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Approved Minutes - 2021-03-18 PM (1-fDbt CITY OF LAKE OSWEGO Budget Committee Meeting Minutes IC) O March 18, 2021 OREGOr� Members present: Joe Buck, Mayor Scott Havens, Chair Jackie Manz Lin Carson, Vice Chair Massene Mboup Al Calabria Aaron Rapf Gary Corgan Rachel Verdick Shannon Cruz John Wendland Steve Dodds Theresa Nute Daniel Nguyen - excused Staff Present: Martha Bennett, City Manager; Anthony Hooper, Deputy City Manager/ Public Works Director; Shawn Cross, Finance Director; Megan Phelan, Assistant City Manager; Jennifer Waverly, Budget Analyst; Brad Stevens, Assistant Finance Director; and Don Johnson, Fire Chief The City Budget Committee meeting was taped and is online with supporting information. Click on any Interactive Agenda item in color to go to that point in the video. 1. Call to Order and Roll Call Havens called the City Budget Committee meeting to order at 5:36 p.m. virtually via Zoom meeting. 2. Approval of Budget Committee meeting minutes for September 24, 2020 Manz moved the approval of the minutes of September 24, 2020. Wendland seconded the motion and it passed unanimously by roll call vote. Calabira asked for clarification on PCI target of 70. 3. Elections for Budget Committee Chair and Vice Chair Havens asked for nominations from the floor for Chair and Vice Chair. Dodds nominated Havens for Chair. Carson asked for information about the duties of the Chair and Vice Chair. Havens explained the duties. He explained that the Chair runs the meetings and the Vice Chair backs up the Chair. Bennett added that typically the Chair is one of the citizen members of the budget committee. Havens explained that the Chair works with staff to set the agenda for the meetings. Manz nominated Carson for Vice Chair. Wendland seconded City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 1 of 12 the nomination. Havens called for other nominations and hearing none called for a vote. Waverly asked for clarification on who seconded the Chair nomination. Wendland seconded the nomination. Mboup moved to approve the nominations of Chair and Vice Chair. Verdick seconded the motion and it passed unanimously by roll call vote. 4. Recognition Hooper recognized the past members of the budget committee, including Gerry Good, Maulin Patel, and Charles Erekson. The new members of the budget committee were given an opportunity to introduce themselves. Chair Havens introduced himself. Carson discussed her background and why she moved to Lake Oswego. Corgan discussed his background and career. Cruz discussed her background and career. Dodds discussed his background and his experience in Lake Oswego. Nute discussed her background, career and experience with Lake Oswego. Calabria discussed his background and career. 5. Review Ground Rules, Schedule and Agenda Havens asked Hooper to read the ground rules. Hooper reviewed the rules and explained the purpose of the committee. He explained that the committee sets the tax rate. He explained the details for public comment. Dodds asked for clarification on deliberations outside the budget committee. Bennett explained what the committee is limited to, due to the state statutes. Calabria asked Bennett to forward the committee the information she was sighting from the state statutes. Bennett mentioned sending a link to the Handy case in Lane County. Havens requested that Hooper send a copy of the ground rules to the committee. Havens asks the committee to be mindful of the ground rules, transparency, and being open to the public. 6. Public Comment Havens called for public comment. Charles Ormsby addressed the committee and discussed the Foothills District and the Tryon Creek wastewater treatment plant project. Mr. Ormsby brought up concerns about transit, transit dependent riders, and ADA. Havens confirmed that the wastewater treatment plant would be having on-going discussion. Havens asked for further public comment. Waverly confirmed that there was not any. 7. City Council Goals Bennett presented the goals and explained she views the budget as a spending plan to implement the City Council's goals. Bennett asked the committee to review the departments of the city are adequately resourced and the departments of the city achieve the policy objectives set forth by the City Council. Bennett explained the City Council set eight big picture policy goals and under each goal there are one or more council initiatives. The goals are where the city is headed over the next three to five years and the initiatives are the projects that will be worked on to achieve the goals. The goals are: -Ensure a safe and secure community for all -Support business investment and job creation in Lake Oswego City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 2 of 12 -Foster diversity, equity and inclusion in Lake Oswego and in the City as an organization -Combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening the community's resilience to climate impact -Support strong operational practices, infrastructure investments, and fiscal policies that increase public trust in the City -Invest in Lake Oswego's high-quality parks, natural areas, and recreational amenities -Improve transportation connections, mobility and safety for all types of trips in Lake Oswego -Conserve