Okay, good morning. We'll call to order the January 9th, 2025. Crazy. Budget Finance and Taxation Committee will start with the roll call, please. Gertis, here. Big Sanders. Here. Gabbard. Here. Hannah Wittsch. Here. Harding. Here. Okay, Hannawood, Harding, here. Okay, we have an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. No, the approval. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We have December 12, 2024 minutes. I'll entertain a motion for approval of those minutes. All in favor. Aye. Motion carries. Okay, first order of business. We need to select a committee chair and vice chair I'll open up the floor to nominations for committee chair Council member Hanowitz. I nominate you. Oh perfect. Yes What you said? What you say? Yes. Thank you. I'm happy to serve any other nominations You're good. All in favor for chair. I I All in favor for chair. Aye. Aye. It's awkward saying your name so I just want to do a chair. Okay, nominations for vice chair. I know many council member Richie for Lee. Council member Richie for Lee is not on the thank you. I was on the committee for Lee. I saw. Okay. Okay. I'll name an all nominate council. I saw. Okay. Okay. My name is not. I'm not on the committee. I'll nominate council member rules at hand. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. All right. First, before we jump into the presentation from matrix consulting, I'm going to turn it over to Assisted City Administrator Tom Green. Real quick to just give a quick introduction. Thank you, Mr. Green. Oh, thank you Mr. Chair and I wanted to thank the committee and council for your flexibility. I know that we have rescheduled this a couple of times because of a couple of storms and I really want to thank Mr. Finn for his flexibility. You know we've asked him to come a couple of different times and unfortunately because of storms we couldn't have him here, but we're excited to hear his presentation and have a conversation about the path forward for the Fire Rescue Department at the city sink. Awesome, thank you. And Mr. Finn told me earlier, we can blame the cold weather on him, because he's supposed to be in a big snow storm right now. So, but he gets a little bit of sunshine. So happy to have you, Mr. Finn. And then also at the table, we have our fire chief chief Watts chief Watts. Welcome. So we'll turn it over to Mr. Finn and then we'll let chief make some comments after that And then we'll jump into questions and answers from committee members and council members. Thanks for being here, Mr. Finn. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Like you said, Dallas is experiencing a rare snow event today, so not having to be there is a welcome change. Even everybody thinks it's cold here, I'm enjoying it. And I was happy not to be stranded here for the two hurricanes that you guys had during the earlier scheduled presentations. I'm Robert Finn, Senior Manager with Matrix Consulting Group, and I led the project team on this assignment. I'm gonna give you a brief overview. Feel free to stop me anytime during the presentation if you have questions, or we can save them to the end if there's any questions. So the kind of agenda for today is talking about the goals of this evaluation. What the key strengths of the fire department are, what key opportunities we suffer improvements, and then kind of a quick overview of the various recommendations that arose from the study. So the goals were to look at the efficiency and effectiveness of the department, look at their workload, performance goals, the organizational structure, examine and identify any issues related to diversity in the organization, and then how they approached customer service to the residents and business community of the city. As part of our approach, we interviewed department staff at all levels of the fire department, as well as any key city functions that interacted with the fire department in order to support their operations. We conducted an employee survey, collected numerous data for analysis by the team developed the best practices assessment. And, you know, the interesting thing there is that in terms of best practices, you checked every box except for the fact that the Fire Department had a vision statement. So adding a vision statement to the mission and the values and then the career development just really it can go beyond the division chief level so getting it further into the organization to allow people how to progress into commander ranks but when you went through every other step of the department and functions and what they're delivering. They checked every best practice box, so you should be proud of that. And then as we went through the process, it was collaborative working with the former chief as well as chief lots and the internal audit staff on interim deliverables and findings, recommendations and making any required edits and ultimately delivering the final report. So some key strengths. You've got a class one ISO rating, which is the highest you can achieve. Very few fire agencies in the country have achieved that, so that's something to be proud of. It shows the business and the residential community that your fire protection is capable of performing at a high level and meets the highest standards for insurance ratings in terms of fire protection classification. You're also internationally accredited with the Center for Public Safety Excellence. So that's a voluntary thing. Very few organizations take it on. And then when you look at Metro and urban departments, even fewer of those. And that is what lends itself probably to your best practices, checking every box. It's designed for continuous improvement. And then showing the community what your capabilities are through community risk assessment. And then showing how well the fire department is poised to mitigate those identified risks and respond effectively. And it just gives that public document, the standard covers document that the fire department has developed to allow the community to understand what their capabilities are, how well they're performing, and then understanding if they feel that those levels of service are acceptable for them. NFPA 1710, the National Fire Protection Association standard, would be used as a gold standard best practice for response. However, most agencies can't meet letter of the law, NFPA 1710, four minute response times, 90% of the time, there's gaps in service areas, there's opportunities to improve services, but fiscally it's usually not obtainable for most jurisdictions with the Career Fire Department to meet that. So they have another clause in there that ties closely with that accreditation, which is the authority having jurisdiction can make locally adopted standards. And that's what you've done through your standard of cover and recognizing what levels of fire protection response time performance standards and those things that you desire in this community. So that's kind of becomes a moving target as the demographics change. You go more vertical and there's different changes. But using that accreditation model as a tool will make sure that you're always in front of those standards and able to have services that are at the desired levels of the city. Your emergency management division is also credited. I'm sure they were tested a couple of times in the not too distant past. Training programs address all the organizational needs that personnel survey, personnel are pleased with the training. They think they receive the training they need to be effective. They think they receive the training they need to be effective. They think they receive the training they need to meet it needs. The only area that staff saw improvement was upgrades to the training facility, which is something you guys have in the work. So continuing to move in that direction is about all we could recommend for training in terms of improving it. Your department has a strong focus on the cancer risk initiatives. They're actually one of the leading agencies in that. It's a strong focus in the fire service and they're doing the proper screenings and taking preventative measures to minimize the cancer risk to the employees and then throughout the survey us interacting with staff interviews the focus on customer service can't be understated they are they're focused on high levels of customer service I think one of my first interviews the answer was how are you today a question how are you doing today well I get to work for the same Pete Fire Department and enjoy this great city. So how can I not be good? So it just shows that things are working well. In terms of opportunities, the Fire Chief currently has a lot of direct reports. And so to minimize those, we looked at reorganizing operations to put rescue and fire operations in one division with an assistant chief leading that and then moving the computer services and support functions all under administrative services. So to reduce to those direct reports and kind of ease the number of day-to-day direct reports on the fire chief. We also thought that that alignment would improve the functions where all of emergency operations is reporting to one area and all support functions reporting to another area. Your vertical growth, it doesn't, it's not hard to walk around or drive around the city and see the number of cranes in the air. So you're not building short structures, everything, the lands valuable and you're going vertical. And that poses unique challenges for the fire department. So as you go vertical