Rochester Hills Legistar System

Chairperson Duistermars regretfully informed the Committee of Ashleigh Iserman's

passing on Saturday, June 5, 2004. Ms. Iserman served as a Youth Representative on

the Leisures Activities Committee. Her efforts were invaluable and she will be deeply

missed. The Clerk's Office has informed the City Council members as well as the

Administration.

Ms. Gates commented that Ms. Iserman was a very enthusiatic student and enjoyed

discussing politics. The visitation is on Tuesday, June 8, from 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM at

Pixley Funeral Home and the Funeral will be held on Wednesday at 1:00 PM.

Ms. Raschke provided the Committee with copies of an Oakland Press news article

regarding the Royal Oak Firefighters petitioning their staff levels to be tied to their city

population instead of city finances for citizen safety. They are proposing 1.17 firefighters

for every 1,000 residents.

Request to rescind Resolution regarding Local Medical Control Board -

Resolution of Support adopted at the April 12, 2004 Regular Public Safety

Meeting

LMCB Resolution of Support.pdf

Ms. Raschke expressed her desire to rescind the Resolution of Support due to the

following concerns:

* The current Oakland County protocol for Advance Life Support (ALS) calls is 1,000

residents in one (1) square mile

* The Committee should research what other communities are doing

* Rochester Hills is too large to go with one paramedic for an ALS call

* The Rochester Hills Fire Department is understaffed during the day time

* Station 5 does not have an ambulance and has to use staff from Station 1

* Ms. Raschke reported hearing calls on her scanner with no response from fire

stations. Chief Walterhouse reported that does not happen.

The Committee held further discussion regarding the Resolution of Support which

included the following:

* The Resolution of Support is not reducing staff, but occasionally rather than shutting

down one (1) unit due to short staffing during the day, the Fire Department will be able

to run three (3) units during the day.

* Troy's Emergency Medical Service (EMS) is ran by a private provider. The initial

response is one (1) Medical First Responder (MFR) who then waits for an ambulance to

arrive. The ambulance has two (2) people on it.

* Oakland County is the only county in Michigan that requires two (2) paramedics and

there is no medical basis for it.

* The San Francisco Fire Department study demonstrates that a city can provide better

service with one (1) paramedic and has had no negative patient outcome.

* Station 1 is the only station with full time firefighters on the day shift and the average

response time to a fire is between 4.5 and 4.75 minutes.

* It would take approximately twelve (12) full time firefighters to staff the City's northern

and southern fire stations, however, there is no funding.

* There are approximately eight (8) to ten (10) paid-on-call (POC) firefighters for the day

shift and 80 to 90 POCs for the afternoon and night shifts.

* There are five (5) to six (6) full time firefighters and six (6) to eight (8) administrative

staff on the day shift that can respond to fires.

* Being able to run a third unit with one (1) paramedic during the day has no bearing on

responses to fires.

* The consequences for staffing the City's north and south fire stations with full time

firefighters are:

- losing the POCs at those stations

- annual payroll of over $3 million

- poor treatment of the POC firefighters by the full time firefighters

The Committee discussed the poor treatment of the POC firefighters by some of the full

time firefighters. The Chief and his assistant spend approximately 60% of their time

disciplining the offenders. Full time firefighters do not want work with POCs or

volunteers due to union issues.

The Committee agreed that it is a universal problem with police and fire unions.

A motion to rescind the Resolution of Support was made by Ms. Raschke and died for a

lack of support.

Pam Lee, Director of Human Resources, explained the December 2003 Administrative

Policy on POC Firefighters and the POC Blended Rate Calculation Example which

including the following:

* The policy was developed, in part, from contract negotations with Bargaining Unit

3472, the Full Time Firefighters Union. There are three (3) full time firefighters that are

"grand fathered out" from the policy through 2004.

* The Fair Labors Standards Act contains certain stipulations regarding how an

organization must pay overtime based on:

- a blended rate of the regular hourly rate and the POC hourly rate, or

- whichever position's hourly rate they are functioning in when they reach an excess

of 40 hours, which is a very complicated method to track and calculate

* Eight (8) full time city employees who are also POC fire fighters are paid using a

blended rate. The Accounting Division has to recalculate their POC hourly rate every

two (2) weeks depending on the number of hours they have worked and where they

have worked those hours.

Chief Walterhouse also commented that four (4) years ago, when the full time

firefighters' contract was negotiated, their overtime as POCs was $125,000 per year.

The entire POC payroll is just under $300,000 annually.

The consensus of the Committee was that the Policy makes financial sense and avoids