the community's quality of life by planning for change and growth Bennett asked for questions about the goals. Dodds asked if the increments of the goals would be discussed. Bennett clarified that when she proposes the budget, she will propose sufficient resources to implement the work plans that will achieve the goals. After that, as part of the budget committee's deliberation, the committee will be discussing whether the budget provided either adequate resources, or too much, or conversing with the council on thoughts about the plan to implement the goals. Bennett explained her commitment to the council to incorporate the goals into the proposed budget. Chair Havens inquired about the timeframe of when the proposed budget would be put out. Bennett stated it would be 7 to 10 days before the next meeting. She reminded the budget committee that even once they are given the document, they can't talk about it until the meeting where she actually presents the budget message, it is one of those arcane parts of state law. She explained it can be baffling to the general public. Chair Havens told the new people on the budget committee this is very important. The city staff delivers a budget notebook with many financial pages, so when it is received, it is good to get familiar with it. Chair Havens reiterated as City Manager Bennett says, the budget committee can't talk about it amongst themselves, but they certainly can put in some time to understand what's in it. Bennett further explained staff always invites questions from the budget committee and that staff's commitment is to get questions back to the budget committee. Cruz asked when they would get the packet. Chair Havens said it would be approximately seven to ten days prior to the next meeting and the next meeting is on April 28th at 6pm. Cross clarified it is made available to the budget committee, as soon as it's available to the public. So when staff gives it to the budget committee, it is put online and it'll be available to the public in the library, etc. but, staff will make sure to have it to the budget committee by April 21st, seven days before the meeting. Manz offered to be available for questions, if new budget committee members have any questions. Chair Havens agreed that other budget committee members could assist with questions. Wendland asked City Manager Bennett to explain LORA and the budget committee's role. Bennett explained that the city has an urban renewal district, which is a component unit of the city. LORA's budget will be adopted separately from the city's budget. The budget committee has dual roles. Budget committee members will sit in their capacity on the city's budget committee and in their capacity on the LORA's budget committee. Bennett offered for new budget committee members to meet with her or Cross, particularly after the budget drops, about anything they might like to know about the city, the process and numbers. She compared the budget to an iceberg, 90% of what the city does is under water and 10% is really interesting. The budget committee will need to figure out which part is considered the 10% above the water. She said what she is trying to say is most of what the city does is really deliver very basic services every day that people count on and the policy goals for 90°/0 of the city's services are very City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 3 of 12 clear and agreed upon. The budget committee doesn't spend their time talking about that stuff, the budget committee spends time talking about the places where there are choices to make about increasing a service or whether or not we might have too many resources on a service and that's where the budget committee really is spending time and that's the place where the budget committee is adding value to the city's organization. It is the place where we spend time and most of the budget the departments propose is about continuing very basic services that we all agree upon. Bennett asked if there were any other questions about the council's goals. 8. Major Accomplishments Bennett shared the accomplishments. She wanted to make sure the budget committee had a chance to see how the resource allocation decisions made two years ago have played out. She highlighted the significant capital investments in the community and gave three examples. City Hall, Iron Mountain Park and Woodmont Park. Additionally, paved 8 miles of roadway, slurry sealed 15 miles, installed over 100 ADA curb ramps, 'A mile of new sidewalk, new wastewater pump station on Old River Road and repaved Wembley Park Road. The Public Works department installed over 1,000 "Smart" water meters, streetlights are all LED, swept 7,668 lane miles and televised 165,000 feet of sewer lines. The Police department answered 160,949 calls during the last 18 months, answered 99.96% in 10 seconds or less and responded to more than 32,000 incidents in 18 months, at a rate of 875 incidents per officer. The Fire department responded to wildfires, provided an ambulance for medical calls in the Westlake area and responded to more than 3,500 emergency medical calls using COVID protocols. Policy project included the Tryon Creek wastewater treatment plant, North Anchor redevelopment, updating the historic preservation code and flood management code, litigation and collaboration with LOSD to agree to a Recreation and Aquatics Center. The city implemented COVID protocols and provided regulatory relief for restaurants and retail. 