and you're doing high-rise operations, you have to have a fire crew on the fire floor, the floor above the fire floor, the floor below the fire floor. So unlike your typical one or two story structure, where 18 personnel can be effective, now you're looking at 48 personnel to get on scene in that immediate time frame to be able to be effective. So most of our recommendations are related one to the travel times being a little longer to the north and northeast portions of the community and then the vertical growth to make sure that you can one respond effectively and have what's called an effective response force for those type of structures and then two to make sure you have enough fire prevention personnel to inspect those. So unlike plan review and inspections related to the growth once the building is occupied the fire department has to continue to inspect it for the life of the building. or as some of your other agencies are just involved in the actual initial plan or reviewed, initial construction inspections. And then there were some continued improvement opportunities for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. So the employee survey showed that gender and racial discrimination was experienced in the organization by a majority of employees just slightly over 50 percent but still enough to see that there's efforts. I know the city's formed a committee, the Fire Department's an active participant in it. So we just think enhancing the roles of that committee and from the employee survey component, it was really more about open transparent communication and trust in the organization. So there's that seem to be kind of the driving issue, but behind some of that. So in staff as well as management, I identified that as an issue, the open and honest communication at all levels. So working to improve those lines of communication make everybody feel as a valued member of the organization, increasing the recruiting efforts to attract a workforce that resembles your community, are important steps to kind of meeting those goals that the city has in terms of being more inclusive. So then I'm just gonna go through the recommendations by organizational category. So you guys have a number of special events and it's kind of a part-time who needs to do it approach. So shotgun who has time, who has the capabilities, what area of the organization does this fit best in? Two options, one, creating a special event unit, but putting in the office of the chief, if that's a desire, a lot of communities also put it in community risk reduction, which is a unit we talked about creating to get that holistic community risk approach. So it fits well in either, usually the chief is asked to make that organizational decision about where it would best fit with you guys merging rescue and operations into a single division It does two things it ensures that all the merging operations are under a single command making sure that they're poised to meet the needs of the community But then it will allow for some better integration between rescue and fire operations. And one of the issues that was brought up was the lack of ability to move between the two. If you're tired of being a paramedic, but want to work on an engine or want to vice versa, want to move from an engine company to EMS, it's not an easy move or an easy transition within the organization currently. So, so making that easier and then having a pathway where people can maybe start on one of the other, but if they decide they like one better than the other, they can have more freedom to move between the two divisions. Again, moving computer and administrative services to the administration division to get all those support functions under a single line of command. As I said earlier, expanding those guidelines to move beyond the district chief level so that people understand what's in it beyond division chief and how can I promote within the organization? If eventually they want to take chief lots position. Not that he's going anywhere soon, he's pretty new to the job. So also, and like I said, creating that pathway. So formalizing the succession plan for that continuity of the organization is important just to make sure that succession planning is in place, you're identifying future leaders, they're getting the training they need, they're getting developed, and then as change occurs in the organization that you're able to adapt to it and have people ready to take those positions and step into the job and be successful instead of kind of learning and training while they're in the new position. Like I said, adding a recruitment officer to the newly created administrative division to assist with recruitment and retention efforts and make sure that the organizational and flexor community, getting some diversity and equity training programs in the fire department to push that down to all levels of the organization and then just explain that scope of the employee inclusivity council to those DEI concepts so that the fire department and that council can work closely together to make sure that A, the city understands what's being done and they can track and monitor the results of the programs. In terms of emergency response, the first thing for the customer, what they know is they dial 911 and report an emergency. Best practices for 911 emergency communications are 90% of the calls are dispatched within a minute. So to the customer, if you're at a minute and 30 seconds, and you can shave that 30 seconds off all of a sudden to them, it looks like your entire response time is 30 minutes quicker. So you turn out times are great, your response times are excellent compared to most cities but you have the ability to prove those call processing times and a lot of times it's a little different in the fire in the MS world than it is in the police world. So when you have dispatchers that are used to dispatching police officers, they want a lot of information before they start heading to a call because they may be around the corner. So where the fire is a fixed facility response, and there's always that time and distance component so you can get the extra information later. Is it a fire call? Is it a medical call? Are they sick? Are they hurt? You know, what's what's going on and get the right units in route? And then you can ask the other questions, you know, what colors the car and all this stuff. But the police want to know if they're armed, what do they wear and what colors the car, you know, all those things so they, if somebody somebody flees or that they can spot it, but fire doesn't need that much background information. So speeding up that call taking and processing of fire calls into the customer just looks like you've improved your total response time. Because all they know is they picked up the phone at nine o'clock and nobody showed up till nine, 10. They don't know what happened between all those steps of processing the call, firefighters, and EMS personnel getting up, going to their apparatus, putting on the protective gear, and then driving to the call. So all those, anything you can do to reduce the time on the front end of those controllable factors is great. Again looking at the areas to the north and northeast, so a new fire station in the area, 94th Avenue and MLK North, splitting fire stations one and five and reinstating the engine one. And then looking at your critical task for fire suppression calls using industry best practices. There's a couple of tasks that need to be reevaluated where we didn't think your task plan had enough people, especially as you go vertical, so making sure that you get task plans. As you continue to go vertical, then ensure enough people get on scene for those fire suppression calls. And then increasing the minimum staffing on the truck companies from three to four personnel. So three personnel is great when you're three to five story on truck companies. It becomes problematic as you go to the more vertical than that, which is clearly what's going on in the city. And as I'm driving around today, I think there's more cranes on the last time I was here. So it just continues. Fire prevention, like I said, the vertical growth and the new occupancy types require ongoing inspections for the life of the properties. So you're going to need to increase fire safety inspector positions. We recommend initially to and then monitoring that workload and growth because you know any of the public areas they have to inspect on all these new facilities as they come in line. Looking at an analyst position to support emergency operations and community risk. So an analyst dedicated to looking at what type of risks are going on in communities or what type of calls are they responding to. Do the training programs align to that, do community outreach and community education events align to those things and just improving the ability of the department to use data to make informed decisions as change continues to occur in the community. And that will allow you to transition that fire prevention division to a community risk reduction organization. So you know, currently you have separate silos doing separate things, but again, bringing it all under, under one umbrella. So everybody's focused on that same community risk reduction mission. Like I said earlier, pursuing the community, pursuing the new training facility as funds become available and you're able to construct that is a good idea. Look into allocate a segment dedicated to emergency management. So right now