Minutes
Town of Greenfield
Greenfield Town Offices, 7 Sawmill Road Greenfield, NH
Selectboard’s Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, November 5, 2014 – 4:30 PM
Selectboard: Chairwoman Debra Davidson, Selectwoman Karen Day, Selectwoman Margaret Charig Bliss
Staff: Administrator Patt, Fire Chief David Hall
Public: Phil St. Cyr, Primex
The meeting was called to order at 4:30 PM by Chairwoman Davidson.
Documents for Approval/Review/Signature
The Selectboard reviewed and/or signed the following items:
§ A/P Invoices
§ A/P Checks
§ Payroll
§ DRA Equalization Municipal Assessment Data Cert. (pink sheet)
§ Right to Know Request – Monadnock Ledger Transcript
§ Corrected Minutes of 10/8
§ Minutes of 10/29
§ DPW Risk Assessment Audit Draft – Primex
§ Budget Committee Appointments – N. Nickerson, D. Boilard, S. Moller, Ken Paulsen
Chairwoman Davidson opened the meeting at 4:35pm.
4:30 PM: Documents for Approval/Review/Signature
At 4:35 pm the Selectboard signed the Department of Revenue Association’s equalization assessment data certification. The Selectboard approved A/P invoices and signed the A/P checks and Payroll. The Board discussed the Budget Advisory Committee and voted 3-0 to appoint Norm Nickerson, Diane Boilard, Susan Moller, and Ken Paulsen to the Budget Advisory Committee; Myron Steere was elected in March; for a total of five members. The Chair expressed her interest in meeting with the Budget Advisory Committee so that the 2015 budget is thoroughly discussed before Town Meeting.
The Selectboard discussed the Meeting House facility rental agreements. The Board discussed the need for a refrigerator upstairs. Also it was noted that the upstairs bathroom needed to be painted again. The Board agreed that the Meeting House Rental Agreement needed to be updated to reflect that loss of security deposit, or use of pro-rated security deposit funds, may come from failure to clean the rental space after use.
The Board reviewed the Minutes of 10/08/2014. Corrections had been suggested at a prior meeting and these grammatical corrections had been made. The Board reviewed and accepted the minutes. The Selectboard members signed the 10/08/2014 minutes. The Board reviewed the Minutes of the 10/29/2014 Minutes. The Minutes were accepted as read. The Board signed the 10/29 Minutes.
5:30 PM: Work Session
At 5:00 pm the Selectboard continued with a work session. A meeting posted on the preliminary agenda had been rescheduled during the afternoon.
The Administrator outlined a recent Right to Know request by the Monadnock Ledger regarding the 2014 ConVal Deliberative Session announcement that the Selectboard mailed to residents in February. The Ledger Transcript has asked to see the flyer and any communications about the flyer from the Selectboard members. The Ledger Transcript requested information regarding any communication with the Attorney General’s office. The reporter from the Transcript asked that the Board waive any copy fees. The Selectboard discussed the request and noted that emails and communications with Town Counsel are exempt from the request. The Board determined that it could not grant the request immediately as it would take some time to collect the information. The Board decided that it would require two weeks to collect and review any
information, which may have occurred since the beginning of the year. The Board agreed it would not waive copy fees.
6:00PM: Phil St. Cyr, Primex Risk Management Consultant
At 6:00pm Primex Risk Management Consultant, Phil St. Cyr came before the Board of Selectmen. Fire Chief David Hall was in attendance for the meeting. Mr. St. Cyr gave an overview of the recent risk management audit and action plan that had been developed for the Greenfield Fire Department. Mr. St. Cyr clarified in his opening statements that nothing that Primex cites is binding. Primex is a non-profit and is interested in assessing the Town’s risk management culture. The purpose of the audit was to note “things to strive for” and to provide some strategies for weighing and responding to risks in the work place environment and across the department. Mr. St. Cyr said that they recognized that the action plan could not be addressed in one budget season. There are common issues affecting fire departments
across the State; “Greenfield is not alone” in needing to address certain issues, or plan to address certain risks.
Mr. St. Cyr went on to say that Primex looks at and weighs the frequency and severity of the risk factors that it finds in order to prioritize the audit’s action plan. “There are a lot of good things in the review”, said Mr. St. Cyr. The Greenfield Fire Department “is in pretty good shape” he reported. Selectwoman Charig Bliss noted that High Severity/High Frequency items noted in the Action Plan are not all money related. She went on to that she was pleased that many of the action items are non-monetary-based items that can be addressed by the Fire Department. Mr. St. Cyr said that was very true, and added that Primex recommendations are non-punitive in nature. Meaning that Primex does not penalize the Town for things it finds in its audits because the audits help improve the risk management
culture. Mr. St. Cyr went through some examples on the action plan and then noted that Greenfield has an ISO rating of 9/10. There was a brief discussion of the ISO rating. Mr. St. Cyr indicated that Primex does not have anything to do with the ISO ratings. Chief Hall said that the 10 rating had to do with the access to water sources in town. There wasn’t any way to adjust that number given that there are no hydrant facilities (fire hydrant district) in town. The cost to address this was prohibitive. Selectwoman Charig Bliss said that she understood that this was the case and that cisterns are needed for any new buildings. Chief Hall said that distance and travel times also impact the ISO rating. Greenfield is a rural town so the ISO rating at some point ‘is what it is’. He went on to say that homeowner insurance is not a good driver for fire department changes since it’s very difficult ‘to move that needle substantially’ through department
changes.