9. Six-year Financial Forecast Cross presented the forecast. He covered the general fund revenue and explained the assumptions that are used in the forecast for a six year period. Medical costs have gone down. The projection shows expenditures, not outpacing revenues, out six years Overall the city is in a strong financial situation right now. The unallocated revenue in year six is approximately 1 M and it can be used for one-time projects. He explained different scenarios with changes to inflation. Revenues are still growing at three and a half percent, but the expenditures are not growing at quite the same rate, so that is good news. Manz asked what attributed to the delightful financial situation. Cross stated personnel costs. Bennett explained that personnel costs are not rising at the rate expected two years ago. There are three reasons. The city was able to shift health care providers and the city had a 20 percent reduction in the healthcare premium. The second is that inflation hasn't been as high, except for the 2.9 year, it's been fairly low and salaries have not been going up as fast. The third reason is employee turnover. When an employee retires form the city they're usually someone who's in PERS Tier 1 or 2 and usually the person who comes in is not at those more expensive programs and that saves the city. The Senate Bill 1049 changes to PERS substantially reduced the rate increase the city faced. Instead of 6 percent increase over payroll, it is more like 1 percent. All the stuff the City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 4 of 12 city worried about two years ago, either didn't come to pass or has been affected by good management or other changes. Cross explained the PERS increase will be extended out. The city was budgeting about a 5 percent PERS rate increase for the next two biennium, and with House Bill 1049 the rate increase was only 1 percent and projecting another 3 percent. The curbs came in a little bit sooner, but it does make it to where the rates go up a little bit longer. Calabria asked if it was correct that the city would be getting 8M in COVID relief. Cross confirmed the city had been informed it could be 8.1 M. He said the city is still looking at what can be done with the money. The CARES Act was very specific about what the money could be used for. The city got 1.2M and that was the other thing that kind of helped us this last year. The CARES covered all of the over-time, supplies, and everything that the city had spent to date. He will be watching a webinar to understand what the city can and can't do with those funds. Bennett added that it would be 90 days at least before the city could get an allocation. She said it is a classic, it is one-time money, so the city will want to spend it on one-time things. Calabria asked about the LOPedia resource. Cross stated the previous version was available, but it hasn't been updated in a couple years. He said people weren't finding it useful. All the programs will be the same, but the costs will be a couple years old, they just need to be brought up for inflation. Cross confirmed a copy would be given out to anyone that wants one. Nute asked if inflation is the most sensitive of the levers in the model is there a way for the city to hedge that and take advantage of the fortuitous position. Cross explained that in the past the city has kept a healthy reserve and a conservative budget approach is used. As a result of COVID, the city will not be getting about 7 to 8 hundred thousand dollars of hotel/motel funds. Revenues are tied to property taxes and AV is less than 60 percent of the real market value, so revenue coming in isn't really an issue for the most part even back after the housing bubble, the AV was at 83 of real market value. It wasn't like other jurisdictions, the city really didn't have that issue. It will change labor costs. Dodds asked for clarification about the PERS increase out to 2032. Bennett confirmed it was wise to anticipate that the city needed to do something about the issue, because the state's bill ended up essentially flattening the curve. The State of Oregon still has the debt to the folks who've retired, but the way they changed the program, it's going to allow the pain to be spread out a little bit differently and shared not only between the jurisdictions that employ people, but also the folks who have money in the system. It turns out it's not quite that bad. Bennett clarified, she thinks we've all thought that the PERS bubble was going to be a really enormous problem, and so it's good that the legislature took it on and designed the solution, that essentially flattened the curve. Wendland stated it "kicked the can" down the road. It did not take obligations away from the city, so the schedule is going to be a lot longer and the obligations are still going to be there. Bennett explained that the state did shift directions that were going into people's individual accounts into the system as well. It was more than just spreading it out it was also asking the employees that contribute to the system to also share the burden, not just shift it to the employer. Wendland agreed. 