I don't have a timer right now. I would like to thank Mayor Brunce, Councilman Spencer, and Debbie— I know you as Debbie from basketball— for them reaching out to me. They were the only official administration from Orem City that made an effort to retain me after 11 years working here. After hearing what you guys have—

after—

it's okay.

It's fine. We as firefighters and police officers, we're also scrutinized. Everything that we do is judged. Everything that we do is under a microscope, and we're not always liked as much as everybody thinks.

So it's okay.

I'm just here to hopefully spread a little bit of light on some things that I feel have maybe been overlooked. Pay is definitely one of them, but that is not the only thing that we are facing here in Orem. I also would like to thank The efforts that have put into finding other money rather than taking things that we already have, whether it's taking it from one pocket to the next. I have had the honor of working as a firefighter paramedic in the city of Orem for 11 years. I wish I could be standing here wearing this uniform. In this uniform, I have been subject to horrendous events. I have held an 11-year-old child who was lifeless because he took his own life and watched his mother crumble. I opened the closet to one of my old high school friends that I saw hanging. And had to talk to his dad and explain to him that his son was dead. I have been to the hospital 3 times for on-duty injuries, one of which on a fire. My L7 and S1 are now resting on top of each other, and I have forever back pain. I'd suffered double inguinal hernias from carrying a 400-pound woman and down a set of stairs, to which I required surgery and I missed work for almost 2 months. I have been spat on. I have been punched. I have been vomited on more times than I can remember or can recall. None of that hurts me more than being told I can't wear this uniform to the city council meeting for the very city that has required those sacrifices Of me, my family, and the rest of these men and women here, we take this uniform as a badge of honor, figuratively and literally. I have risked my life in this uniform more than ten times, and it is something that I hold dear to my heart forever. This year alone. I have spent more than $1,700—

Keep going. I'd like to hear what you had to say.

This year alone, I have spent more than $1,700 on counseling for the issues that I now face because of things that I've seen. People will tell us all the time that we knew what the risk was. You signed up for it. You know what you were getting into. And they're right, I did. We all did. But it was under the pretenses and hopes that we would have a city that would back us up, that we wouldn't need to come and cause, frankly, a ruckus in city council meetings to try to get action to be taken. Again, I applaud you for making the changes, or at least the steps to make the changes, but unfortunately it's too little too late for me. I didn't want to leave. I love this city. I wanted to work here for my whole career. I was not going to speak at the council meeting, but after watching the general session, hearing Scott Gurney say when regarding our pay, quote, the majority of our firefighters—

So, Kevin, I need to have you keep to the issue and not—

This is directly related to the issue. It's not. It's related to the other issue of morale, which is also very detrimental to this city. May I continue?

Yes, but I would not do anything as far as degrading any individual, so.

Okay. The firefighters and police officers, we have an honor code. And that is to watch out for each other's backs. I feel that we as a city don't do that very well. I feel like we can be better at it, and I feel that we can take steps to be better at it so that our men and women can see and feel that understanding. I was told 3 years ago that I was no better than a group of bunco women sitting around complaining, and that if I didn't like it, I could walk out the door. And unfortunately, it came to that. And I really, really hope that this continues and that you guys continue to strive to keep these great men and women— they're heroes, they really are— and they deserve your support. They deserve everything they have been promised before and after.

Thank you.

Thank you. With that said, we have a motion, I believe, I believe— or I ask for a motion to adjourn. And was there a second?

Second.

Okay.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

We are adjourned. Thank you very much.