Mr. St. Cyr touched on Mutual Aid. He said that Mutual Aid is not the solution that it once was. This has to do with issues that every fire department faces. Retention and recruitment are essential; but out of town employment, family life, and the increasing demands of modern life make it difficult to keep firefighters on the roster. One of the problems of Mutual Aid occurs when a town regularly subsidizes another town. Chief Hall agreed and indicated that the number of calls has continued to increase year over year. This puts a burden on the town and on Mutual Aid in general.
After some additional discussion with the Board and Chief Hall about the Risk Management Audit and the Audit Action Plan, the meeting came to an end. The Board thanked Mr. St. Cyr for his hard work on the audit and expressed their appreciation for his explanation of the action plan in the meeting.
7:08PM: Fire Chief David Hall
Chief Hall provided the Selectboard members with an updated budget from the fire department. There are several new lines that have been added, which he said he would go over in detail. For the remainder of the line items, Chief Hall said that he had left those pretty much as they had been for the first year of his new role. One change was to separate the Electricity from Propane. There are now two lines, whereas in previous years the propane costs were under electric, and were not tracked as transparently. The next item is a new line for EMS Turnout Gear of $2500. Chief Hall said that EMS turnout gear is substantially different from firefighter turnout gear; is just as necessary as protective gear, although not fire rated; and is less expensive than firefighter turn-out gear. He created a separate line for both.
Structural gear, or Firefighter turnout gear has its own line item. $6500 in this line will purchase approximately four sets of gear. The issue that the fire department faces regarding turn-out gear is that the Town received a grant in 2002-2003 for turn-out gear, airpacks, and EMS turn-out gear. The lifespan for structural gear is 10 years. There has not been any purchasing in place to swap gear out. While some of the gear is still usable for firefighters on the perimeter of a fire, for those firefighters that are entering a building the structural gear needs to be updated.
Next several lines such as postage and training services were discussed. Vehicle Repair and Maintenance is up significantly from $2,500 to $10,000 a year. Chief Hall explained that there are 3 major pieces of equipment. Due to the significant age of the vehicles there is a higher level of need for maintenance and repairs. Chief Hall went on to explain that there should be an amount of money set aside for maintenance and repairs for each truck. At $10,000 there is approximately $3,000 per truck. The Board discussed this with Chief Hall and asked if this should be increased to $5,000 per vehicle given some of the issues that are happening today. The Board and Chief Hall determined that they would come back to this question.
Chief Hall went on to discuss the Radio/Pagers line. There are not enough radios to cover the current roster, and the FD is recruiting people. So there needs to be a purchase of 4-5 more radios. Next the Selectboard and Chief Hall discussed a gap insurance that Chief Hall had found, which will cover a much broader amount of Fire Department and Greenfield Firefighters Association activities. The current insurance pool does not cover the Association activities; it does not cover volunteers beyond $10,000 in medical expense; and it covers only 60% of a firefighters Workers Comp. The gap insurance will bring payment on Workers Comp. up to 100% and deals with the fire department in a more complete manner. Chief Hall spoke to several towns that use the service and all had spoken very highly of the insurance. One town reported
that three out of four Workers Comp claims had been denied by Primex but upheld by the gap insurance. Chief Hall indicated that he had not put this in his budget and hoped that it could be included in an insurance line somewhere else in the budget. The Selectboard had a brief discussion about putting all of the departmental health insurance line items into one insurance related line item under personnel. This would allow people to compare Greenfield departments to other town’s departments. The Board will revisit this in a future meeting.
Lastly, Chief Hall said that the budget is up from $80,284 to $113,034 without addressing the number of hours that he has been putting in. Chief Hall said he is not comfortable addressing the Chief Wages line item but believes that there needs to be some consideration for the amount of business that he is losing from his company, to be the Chief. The Selectboard deliberated about the wage line. There was some discussion about changing to a Part-Time Fire Chief as opposed to a volunteer position. This would help alleviate the amount of hours that Chief Hall is losing in his work. Chief Hall trains fire departments and provides EMT training. When he misses training classes he has to pay instructors to take his place so there are expenses on top of lost income that Chief Hall suffers. The Board did not reach a consensus on
an increase although several amounts were discussed that are higher than the current figure of $2,000.
The Board thanked Chief Hall for his hard work on the budget and for his insights on areas that need immediate attention within the department.
Adjournment
On a motion by the Chair, and a second by Selectwoman Day, the Board voted to adjourn. The motion carried 3-0. The meeting adjourned at 9:00 PM.
The minutes are final when approved and signed by the Selectboard. A signed copy is on file in the Selectboard’s office.
______________________ _______________________ ______________________
Chair, Debra Davidson Karen Day, Selectwoman Margaret Charig Bliss, Selectwoman
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