10. Anticipated Budget Issues Bennett shared the issues the budget committee will have, as the backdrop to the budget. Personnel costs in the upcoming biennium will be lower than we would have thought. Even as few as six months ago, between the reduction in health care and how that plays out and City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 5 of 12 also the reduction in the impact of PERS adjustments and because the largest cost, especially in the general fund, is personnel that will mean that departments can balance their budget more successfully. The second is that the CARES Act, which is the first of the federal assistance act has really paid for all of the city's direct costs for COVID relief. The American Recovery Act, one of the categories that's allowed in the spending is to capture the revenues that were lost as a result of the downturn in economic activity, which for the city there were really three categories of revenues that were heavily affected. The biggest one was a substantial decline in lodging tax, which is a general fund resource, and also affects the ability to support a lot of the tourist related activity in town. There will be conversing internally about whether or not to use the American Recovery Act funds to refill the lost lodging tax revenue. The second would have been transportation taxes, particularly fuel tax. The problem is what the city gets from the State of Oregon is so delayed, it is several months behind, and it may not be possible to calculate accurately how much the city lost in fuel tax. The third category is the recreation revenues from programs that couldn't be offered. That one's a little bit more squidgy, in terms of whether the federal act will allow us to recover those revenues. Cross and some other staff are going to a workshop next week to learn more about that. Essentially, however, as a result of the federal act, the city didn't have the same impact that a lot of small business partners had from COVID here at the city and because the city is heavily dependent on property tax there were other revenues where other cities might have seen an impact, the City of Lake Oswego just simply hasn't seen. The city is really financially stable going into the next biennium. The budget committee will see a substantial number of capital projects that are really significant in the budget, from the recreation and aquatic center, to the wastewater plant, to a lot of work that is being proposed in the public works department. That is also a place to see an opportunity to help achieve council goals with the American Recovery Act funds. The American Recovery Act infrastructure spending says specifically water, wastewater and broadband, and so that's a limitation on what the city can spend those funds on. Then last but not least, some of the city's general fund departments have revenues over expenditures, and others do not. So during this budget, the budget committee will make sure the budget aligned the allocations in the general fund to the actual work being performed by the departments. The budget committee is in a position to have a meaningful conversation about what folks in Lake Oswego expect from their local government and has the city allocated sufficient resources to those programs and services, so that the city has successful outcomes. It's a good place to be. Bennett asked if there were any other questions. There was a ten minute break. 11. Fire Department Presentation Chief Johnson shared the work of the Fire Department. He explained his professional background. He has been the Lake Oswego Fire Chief for about two years. The fire stations are staffed 24 hours a day, with three bodies in each fire station. A lieutenant and a firefighter driver, and a firefighter. Looking at the South Shore station, there is a dive rescue boat that operates out of there, in addition to the engine. So if there's a call on the water they take the boat out to the water and launch on any one of the tributaries or in Lake Oswego itself. Jean Road has a frontline fire truck and the truck is different than the engines City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 6 of 12 you see rolling down the road. It has less water on it and it has the ability to reach up about 100 feet in the air and work the buildings like you see coming in and around all over Lake Oswego. So it's important to have that truck there. It's important to have the boat on that side of the lake. Working around to Fire Station 210, which is the one at Westlake, that's where the training tower is. There is a frontline engine there and about two years ago an ambulance was pulled out of mothballs, if you will, and put on the road as an either or response. So if it's a medical call the firefighters get on the ambulance and they go to the medical call. If it's other than a medical call they'll head out on the engine. So over the past year the station responded on the ambulance about 862 times, which does everything from save on gas, to allow them to get the calls at the 90th percentile 54 seconds faster. The downtown station, the divers run out of this station. So if there's a call on the water, the boat is out of the 212 Station on South Shore and the divers from here. There are 52 full-time