emergency management's funds are kind of moved all over the place and it's hard to track exactly to emergency management. So right now, emergency management's funds are kind of moved all over the place and it's hard to track exactly what monies are available and how it's being allocated specific to the goal of emergency management. So moving that into a emergency management line item fund so that they know what's available and what resources they have is important. Looking to add a part-time employee to emergency management to assist with the education component, both community outreach as well as education of internal city departments to comply with all the requirements in your plans and then increasing the training and support to the city departments so they understand their roles during an emergency. You know because as you guys saw once the large storm hits it's an all hands-on deck and it's a unified city approach to meeting the emergency and non-emergency service needs of the community so everybody understanding their role and working off the same sheet of music is important when those times occur. Facilities, you've got an excellent facilities management plan in place. The facilities we've taught in, we're in great condition. There's plans in place for continual maintenance and upkeep. We know, we looked at replacing fire stations 2 and 14. In the next five years, they're starting to become out of out of useful life. Fire station 4 in the next 10 years and then renovating 6, 9, 10, and 11, kind of over the next 10 years as they become outdated and need renovations. And with that, I will be happy to answer any questions that the committee has. All right, thank you, Mr. Fenn, and before we go to questions, I'll turn it over to Chief Watts. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Gertis, and Vice Chair Hanowitz and committee members. This study was undertaken to comprehensively evaluate the department's past structure and culture. It was also undertaken to identify areas for improvement and develop a roadmap for success. And actually, it came at a great time for me as the fire rescue chief. And it provides some guidelines or basically a roadmap moving forward. And it will help in the decision-making process that has already begun as it pertains to restructuring the organization, as it pertains to many of the other recommendations that Mr. Finn pointed out. The study highlights the need to enhance our efficiency. The study highlights the need to improve service delivery to our growing community. Some of the findings call for us to reevaluate and our staffing levels, implore, I'm sorry, explore, innovative approaches to service delivery. And again, with my appointment, two fire rescue chief that has already begun. So due to the budgetary impact, I have already looked at the restructuring and the reorganization of the department in its entirety not to restructure the whole department, but the organizational chart as it currently stands. And that will be done in phases because of the budgetary impact of that restructuring. I have also begun to take a more active and engaged role in the, we call it an inclusivity committee as a matter of fact two of the members from the inclusivity committee were approved to go to a DEI conference in for fire service in late October. They will be doing a presentation this coming Monday to staff with their findings at that conference but those are two firefighters who were part of that committee that were selected to attend that conference. The goal of the study obviously is to solicit positive change. I believe that we will get there. And I have to send a excuse my expression, but I have to send a shout out to the men and women who do the job every day. As I go out and my command staff goes out and do station visits, I should say I'm never surprised that the level of professionalism that's out there, their dedication that was shown each and every day. And I'm just extremely proud to be in this position. I'm extremely proud to lead the men and women of the organization. And again, this study comes at a time where it can certainly be used as a road map. And so I have to say, thank you. Thank you, Chief Watts. And before I turn it over to Councilmember Gavard, who's got some questions, I just, quickly, I just wanted to thank Council. Past councils over the last couple of years and I know councils long before that. As going through reading through this, I think most council members that have been here a couple of years probably saw some reoccurring themes. And so I think Council really has been an advocate for the fire department and I just want to thank preceding councils and the councils I've been a part of for the last couple years leading that effort and I'm excited to talk about this. So I'll turn it over to you, council member Gabri. Thank you so much chair and thank you for the presentation, thank you chief and thank you to everyone who is here today. The support of your department sits right behind you and it's very obvious that it's a very new day in St. Petersburg. I want to thank Council Member Driscoll for actually bringing this originally as our process allows us to evaluate departments periodically and we try to do that and in the time when you know we really needed a way for council to be able to participate in how the fire department moves forward. I wanted to thank you councilmember driscoll for bringing this as our evaluation at this time because I fully heartedly agree it is the perfect time for us to be having these conversations. I want to start first by asking something that was very important to me, and I see our union representatives here in the back of Rick Polly and Michael Lewis. Thank you both for being here today. It was very important to me when we put together the scope of work for this, that the union be included in these conversations. So can you talk a little bit about what the role of the union was in doing the evaluation? So as part of the study we met with personnel at all levels of the organization. I believe union leadership were included in those, but it's been a while, quite a while since we did those. Okay. So I'm not 100% sure because there are several of us that were on side doing those interviews. But they were asked to be included. Typically they're included in reviews of interim deliverables. So as we send in interim deliverables if they're on the Internal State Boulder Committee, then they would be used to look at those challenge any recommendations or ask questions about areas where they would feel that further input would be needed. But obviously there's leadership changes during the study and I'm not exactly sure how they were used in those internal roles because we weren't here. Okay. Yeah, and I just wanted to kind of understand that because I think it's critically important and I've already seen the changes in communication between the union and the department, even in the last six, eight months, right? The fact that there is a lot more internal communication, there are meetings, there is collaboration that is happening. I want to make sure we don't lose sight of that going forward. Because I think all of us agree here on this dius, the union is the voice for the men and women who are out doing the job every single day. And so I just wanted to really put an exclamation point on that for me personally. Is that relationship and that collaboration? I want to see that grow even stronger as we move into the future. Because, quite frankly, as you read, some of these responses to these surveys and especially for, we talked about members who are women, who are African-American, who are LGBTQ, there were some unfortunate responses that we wanna make sure that those voices are being heard and that they feel comfortable in being able to express their desires, their needs, and feeling that same level of support. I have all faith in you, Chief Watts, to make sure that that mission is carried forward. But publicly, I just wanted to say to those individuals who responded in the ways that they did, that I am very grateful that they felt comfortable in answering those questions honestly, but we don't want it to stop here with a management evaluation. They need to be able to continue to feel as though their voice has heard. And I think the union has an incredibly important role to play in that. So I won't belabor that point anymore. I wanted to ask you, chief, because you talked a little bit about the phasing of the reorganization and the budgetary restraints. And you and I talked yesterday on the phone, not everything that's in this is going to be feasible. But there was the point made about the direct reports under you. And when you look at the work chart, I mean, I don't envy you. Like, that's a whole lot of, you know, straight coming up to you. So if I could get your comments just on how you feel about the direct report recommendation. Do you, you know, if you kind of had an opportunity to think about that particular recommendation? Thank you, Council Member Gabbard. And if I may go back just a little bit to your point about the collaboration with the union. Obviously, it's very important for the success of the organization to have that type of relationship. And we are in the process of working on that and building that relationship. As a matter of fact, President Pauli and I spoke and we haven't met formally to discuss some of the topics of the fire department, but that is on my radar to work with them and to meet with them and to have that