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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFY 2021 Budget Presentation (Kauai Fire Department)KAUA'! FIRE DEPARTMENT THE COUNTY OF KAUA'I DEREK S. K. KAWAKAMI, MAYOR MICHAEL A . DAHILIG, MANAGING DIRECTOR ROB ERT F. WESTERMAN FIRE CHIEF FY 2021 BUDGET AND OPERATIONS SYNOPSIS Fire Department 1-. FY 2020 to FY 2021 BUDGET COMPARSION The Fire Department Administration cannot support this budget. It not only removed two very important and needed senior management positions it is woefully short in funding. The overall budget increased by $2,435,381.00 mostly in salaries and benefits. As usual the benefits and salaries switch back and forth in percentage. This year the salaries is two percent less and benefits two percent more. The Utilities stayed the same, Vehicles increased by $75,422 and Operations decreased by $20,923. The FY21 budget is short by more than $779,289.00 dollars. FY 2020 Operating Budget FY 2021 Operati ng Budget •Salary and Wages •Salary and Wages •Benefits •Benefits •Utilities •Utilities •Vehicle/Equip, • Vehicle/Equip, lease lease •Operations •Operations FY 2019 and FY 2020 Comparison 20,000,000 ~----------------------, 18,000,000 +---..---...-------------------1 16,000,000 14,000,000 12,000,000 10,000,000 8,000,000 6,000,000 4,000,000 2,000,000 0 Salary and Wages Benefits Utilities Vehicle/Equip, Operations Lease www .kauai.gov Ill FY 2020 Ill FY 2021 4444 Rice Street Suite 315 • Lihu'e, H awai'i 96766 • (808) 241-4980 (b) • (808) 241-650 8 (f) An Equa l Opportunity Employer The response or call data stayed relatively level over the last 2 to 3 years not like the past 5 to 10 years with significant 18% increase year over year . The call data shows we responded to 6,473 calls small increase from the previous year. Our EMS response is at 74%, 1 percent lower than the previous year. The continued increase is coming from the EMS sector. As the baby boomers continue to age this call load is expected to continue to increase. FY17 FY18 FY19 Fire 281 290 328 Rupture/Explosion 1 5 0 EMS/Rescue 4 ,60 1 4,733 4,763 Hazardous Condition 49 42 69 Service Call 448 440 395 Good Intent 734 619 700 False Call 217 189 211 Severe Weather 0 10 1 Other 7 5 1 Totals 6 ,338 6,328 6,473 %EMS 73% 75% 74% %Fire 4% 5% 5% 2. MAJOR CHANGES AND/OR VARIANCES IN OPERATIONS BUDGET There are two major changes in the budget. Reallocation/Defunding o~ two senior fire employees and a shortfall of over $779 ,289 dollars. The Deputy Fire Chief was $1 funded and the Fire Inspector II position was removed and reassigned to the Ocean Safety Bureau. Two positions were added to OSB as Ocean Safety Officers and two existing part time OSB's were moved to full time. The Fire Department is not in support of the Deputy Fire Chief removal as it denigrates the administration of the Fire Department by capriciously removing one of its most senior and critically important positions . The positon of the Deputy is critical to the Departments safe operations. As we have explained over the years the work load whether the Deputy Chief is here or not still needs to get done. So this action just means the Assistance Chief and Battalion Chiefs will need to increase their overtime to continue to provide senior management of the department. This will also cause work fatigue and can be detrimental to their decision making abilities. The Fire Department has the second largest budget in the county. Removing a positon which is charged with managing the budget , monitoring over time costs, and monitoring the safety of its personnel is dangerous to the men and women of the department and the public. It does not take into consideration the size and complexity of the Fire Department Operations . The Fire Inspector II position was not filled due to return rights of the past Deputy and other more personal reasons for the firefighters. But the work was still getting done by TA and some on overtime. With the upcoming changes to the code and the county permitting process our plans review work load will increase to almost double and we have no one assigned to perform this function nor do we have a position to TA. This will end up with a Union grievance when we ask firefighters to perform functions outside their job description since their will no longer be a positon to perform this function. 3. OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES The department is not adequately funded. The county has agreed to collective bargaining and yet those contracts are not fully funded . It has chosen again not to fund the vacation pay out, workers compensation, spiking and short fund salaries, overtime and rank for rank. Due to the funding shortfall, all community risk reduction programs will be curtailed without funding to support them . This puts the community at risk and puts firefighter lives at increased risks. Our CERT program that has enjoyed much success and a very positive influence on the April 18 flooding out comes will (has) stopped and training will go to waste and all equipment will sit and deteriorate. Without these force multipliers we will have to rely on more overtime by firefighters during major emergency events. Beside cost increase this will also over work the firefighters affecting the safety of the firefighters, the county teams and the public. We are already experiencing an increased use of the Emergency Operations Center, due to COVID19, for which we have no full time staffing , meaning all the functions required of the fire department are done on overtime because the event does not stop our regular operations but only serves to increase our workload. We have identified a $775,289 dollar shortfall in the current budget: Unfunded mandates Vacation Pay out Workers Compensation Rank for rank Salaries HOL OPEB Spiking Overfunded item Retirement contributions OSB Salaries -$334,876 (estimate based on known retirements) -$189,000 (estimate based on last three years) -$306,975 (based on 80% known salaries costs) -$277,392 (based known salaries) -$212,985 (based known salaries and known holidays) -$168,959 (based on known salaries) -$1,663,422 (based on known retirements) +$2,295,969 (based on known salaries) +$82,351.00 (based on known salaries) The department has faced over the last five years continued reduction in funding. Last year with only $18,000 returned to the general fund we had a budget cut of over $1 million dollars net of all the underfunded and unfunded mandates? The year before that we returned only $61.00 at end of year and were faced with addition budget cuts . Because of the serious shortfall the Director of Finance used other department funds to pay our shortages. This year 2020 we are $518 ,000 underfunded as of today. We have sent the request to Director of Finance asking for a money bill to cover our shortages. We have elim inated or reduced some Community Risk Reduction programs which puts the community at a very high risk. Especially our senior members who the Fire Safety and Prevention Inspection Program targets. We terminated our CERT program w ith another 20 community members ready to stand up and volunteer their serv ice to the community like they did during the April Floods. We lose the investment in the training of over 500 community members who dedicated themselves to helping their fel low community members. You will also notice that we have reduced the overtime hours for one of our CRR programs the Sparky prevention trailer. Also significant is that we reduce the rank structure so that not only Captains work the trailer bu t all ranks and more equitably see the charts . Notice the decrease of the (blue) Captains over the years and increase of (yellow) Fire Fighter l's. FY12022 Fire Pre\€ntion Trailer FY2017 FY2018 FY2019 FY 2020 thru 02/29/20 Hours Amount Hours Amount Hours Amount Hours Amount Fire Captain 573.50 $ 31 ,292 .29 236 .75 $ 12 ,217 .27 187 .50 $ 10 ,347 .50 21 .50 $ 1,467 .65 Fire Fighter Ill 109.25 $ 3,419.22 163.00 $ 6,363 .01 104 .50 $ 4,450 .12 21 .50 $ 953 .30 Fire Fighter 11 99 .50 $ 4.239 .36 51 .75 $ 2 .336 .53 150 .25 $ 5 .725 .53 15.00 $ 672 .38 Fire Fig hter I 380 .25 $ 9.472 .04 435 .00 $ 11 .847 .84 453 .50 $ 14 ,321 .39 22 .50 $ 793 .53 1, 162.50 $ 48,422 .91 886 .50 $ 32 ,764 .65 895 .75 $ 34 .844 .54 80 .50 $ 3,886 .86 FY2017 Hour-; FY2018 Houa F'f2019 Hours •I*-'~'-• f .. '"':t '<il • .,. l ,, •It 6''4" •I• ~. • • tt '"'I • ""If '• • tit•" • -· 'ft I o f,. l<f"'< o l of•••• 4. TOP 3 OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM FY 2020 By utilizing our Target Solution Training Modules we were able to reduce the training costs for the NREMT recertification . By transitioning part of the course to online and using the training cadre we reduced the costs by as much as $30,000 .00. The addition of the training cadres will in the future allow for increases in programs and reduction of costs. By reducing the number of firefighters on overtime and training as much as possible on duty shifts. While we have had to suspend some CRR program due to funding shortfalls we were able to reach 24 homes of elderly on Kauai with our Fire Prevention Home Safety inspection. Through a collaborative effort with AMR, County of Kauai Agency on Aging and State Department of health we provide a home inspection to look for trip and fall hazards, fire safety issues, and replacement of faulty or missing smoke detectors. This also allows us to preplan the home for a better response and allows our partners to be better able to provide services. We certified our drone team through the FAA 107 certification process. This allowed us to utilize the team during the recent helicopter crash. By utilizing the drones where possible we save time on our helicopter. This also saves the cost of maintenance, gas and reduces the risk to the life of the firefighters and crew flying in the helicopter. The FAA and NTSB credited the drones for their hard work and super clear images helping them with their investigation.