equivalents, 44 of which are frontline response personnel, six support personnel, counting the Chief, Assistant Chief, the executive assistant and another assistant, in that group. Then in the Fire Marshal's office, there are two personnel. Six people sitting in tier one PERS, fourteen in tier two and 32 in tier 3. Anticipate retirements taking that six number in tier one down by about four, over the next couple of years. Then a couple that will probably move into retirement within five to eight years after that. So that's what there with the tiers, within PERS. The average tenure is about 12 years on this department. All personnel are certified as paramedics. There are 44 frontline paramedics, plus some within the support realm, with that it allows a high quality medical service to the scene and to work the calls that are really the critical calls. A cardiac arrest takes much more than the three people that are on one engine, usually respond with two apparatus and another compliment coming from AMR and all the hands are busy on those super-duper critical calls. When working through the last contract, management worked with the labor organization to come back and really spend some time looking at the number of paramedics here. It comes with a premium of 10 percent on a base wage, and so to look at it, to make sure the city is right-sizing the number of paramedics here. It's a fine line because there are people that work 24-hour shifts and to make sure there is the care there for the community. He is not sure exactly what that number is, but the union is willing to look at it with the city and put it into the contract. That is when the city decides they want to look at it, they negotiate with the city in good faith on that. In 2020, the fire department responded to about 4,342 calls for service, the lowest number on any given day was eight and, the highest number was 110. The 110 came with that last ice storm, so lots of calls on some days, but the average call volume per day, spread over the four stations is about 12 calls per day. This year the South Shore fire station outpaced the Main fire station downtown by about three calls. The Main station is usually about 150 calls higher than that. He believes that a lot of it is tied to the reduced number of pedestrian traffic and downtown business corridor traffic. It is expected to move back up into the 900 range, over the next year or so. Out of all calls for service about 73 percent of what is done is emergency medical and the number is about 3,500 medical calls. Fire and emergency medical services are provided to three contract districts Alto Park, Lake Grove, and Riverdale/Dunthorpe. The value of those contracts is about 2.2 million dollars per year. Looking at Lake Grove, Lake Oswego responded there about 271 times. Alto Park, Lake Oswego responded there only four times, it's just a very few streets up above the City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 7 of 12 high school. In Riverdale/Dunthorpe, Lake Oswego responded to 115 emergency calls there. The way the emergency calls come into the dispatch center, they handled 125,000 calls last year and they answered the phone in 10 seconds, 99.6 percent of the time, the phone is picked up in 10 seconds or less. That's the start of any emergency, what happens then is the call processing time starts, where the dispatcher is gathering as much information on a fire call or a medical call. When they start to triage, they'll give medical instructions over the phone to anybody that's calling in that needs the instruction and as they're doing that they're building a case in a CAD system, and that immediately starts alerting the fire station they've got something rolling, so they can start to get moving and then the call comes, it's all automated. Now it's all like a Siri voice over the radio and it dispatches the appropriate fire engine, it picks the appropriate fire engine, there's automatic vehicle locators on each and every engine, and on each and every apparatus that the city has, whether it's a Battalion Chief's Chevy suburban, or if it's one of the big rigs. They send the very closest unit to any particular emergency and it's just grabbed out of the CAD system, so all of that happens and it gets crews on the road, out the door in a minute, to a minute and a half, day or night out the door. Then the roll time starts with the fire engine and on average, last year, roll time, the time that wheels were turning on the fire engine from the time the crew got in, to the time they stopped at the call, was four minutes and four seconds. So over ninety percent of calls last year, hit the arrival time at the patient, in less than eight minutes. That's pretty admirable, the beauty of this system here is the stations are really well located, that allows them to reach that, because the terrain slows the traffic down the single lanes, roads slow the traffic down. So, that eight minute fractal time is pretty admirable. Mentioning the medic at fire station 210 in Westlake, that's the ambulance that rolls, it's much more nimble to move around the city and into the future he wants to experiment with other apparatus that might be able to get there just as fast or faster. If they're doing 73 percent medical calls they need to focus business toward that 