open dialogue with them. Perfect, thank you. To answer your question regarding the realignment or the restructuring of the organization. So this has been discussed previously. So this is not the first time that it has come up. It's been discussed about reducing the number of direct reports to the fire chief in the past. And it is crucial that the organization be restructured so that there are less direct reports to the fire chief. But again, that will be done in phases. I'm working on a plan and finalizing a plan to implement over the next couple of budget cycles that reorganization and that restructuring. Okay. All right very good. Well I look forward to hearing more about how that goes and watching that evolution because I think that that will it will give you a lot more bandwidth hopefully to be able to really hone in on issues that need to be addressed versus, I mean to me like in my other life I'm in management right so like to have this number of people, it feels like kind of very in the weeds maybe sometimes And that's a lot for any one person to take on. When your role as a chief is really here, right? And so I look forward to seeing how you do that. I have all faith that you'll be able to do that well. My last question, and thank you for the mention of MLK in 94th. Yes, yes, and yes. That's my district in case you're surprised. This area is right outside of my neighborhood. And let's be honest, like the census that came out most recently, it is the area of the second amount of growth in the city outside of downtown. And we do have a lot of multi-family. It's a huge strain on station 13. It that is the only station in the district and so I just wanted to ask because you had your last slide was a timeline for other stations but that was not adding any new stations, but then we talk about maybe adding this new station. So I wanted to understand what a timeline for that might look like as that area is only continuing to grow as well. Yes, so typically it's a three to five year timeline to decide that yes, the new station is needed, we support it, and then you have to get the funding, you've got to do the design. There was some discussion with fire in the city that there may be an opportunity for some public-private partnerships in the types of development that are happening there. So exploring those opportunities could potentially save the city some cost. But I wouldn't think that you would see a functioning fire station for five years because of the time it takes but it's an immediate need in terms of beginning the planning and construction of that facility. Okay, Chief Alcindor go back to you on that. Maybe you and I can have some one-on-one conversations about what that could look like into the future and hopefully maybe setting up whoever will be the District 2 representative in a couple of years for success in that way because like I said, it's only going to continue to grow. And the multi-family to your point with higher buildings and things like that, like we probably do need to take a serious look at that sooner rather than later. So I'll circle back with you on that. All right. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. By Sure, Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. Well, thank you, Chief. For everything you're doing, and thank you, everyone that's here today. Everyone is a direct report. The union that's here, it's been a long year and something. I can't even remember when we had the conversation to discuss having this evaluation. And here we are today and there are a lot of things that have changed. So very happy about that, very happy with all the work in the evaluation. I will tell you what I say every time we talk about management evaluations, it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. And for anyone that's listening, this is a good thing. Even the bad that's in here is good. And the good part about this is this comes from a source that has nothing to do with administration or us or anything. City Council asked an outside company to do this. And so this is really the voice of the department and everyone in there. And so, also City Council administration, the fire chief and command, they have to look at this from that standpoint. This is not coming from me or from the mayor, from the chief or from another council member. It really is coming from everyone in the fire department. I think that is important to know. And so I think it's a good thing. I know it's a lot in here and a lot of information. And I will get into some of the weeds, but I just want to say great job, great job chief. I know that you're tackling a lot of this. And I want to say that for those that are listening, you just came on the job. A lot of this stuff is stuff that's there already that you're having to tackle with now. So we know that some of the stuff is obviously not going to happen overnight. And this is going to take a little time. So having said that, I want to first start with some of the issues that we have discussed in terms of trust and transparency. Clearly, that had been an issue before you got their chief. It's in the report. It's in the employee survey. I have to say it was a good response on the employee survey, right? That was very solid. It was over 50%. So it's good data. So chief, what I want to first start about lack of trust in term of parasy. How are we tackling that? How are what are some of the things that we could see that we are going to tackle these issues with lack of trust and transparency in terms of everyone? And the other thing is, how will we know where we are on this issue a year from now? Because I want to, you know, what are we doing now? And at some point, I want to, you know, what are we doing now? And at some point, I want to check back. So. So as it pertains to trust and transparency, a lot of it has to do with communication and exposure. Right? So one of the things that is on my agenda to do is obviously to open up the lines of communication. We currently have, when it, as it pertains to communication, we do have some methods of communicating to with communication with the members of the department. I, along with the members of my staff, do station visits. We get that 101 that FaceTime with the firefighters. That seems to, for me, I know it helps me because there is a level of engagement whenever I go visit stations and I run the calls with the greens, so on and so forth. But the, as it pertains to the culture and the trust and the transparency, that's going to take some time. That really is going to take some time. Because although you mentioned that I've got here, I've been here, although you mentioned that I've been here for as the fire chief. First of all, I have been here. Right. I've been exposed to some of that, and there are ways to change that. But again, it's going to take time. Maybe even training amongst staff. Maybe even incorporating some of the firefighters into some of the policy reviews and things like that. So there are some things that I do have planned. I need a little bit more time to finalize it before putting it out. And then in a year we can take a look and see how we can improve that. We can monitor those initiatives as they go out and then evaluate it. I think that's great. Trust and transparency is important in that relationship. In our personal lives, with our constituents and our work lives. And so I'm glad to hear that that is a priority. And maybe at some point do another survey. Sometime in the future, make sure that kind of check base with some of the issues that have been brought up and where we are on those issues and kind of get the feedback from the troops like, you know, is this still an issue, you know? And that way you can check that box, maybe it's not. So that may be something to kind of in the future do. The other, so I'm curious, I was reading the report. One of the issues is staffing. That's clear, the need for staffing. And I was reading the report in terms of the peak unit, units versus the rescue units. And I was looking at the table, right, where you that provided stress factors and all that. And so I was curious when I was reading this because obviously the peak units are used to provide relief for the other units but their percentage of use time is pretty high right in terms of those 12 hours pursuant to that chart that you gave with the stressors right and you would expect that because the group designed to take that look. Time to that system surge when you need to. This is what I'm trying to understand. So their employees just like the 24 hour employees. So these employees that are on 12 hour shifts, they have a higher burden than the other 24 hour shifts or more stress during that time. Right? Am I missing something? I mean it seems like the percentage of uses extremely high. How do you balance that out? I was just wondering what is why not spread the load? Why do we use that versus 24 hours on for everyone? So when you look at your call distribution, you can see that those peak unit staffing is aligned with your peak hours of call demand. So it's the difference of paying a 12 hour employee versus a 24 hour employee. And your 24 hour shift employees are in the stations. They're sleeping in living quarters for them, so they get to rest. The unit utilization is just a function of where the call happens to occur and where those units are located. So the fact that they're locating those peak unit hour resources, where the peak call demand is during those peak hours is why you see them more heavily