73 percent of what is done. The number of calls for 2020, in the EMS realm there were 2,600 calls for service. The reported fires, that encompasses everything from bark dust fire during the summer time to a fully involved structure fire and everything in between, the fully involved structure fires that are the really critical, critical fires there are probably two to three of those a year that are the really aggressive fires. The others range from car fires, to tree fires, the fireworks fires, all kinds of things, so 111 there. The other piece is the false alarms at buildings, they are working now to try to reduce the demand for those kind of calls and have found over a period of about four years, they averaged 350 of those a year. Out of the four years looked at, not one of them resulted in any smoke, fire, or flame, so they started working with the alarm companies. Instead of them calling the fire department directly when they get the alarm, they call the responsible party that owns the building or manages the building and ask do you really have a an emergency there and typically get the answer no. He expects that number to come down to by 25 or 35 this year. For medical alert alarms they changed response protocol this year on that, as well doing a pilot with the public health out at Clackamas County and the pilot showed they run about 150 of those a year. Those are the alarms that might hang around someone's neck and they set them off when they need help and what they found out of those 150 calls there were seven out of 150 on average, that result in transport and not one of those seven were critical transports. So they worked with the medical advisor and instead of taking City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 8 of 12 resources out of the system, it's kind of backwards, but they said they're closer typically and if they've only got eight ambulances in Clackamas County, let's not send an ambulance, let's just let the fire department go and take care of it. So on that one, they decided to take it over instead of sending two resources, an ambulance and a fire engine to that. It is really critical for them to work on the demand management. This last year the boat was deployed 53 times on the water, on the tributaries and ranged to everything from a boater in distress, to drownings, to body recoveries, so 53 times and it typically starts up about this time of year and rolls all the way through October. It's a pretty well used resource, Lake Oswego is one of just a few teams in the in the Portland metro area that can respond, so it's not uncommon for them to be on the Clackamas river it's not uncommon for them to be on the Willamette river down toward Foothills, so that's the boat team. Some of the challenges he thinks they will run into over the next few years, thinking toward a 21st century fire department is that the business has changed drastically and they didn't go on calls to pick someone up and put them back in bed, they didn't do that, that wasn't part of the part of the service that was provided, but what happened over time is fire filled a void and started responding to the emergency medical calls. When he started there were many more fires than there are today, less medical calls than there were today, but now the fire department is the go-to agency for those, it's by the service that people want most out of their fire department and it is either by default or that by design. He hasn't figured that out for sure, but one of the things they've got to figure out how to do, is how to manage the demand, how to anticipate what's happening. What COVID taught them, if nothing else, the last physical he had was telemedicine, and so there is a community paramedic program that will call people who get discharged from a hospital and if they enter the hospital within three weeks, there's a piece in the Oregon legislature that allows the hospital to be fined. So the hospitals are interested in trying to keep down the re-admittance, they're interested in taking care of the community and right now they either do that by phone, but there's a measure in there that they can look at telemedicine, to start heading toward, to figure out how to do things better and still stay remote from it, and not have to respond out right now. The other departments in the area actually send somebody out to homes and he is not sure that that's the best use of time or has any greater chance of a good prognosis for anyone. He wants to take a look at some things like that. They used to talk about forest fires, they were always someplace else, it was a forest fire they didn't call it a wildland fire, now we live in what's called a wildland interface area, everything here has the beauty it has because of the canopy, but that canopy gets dry and we saw what happened last year. So he wants to make sure they are ready to respond to fires in their own backyard, so to that end over this last year they've trained the entire department on wildland response, they've got people that have attained certifications to where they can go out manage teams of five engines with 25 people to attack wildfires. Over the last year, they deployed 23 people to six fires throughout the state of Oregon, where they had never done that before, and so it's a service that he thinks that they need to be really sharp on and that they need to be watching. They need to work on the prevention measures within the city. They've done some pilot programs that are pretty innovative, they've gone out and worked with some of the care homes, they've got two of them that have committed to try to lift their own patients, rather than calling the fire department and that way they can be available for other responses. Over the last 18 months they started looking at the calls for service into other jurisdictions because the agreement between all the jurisdictions is you always send the closest fire engine and what they found is that they were City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 9 of 12 going into Tualatin Valley's district 716 times a year. So they looked at the data and let the data help them make the decision and found that it was happening on Monday's and Friday's, and the reason it was happening on Monday's and Friday's is because they weren't staffing their stations that were close to the border when they were doing training, so it was dragging Lake Oswego over to them. So Lake Oswego started working with them and dropped that by 60 percent, so they hit 270 calls. He looked at the calls over the last couple of months and they're good calls, they're calls that they should be going on, so they're starting to right-size. But that tells him, they need to really look at the data, whether it's on the medical alert calls, whether it's on the response to fire alarm calls, or it's on those type of things, the anomalies, they need to look at and say what are they really doing here and try to use the data to help drive our decisions. The fire department was out doing COVID testing, and was the only agency in all of Clackamas County that raised their hand and said yep, we'll get out there and test. So they partnered with OHA and they partnered with their own public health to get their people out to do the testing. Where the other fire departments looked at it as a bigger risk than he did, or than our labor organization did, and so he wanted to make sure they're right at the forefront of that. It was one of the times that they could really use their paramedic skills and now they've parlayed that into community testing here, so there are clinics that follow the state guidelines that they're running on a daily basis, and they're out in the community. He expect them to be much more active in terms of the numbers of tests they've done, vaccines they've done, they're in the thousands now, but he expects it to really start rolling over the next month or two and he thinks that's what they've got to do is try to be as nimble as they can. He tells the firefighters here, he is not going to make them a better paramedic they're already there, their skills are top end. He is not going to make them a better firefighter and he can say with certainty they're much better as firefighters than he was when he was a kid growing up. These folks are passionate about what they do they're committed to it and they really know their craft, but what he can help them do is to focus the leadership of the department to be looking out over the horizon to try to figure out where they need to position themselves as a department over the coming years, to make sure they're providing the right services, that the community wants and the community needs. Chair Havens explained that the budget committee had postponed the report from the Fire Chief about the fire department situation. Nute asked the Chief if there was anything on the wish list that he would consider an investment in the department's capabilities or technologies. Chief Johnson stated he would get back to them on that. He said the technology is really good here, they're lean on goods and services, so it's tough. It's tough to maintain the fire stations, it's tough to maintain the fire apparatus on a lean budget, if that makes any sense. He does a round robin with all of the firefighters and all the employees once a year. This year everything seemed to be pointing toward leadership and innovation and that's kind of where we're headed. Calabria thanked the Chief for his presentation and for the dedication and service of the whole team. There have been a lot of serious challenges and it's because of dedicated public servants like them, that they get through those things. Cruz voiced the same appreciation for all the fire department does and it was a great presentation. Wendland inquired about the calls in Tualatin and when the fire department takes care of a call over there, there is no money that is reciprocated. Chief Johnson confirmed that was correct. Wendland mentioned the contract work that the fire department does with other cities. He City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 10 of 12 stated the city gets almost two million dollars for other jurisdictions, Lake Grove and Riverdale, and then the other little one. The city actually gets contract money and that comes from the County, or from those cities, or from those districts. Chief Johnson clarified those districts are typically organized around a water district. Lake Oswego fire department does provide that service. Wendland inquired about the city getting over two million dollars in contract work. Chief Johnson