utilized because in the overnight hours your call demand goes down. Once people go to bed and the business is closed and there's less call demand, then you're going to because those other hours have a 24 hour timeline of availability. So they're available more hours than they're available during the slower hours. You're gonna see their overall utilization rates look lower just because of that overnight assignment time when they're not as utilized as they are during those peak hours, too. Okay, so what you're saying is those that are on a 24 hour shift have the same utilization rate as the 12 hour shift. Well, during those peak times. During those peak times. They're all heavily utilized, which is why you've instituted that staffing formula because you wouldn't have enough resources available during peak times if you only relied on 24 hour staffing. Okay, so there's not the demand in the overnight hours for those extra units. You would see my my concern was just like if they're you know when you give me a sharon you say okay this is kind of very a threshold that you don't want to surpass and you have a unit that is surpassing that threshold and the other units that do you that the utilization rate goes lower, there's an imbalance to me. This is just an outsider. But that's what has done to me. So the fact that those units are not scheduled and staffed for downtime, having them go a little higher is okay. It's just like if we were doing a police study, we would want their availability to be around 45% reactive where they're going to calls and then have time for proactive work traffic stops, you know, solving community problems and those things. So you would expect higher utilization rates because there's no rest downtime, sleep time built into that type of a schedule. Okay. And we have this program knowing that still we have staffing needs. That is one of the concerns that we lack staffing. So that's why I was wondering, is it, is this a right path versus something else? Because this is happening, but there's still, and staffing is an issue. So, I don't know if you have anything to add. So, yes. So, staffing is challenging, but it's not just here. It's nationwide. The number of firefighter paramedics, I did not, I don't think I went into that earlier, but we need firefighter paramedics. The peak units are designed during those peak hours between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. That's when the highest-called volume occurs for those that are staffed with those units. So I have not had a chance yet to look at the utilization of those units and the hours in the need for possible addition or adding additional hours to that. That would require further stuff at any time. I appreciate that. Yeah, because when I was looking at what they provided and just the numbers, it probably be a good area considering the staffing issues. I'm glad you mentioned the need for paramedics. So one of the things that struck me, I'm looking at these reports that says 79.3% of the calls are medically related, right? But yet the number of paramedics we we have when I was looking at the numbers are much, much lower and it's I'm wondering why. We have more firefighters at our EMTs, but you know we have authorized 174 firefighters and then paramedics are 95. We have currently 166 firefighters, and this is at the time of the report, in paramedics 88. That's like 35% like in terms of the paramedics, and yet like 79.3% of the calls are medically related. So again, in terms of people complaining about staffing needs and burdens and the stress, explain that to me. Like I'm trying to understand how those numbers mesh up the way they are. So again, that's one of those studies that I will have to conduct and get back to the committee with, they'll get back to council with. But what I will tell you again, is that the need for firefighter paramedics is not just here, it's nationwide. And we don't currently have firefighter paramedics on every suppression unit, but it is my goal to have that happen as quickly as I can. And let us know if it's something that we have to do to have that happen as quickly as I can. And let us know if it's something that we have to do where we have to get the training. However, pay for paramedic training. However, that works because if that's an area of need then we need to make sure that there's funding for the paramedic. You maybe you can't find them, but you can definitely train them. So that could be an area that we can look into. In terms of the high rises, that is obviously what's happening in the city. We know that's happening and I'm just curious, are there any plans we have the station in downtown? One in five. Is there a plan right now as to what we're going to do with the growth in downtown and having another station we have the historic gas plant what's going to happen with that are we going to have something in that area is that something I know we were discussing obviously the development of this historic gas plant and maybe this is more for administration. But there have been discussions about that. Absolutely. And I'll take a little segue and talk about engine number one. We've put in that order for that engine. We are going to reestablish that unit for downtown. My recollection is it's a very long lead time on the construction of that vehicle. And then, you know, our plan is when we're close to delivering or taking delivery of that vehicle, we would then also apply for what's called the safer grant, which would allow us federal resources to hire the 13 or 14 men and women we would need to staff that and allow us to kind of grow. So that's kind of the first thing most immediate that we're that's on the on the horizon over the next I think two fiscal years I want to say. And then you know but we don't have a concrete plan of what we plan to do with the other facilities but that's the most pressing one as we know today. And in terms of facilities, obviously, we're working station two. That's coming online. Happy council member over there. Council member Gabbard's station is also on the station 15. That's obviously in the list. And guess which one's on the list also after that. Station 4. So station 4 is there on the list and it shows that's in the 5 to 10 year range. We're in 2025. That means by 2035. I'm just throwing it out there. So we put it in like brackets there. I understand and there's another station. I don't want to forget station 14, but that's owned by Pinellas County. And I don't know how that works. It says the building is owned by Pinellas County, right? That's right. So I'm curious how that works because that's another one that needs replacement. I don't want to skip them. But is that something that Pinellas County has to take care of? I believe so. That's your facility, but I would have to do a little research on that. Is that where we operate high point? Yes. So yes. Yes, they take care of that. Okay, so we go back to station four because they're before us, but that's the Dallas County's problem. So now we go back to station four. That's what we're having. We just moved up four by two minutes. I might make up that. So, so I, and just, that's something that you all are looking at. I know that they're not a lot of space there. It's very tight. Talking about vertical. The only way is to go vertical. So is that something, obviously, that administration has been looking at in terms of future planning? For fire station four? Yeah. No, man. We haven't really discussed the fire station four at this moment. And what I would take a little bit of a segue and go back to what Mr. Finn pointed out is By and large our facilities are in pretty decent shape and I know I know I have a good plan to manage that And certainly things in the in the future will be dealt with on an annual basis through our five-year CIP planning process I I agree with that as a matter of fact there's a whole list of of Facilities here that say only maintenance is needed But there are few that say replacement and one of them is stationed for I'm not not gonna say that so I'm not leaving this meeting without putting a Explo-mation mark on that so The other thing I want to mention and this is my last thing because I know other people want to Have comments to make. The fleet meant there were relationships within the city in terms of the fire department and there were some comments made in terms of fleet maintenance division and I know this is more of us in terms of needing more staffing and like having a hard time with keeping up demand. Now obviously we need a lot of we have apparatus that's not coming online we're short on apparatus so if something breaks down that's a problem if we're not getting it fixed fast enough that's a problem and that's more of a fleet maintenance division Tom so I just want to make sure that we note that and kind of address that to make sure that we take care of that and then whatever other relationships with other departments that need improvement we can work on those two. But I'll leave it there chair. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Councilmember Fixander. Thank you. Good morning everyone. First of all, I want to start off again by congratulating T-FOTs for your new position. And I agree this management study is one of the best that I've seen since I've been here. The goals of the evaluation were on point coming out of the gate as to what you were looking at to assess and to look for areas of improvement. Teapots, we know that you were not in command when this actually started, but I didn't see anything in there that wasn't doable. That I think you and your new outlook on your organization and structure, I think will do a very good job of getting it done. My question is because you are now in this position and I see the organizational change and I know that you've started looking on this but what next? This is given a different timeline that you were not responsible for. You are now coming into a budget season that you had no input as to how that's going to go. And my colleagues have already mentioned we have our budget priorities. We receive budget priorities from the union. But I would love to work closer with what your request would really be to get what your goals and what the key recommendations from this looks like. Because that's what the next assessment or what, you know, I've a year from now, we want to see where you've gotten and it won't really parallel this because your perspective was a little bit different than the previous administration. And I am quite aware of that. I'm aware of that. I applaud you being extremely hands on. Because like I said, I was on council three years and I never met the chief. So you were very hands on. So taking this management study, you can see what's realistically able to be done quickly and would not. I would love to know that from you. What do you think from these recommendations that would the lower hanging fruit that you could see getting done faster with what your plans and your goals will be for the Fire Department? Because, you know, I love the diversity and transparency piece. I mean when I saw the study even went to the point of looking at the ratio of our residents to the ratio of the fire department staff you couldn't get better than that when you want to talk about equity in any. So I do appreciate that. I think the employee surveys and the great participation rate is because of the pending changes that were happening. Some of the things that I heard people didn't want to respond, but they did respond. And I think that says a lot about what their hopes were for the future of the fire department. And you brought a lot with you on that. When it comes down to the dollars and those type of things, I'm not going to get into the weeds on that. But I really would like to know how our budget priorities can, I need to focus more on what your budget expectations are, so that we can hopefully collectively get that for you. Vice Chair Hanover says it made it very clear that Station 4, and we know Station 2, that's really been a long time coming, needs to be resolved. So from this study, which is very, very well done, please know that I'm asking, and I guess I need to do a one-on-one with you as to what some of the recommendations are and how we can come together with our budget priorities, because I've seen things happen when we come together with those budget priorities to get you what you need for your new environment and your new world as fire chief. And I won't leave it at that because I know others would like to speak, but again, welcome. And I am looking forward to great things at the fire department. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Drisco department. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you for all the work that you did for this study and for the presentation today. I'm going to be quick because I recognize that we do need to give Chief Watts some time to use this. But you know what? I feel like the timing couldn't be better because not only do we have a new fire chief who can take this and use this as a foundation for building out a plan for the future, but we're also on the brink of the start of our budget discussions. And so from this I can see opportunities to inform our budget discussions starting with our workshop on the 23rd and I hope to see asks that and you know we'll have our meeting and everyone will be weighing in but I want to see some of this stuff in the budget and I want you to think big because there are some I mean you're the expert not being but I'm seeing some real opportunities here so I hope that I hope that you will take advantage of the opportunity that this presents take advantage of the opportunity that this presents as far as the budget's concerned. One was that really stands out is having emergency management as its own item. And so Tom, I don't know if there's, and we don't need to get into the budget workshop now, but that's something I wanna know about. Does that make sense? Is there any reason why we don't need to get into the budget workshop now, but that's something I want to know about. Does that make sense? Is there any reason why we wouldn't? Because I think that would be helpful for us in response, but then also in planning for the future and seeing, how that plays out. If we created that now. What does that look like five years from now? How is it being used and where does it need to go? I'm sure I'm not the only one who is delighted to see some items that were mentioned in the study, some recommendations that reflect things that we've been discussing and things that are on the way. So I mean everything from station two to engine one, the training facility, my personal favorite, suggesting that we recruiter. This tells me that we're listening and that, you know, if there was a disconnect in communications in some ways, there were other ways where communication was actually quite good. And I want to thank Chief Watts for his collaborative spirit in the past as well as now. And also Chief Gancy and the others who have, you know, collaborative spirit in the past as well as now and also chief Gancy and the others who have you know weighed in each year as I start to prepare my budget priorities. I want to go back to the training facility for just a moment so you had an opportunity to see what we're working with now which led to the recommendation. Yeah Terry Lewis actually toured the training facility. So he did this facility tours and assessment piece of the study. But yes, that's a team we did do that. Well, and I so I think you all would agree that given what we have right now, which is an aging facility, this team, led by Chief Gansy, has really made the best of it and made it into something that is, you know, we can still be proud of, but we know that we can do so much better. Now, it's been a couple of years or three since we allocated the initial funding for the training facility for FireSlashK9 and just a heads up that I do want to have that as part of our budget workshop discussion to talk about where we're at now with this and what we need to do to move forward. forward because we talk about needing more staff. We talk about needing more firefighter paramedics. If you work backwards from there, what does it start with? Recruiting. What's the next step? Training. If you have a recruiting, they come and they see what we spend or what we do, what we have for a training facility, that reflects the value that we place in the fire department. We did the same thing for the police and we created a training center that is unbeatable in the region. It is the fire department's turn and we wanna have that moving forward quickly because it helps with the recruiting it helps with the morale all of that blends together so we're going to keep talking about it. I've only got two years left so we've got to get this going. Could I I'll just take a second I mean the path forward with fire station number two is really very in a very good place. I would expect that we would be bringing back a GMP for Council's consideration later this year, maybe end of summer, early fall. I think it's a 14-month construction. So maybe by the end of 2026, fire station two will be up and done. So that's kind of, we got a really good clear path on that. We're making very good progress. The training facility has been challenging. And we're working on it, and this is like priority number two after Fire Station number two. But we don't have a crystal clear path on that one yet. And we can certainly have additional conversation during the CIP discussion or sooner, if the committee would like to have an update on that. But it has been challenging with that site as a challenging site to kind of address both the fire training and canine. So there's just a lot of moving parts there. So yeah. But it is on the top of our radar and we talk about it very frequently, but I just don't have a really good clear path on that one as we sit here today. Well, I'm glad to hear that and I'm glad that we have such an incredible training team that keeps what we already have going and working so well. So I would like to have a follow-up discussion. Once Chief Watson's had an opportunity to put some things together and that's something that perhaps it should be shifted to PSNI. So I just wanted to throw that out for the committee to consider. My only. Not on either committee. So it doesn't. I'm just going to show up to either. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. So I would think it'd be a follow up to this. So I would. I mean, I'm OK with keeping it here. OK, that's fine. My final question is, was there discussion Is there a discussion or was mental health and counseling resources brought up? Was it mentioned? Did you look at that? Because we have done some work to create what we think are good resources for our fire department. So the city's got an employee assistance program that provides for those services. But we have more than that. But we didn't find anywhere where there was a need to enhance or improve that. There was no discussion brought up to us on mental health issues being an issue in the fire department. So what I will tell you is that St. Petersburg fire rescue is one of the nation's leaders when it comes to mental health, mental health training for peer support people that were one of the leaders in the nation. We work with local 747 whenever necessary to help any time a member is in need of assistance. We have a contract with Dr. Benson who also assist PD and the members have access to her in her group 247. We do have EAP, but our first go to is Dr. Vincent. Right, and surprise Mr. Finn isn't aware of her. Yes. Yes. Well, we will make him aware. But again, it's all done now. So they were discussed, but there wasn't any gaps in the services being provided that were brought to us that there were need of improvements. The fact that the care was available and to all employees believe it was brought up in the best practices checklist. Okay. It's been a while I looked at that check because yeah. Yeah. But but those there was no issues brought up in interviews that that's not working. There's no issues brought up in the employee survey. That the services available aren't appropriate so we didn't dive into that need deeper as a need. Right. Okay. Thank you. I know you have a great working relationship with Dr. Benson. And I appreciate all that you did in the past to help get her and her team onboard police to take on fire as well. Yes. That's always something that since it wasn't really in here, I wanted to bring it up because I think that's an area where we are a true leader as well. All right. That is all I have. I look forward to seeing more and seeing what you do with this and getting a report from you and update when you're ready. Yes. Yes. And just so everyone is aware that I do have some of you already scheduled for budget priorities, the others that I don't have scheduled already. I do have some of you already scheduled for budget priorities, the others that I don't have scheduled already. I will be reaching out to within the next few days, but I do have some of you already scheduled. Thank you, Council Member Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. And thank you so much, Mr. Fenn. Shefwats, good to see you again. And thank you for the one-on-one. I appreciate that. You've got me up to speed and I really appreciate the due diligence that you all have taken to make sure that our workforce feels valued because they are valued and I think Councilman Madrasco brought this up earlier. I mentioned this to you G-FY. So I want to make sure that we're showing the same love to the fire department, right? We've shown that love to our police. I want to make sure that we can reciprocate that with fire. So I am excited to see that not only will districts two and district four be getting a little love, but districts six going to get some love too because we're going to be splitting one in five. So that's exciting to see, excited to work with Council Member Driscoll and identifying some possible sites there because I think as the residential and commercial boom continues there on 16th Street, that is needed. So excited to see that. Tom, you kind of alluded to something that I was going to bring up, which is wondering if this new training facility is going to be adequate. Will it really address and meet all the needs that continue to arise for our fire department, right? K9, whether the fire, natural disaster, vehicle fires, whatever that might be, I want to make sure that the dollars there to address whatever those needs might be. So I just want to know what those challenges are and we can get together and a one-on-one. I would like to get more details on that. And then also to DEI, I'm very excited to see that we are addressing that. I just want to know, well first of all, I think we've come a long way from where we were. So that's exciting. I want to make sure that we are using these groups to really guide the department when it comes to policies, diversion and inclusion policies, specifically related to race and gender. I think back it also helped us when it comes to retention and recruitment. I would love to know what the plan is for targeting our local colleges and universities, our trade schools and vocations. You got Job Corps, PTC. The workforce is here. I just want to make sure that we're pipelining folks directly into the fire department. So if there are some gaps, I definitely believe that working with like USF St. Pete, right? There's some internship opportunities there that could turn into long-term bank jobs. So if we can possibly collaborate with some of our local partners there, I think that could be great. And also, you know, bringing up Dr. Benson again, there are a lot of community organizations that we can work with so that we're not expanding a lot of our resources, but we are collaborating. So I would love to see more collaboration opportunities there specifically when it comes to DEI. And then just lastly, let's look at how we can use a lot of these holidays that are coming up like Martin Luther King Day. Juneteenth, those are cultural holidays that can really be an opportunity for these new committees to blend, to collaborate, to work together, to get to know each other on a more personal level. We all work together. We see each other probably more than we see our families, right? So it's important that we have that camaraderie and that we do know each other, so I would love to find some ideas and some ways that we can become cohesive there. So thank you for what you're doing and excited to see more. Thank you. Thank you. Any other council members? Okay so quickly because I know we're up against it so I'm gonna be real fast. I just want to I just want to touch on two quick things. I won't rehash anything that's already been talked about. So we talked about accredited times versus I think the term used was like local guidelines when it comes to call times. We talked about the relationship between Penales County and fire rescue and that causing some delay. We'll just use that. What are some of the things that we can do, Chief Watts, Mr. Finn, either of you. Like what does that look like? How do we go and make sure that we're cleaning that up as best as possible and that's inefficient? We're being more efficient. So the best practice for your organization would be to use your establish liaison with the Communications Center review. They should have tactical dispatch plans which show how they prioritize and dispatch calls and then look at what those steps are. So I'll give you an example from my organization. We moved from in-house dispatch to a regional center and our call processing time went from 58 seconds and 98% of the time to three minutes and 20 seconds and 98% of the time and it's like what is going on? So when we sat down with their dispatch center, their dispatch plans for medical calls, for example, I mean, they were diagnosed in the patient before they ever sent any unit. It's like, just tell me if they're broken or sick. And then we'll figure it out when we get there. We don't need to know they have the flu or this, but it's a sick caller or a trauma collar, what's going on and get us in route and over the period of two years with them and we were able to get them down to a minute and two. So to the customer, it looks like you're showing up a little over time. Well, that's a life time. Yeah. Three minutes to a minute. And that's controlled. So if you're controlling the type of information they gather and how quickly they get your units in route, that one's controllable. The units getting out of the stations in a timely fashion is controllable. You're looking at those times, monitoring, making sure that the personnel are on point. What you can't control is whether road networks, distance from the station to the call, if the first station's on a call and further stations responded, you can't control those things. So fixing those two controlable factors is the most important thing. Okay. And Chief Watts, I won't put any pressure on you today. We've had plenty of discussion about giving you time to make sure you're going through all these things, to study and diagnosing the department as a whole. But I would just quickly say, this is why I'd love to have fire rescue do quarterly like police does and so I don't know if that's a request that one of us puts in and counsel I If we have I'm not aware of it or I've forgotten about it, but yeah, I wanted to counsel I don't want it here And so because I would love to be able to look at these on a quarterly basis. And you know, we don't need to look at every call. But some of the major, we review some of the major calls, review call times. I think that would be super helpful. I'll speak just for me. Sounds like the rest of council agrees. But we don't have to discuss that here today. The second thing I just want to bring up is I know in here and Tom again I'm not going to put pressure and use time here. We can talk about this one on one but the thing I'm really looking at is going into a year that I'm sure we're going to be looking at FTE, new FTEs and what that looks like. This study asks for a big lift in new FTE, not only from Rank and File, but really in administration too. I mean, it's just in Rank and File, I think it's $6.4 million if you were to do it today. And so I know we talked about phasing, but I think there's probably going to have to be some conversations surrounding that and what that looks like. Again, not trying to put