confirmed that's is correct. Wendland inquired about the funds going directly towards and staying within the fire department. Chief Johnson confirmed that it does. Wendland stated that's a big plus because the fire department is leveraging the assets and overhead is distributed in a better way. So it is nice to have those contracts. Bennett inquired about mutual aid from other departments, especially when there are structure fires, the Lake Oswego fire department needs other agencies to help them respond. Chief Johnson confirmed they get mutual aid from Portland, Clackamas and Tualatin Valley. They are on their list and the system will grab whichever rig is closest, and put the resource where it needs to be whether it's across the border or not. Dodds asked about the 12 calls a day for five stations total. Chief Johnson stated the four stations average is about 12, but the lowest he has seen it run is 8, the highest he has seen is 110. Dodds asked if it was a couple hundred thousand dollars per FTE in the fire department. Chief Johnson stated it depends on which way you look at it. The police and fire base wage are very close. The way it was explained to him, was the budget includes all the overtime and it is divided by the number of people. He said he believed that was the way it was look at. Chair Havens asked of the 73 percent of calls that are EMS, does he have a feel for what might be the care homes. He mentioned that the care homes are afraid to move their patients back into their beds and similar things like that. Chief Johnson estimated it is probably at 23 to 26 percent, somewhere in that range are the care homes. Chair Havens stated the care homes are one-third of the EMS calls or 26 percent of the total cost, or one-quarter. Chair Havens asked about the fire department working with these care homes, so they can do their own things. He asked if they are afraid because of a legal situation or what is their issue. Chief Johnson stated when he came into it he didn't understand the way care homes work. There are different levels of care that happen and different requirements for that, so if you take a look at the Springs, imagine it as an apartment complex with an on-site manager, individuals make those calls, they're are not required, in all cases, to provide medical services. They're not required to do anything because they're ambulatory residents who move in and out just like an apartment complex. The only thing they get different are meals and social services, as part of their package. So other cities have done things like try to raise fines and fees from those types of facilities. What the fire department did, and it came about through a connection with Mayor Studebaker, they have actually partnered with the care homes and have gotten to a partnership relationship. To where now, before the legislature this year, is based on some of our pilot programs and some other ones that have run, they're working with the Oregon Health Authority to earmark hundreds of thousands of dollars for pilot studies to try to reduce the impact that those facilities are having on fire departments, but it's a partnership, that the care homes are bringing forward to try to figure out how to help solve the problem, alongside the fire department. Wendland asked if they need three more ambulances. There is one ambulance and there are four stations. Wendland inquired if that was something is the long term plans. Chief Johnson stated he does want to explore transport for the fire department. Right now the fire department goes to the calls and provides medical care for patients, and they're take to the hospital, potentially by City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 11 of 12 the contract ambulance company for the county and that contract ambulance company bills the patient and so there's money there that the fire department has provided services for and someone else is collecting the monies. So the ambulance companies will let the fire department participate in a transport model, it's just trying to figure out what transport model could work for the City of Lake Oswego. 12. Municipal Grants Review Subcommittee selection The Budget Committee selected Chair Scott Havens, Vice Chair Lin Carson, Al Calabria, and Gary Corgan for the Municipal Grants Review Subcommittee. Anthony Hooper is the staff liaison for the Municipal Grants Review Subcommittee. 13. Next Steps/Future Meeting Topics Chair Havens confirmed the dates and times for the upcoming budget committee meetings, Wednesday, April 28th at 6:00pm and Thursday, May 13th at 5:30pm. Carson asked for the American Recovery Act to be put on the next agenda. Bennett clarified 8.1 M is the number the city has gotten from the congressional delegation, so she expects that is the number. But, what they don't have yet is the specific guidance about how it can be spent or how it is going to pass through the states. Bennett said it will be included as part of the budget conversation. 14. Adjournment The Budget Committee meeting was adjourned by Chair Havens at 7:57 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jennifer Waverly Budget & Financial Analyst APPROVED BY THE CITY BUDGET COMMITTEE: April 28, 2021 City of Lake Oswego Budget Committee Meeting Minutes of March 18, 2021 Page 12 of 12