pressure on you today, but I think those are the conversations that I at least don't like to have and what that looks like and how we phase it What's priority one compared to priority five? You know if you're talking about a five-year plan those are the things that I'm interested in and again We don't need to get into the weeds today based on time Unless you unless you absolutely want to make it. No, I would just thank you mr. Chair I would just say that as chief indicated, we're talking about this right now. There are certain things we're going to do during this fiscal year. And then fiscal 26, 27. Yeah, so. But. Yeah, I'm just interesting in the phasing that. I heard that loud and clear. And I don't want to sound like we're not doing it. I just would like to being created as we speak. Okay, thank you for that. All right, there's nothing else on management study. Mr. Finn, thank you so much, Chief, Command Staff, everybody being here at Union. Everybody, thank you so much for spending your morning with us. We really appreciate it. Looking forward to bringing this back and having a follow-up conversation and hearing some of the moves we've made in 2025. Okay, quickly I want to review the referral list. Oh yeah, Councilmember Gabbard. So I'm just going to go ahead and move straight to number 19. Thank you for helping me out. Yeah, I figured you might want me to kind of go back over that. So that was obviously, as you can see, from 2020. We had done some work on it very early on. We had ended up taking on it very early on. We had ended up taking out co-op housing. It left as grocery and business. Yada yada. It's set on the referral list. Council member Muhammad being that he was very intimately aware of co-op groceries specifically. I passed it to him. Two years went by, not much happened with it. At this point, I would like to make a motion to remove discussion of co-op grocery and business from the referral list. So that would be my motion. And then Councilmember Floyd, I know that you have the city-owned grocery. You've taken ownership of that. Obviously a topic I'm very interested in as well. Co-op grocery, I would just like to put a shameless plug in that you and maybe kind of keep that as a Opportunity inside of the city owned grocery store conversation because they do have an opportunity to play hand in hand with each other So I just wanted to put a plug in that maybe that part of it could come into your discussion So I'll leave it there. Any other discussion? All in favor of removing number 19 from the referral list? Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay the nice part about the BFNT list is most of it is required? Yeah. So really it's it's number 16. Yeah thank you. 16 discussion and report of capital needs, non enterprise cap, I feel like we're having this conversation but on all capital needs. If I remember correctly, council member Hanoids, I think you have that as a cow discussion. I have a cow discussion on the switch plants, right? But we also have capital needs in general when we had the conversation. But our 30 year needs and all that so I mean, I don't know if we need this here Okay, frankly because we have ongoing ongoing conversations about capital needs right okay The night I move to move to remove okay all in favor of removing 16 say I I Any opposed motion carries okay, so that's two. And then number 18, I'm getting a note here that's saying, oh, they come twice, update inside of the study that comes back. So this is kind of a separate item. I'd entertain a motion to remove number 18 as well, Stormwater pavement and traffic operations, evaluation, progress, update. I think we're getting this information via one-on-one and they come back a couple of times during a year. So moved. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, we got rid of 18. Okay, real quickly last thing for discussion because really everything else is required. Janie, give me the nod. Okay, thank you. Okay, so thank you for all of your participation in the Management Study. We would normally have had a conversation in October about a Management Study to be done during 2025. We did not have that discussion. Let me level set. I don't want to have the discussion right now, but I want to decide if you'd like to have that discussion. Let me level set. I don't want to have the discussion right now, but I want to decide if you'd like to have a discussion about a management study in 2025. It's a conversation we would normally have back in October. We didn't because of the storms. Council member Gabbard. So historically, and anyone correct me if I'm wrong, we've done it over the last few every couple of years because we've Doubled up the money We just did a very important one and we just discussed how there's a lot of work for administration to do with that Department to kind of bring those to fruition So I feel like at this point for me, I would like to pause on anything for this year, roll that money into the next fiscal year and then next year at this time we could have another conversation about a department that would make sense. That's just me. Council member Hanowitz. Yeah, I mean, we actually added the fire department and that was actually not even in this committee. So I think based on that we have the regular conversation in October. I think that's the regular time. Yes. That's what we should do. Okay. Councilmember Fick Sanders. Thank you. Tom, we didn't have any other wish list departments other than because I know the ones we've talked about over the years was procurement and now fire, but I don't remember as having any others that we just thought were pertinent at the time because we had like two or three. I had finance, but I'm happy to defer finance to October and give Erica some time to get her to get her sea legs. So you saw I was going with that. Okay, so thank you. So I'm good with whatever the body is. Council member Harding. Thank you, Chair. Not understanding the whole process. However, that we have a very unique opportunity in part of us that part of our system that doesn't work all the time and I don't know how emergency operations goes together but there are years that emergency operations does not utilize very much beyond the planning and coordinating and we just had two major hurricanes that involve literally every department to follow whatever that emergency operation structure is. And I offered just as a thought that you don't normally have this amount of emergency response that's able to be looked at and have some type of a post-mortem or it's still fresh. Okay. Let me go to other council members. Council member Gabner and I'll come back. Council member Jeriskoul. Thank you. I just wanted to point out we can always book market for October, but the chartered estate that a council member can at any time. We're supposed to make sure. Yes. Okay. So we don't have to decide, I just want to make sure everyone knows that just because this is just about having whether we want to have the discussion schedule relatively fast or wait till October. That's really what we're trying to decide today. Or if a council member decides to bring it up on their own, they certainly have that opportunity. We're not any one has the opportunity to do so. Just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Council member Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted to say last time we had this discussion, you were talking about finance. I was talking about codes. And so there are some that people are interested in having get cute up soon. Having said that, same conversation we sort of had earlier today about codes is, I don't know if right now is the right thing. Right. That's doing something so differently than they normally would be. So I'm okay with it going on, whereas usually without the extenuating circumstances, I would be interested in doing them as fast as possible. So I'll just leave that. Council member Gabber. So to Council member Harding's point, since we can't talk outside of here, I'll just kind of put my two cents on what you just said. I do think that very much warrants a conversation and a deep dive into how our departments all work together during emergency response. My recommendation to you would be to work with chief lots and with Amber and see if maybe that's a new business item for a different opportunity to explore that and what some sort of planning or lessons learned or whatever might look like. So I might offer that up to you as something that you might want to meet with them and then move from forward from there with a new business item. So we don't need a move from that. Yeah. No, I don't think so. But here's just to piggyback on that real quickly. My only concern about it, I really like the idea. My only concern about it is you're doing a study on multiple departments when you're talking about emergency operations. And that scope could be massive. Well, which is why I agree with what you're saying, which you could do it a different way. Yeah, because I mean, emergency management falls under what we discussed, right? So I mean, it would not be the same vehicle, but it's very much a very relevant topic that we need to dig into. So I would appreciate your leadership on moving us forward in that way. Yeah. I don't think we need a motion because we're not going to put it on the referral list. So we're good to go. So if everybody is good, I appreciate all the feedback. Thank you for everybody for being here. January 9th, BFNT is adjourned. Thank you everybody. Thank you. you