Littleton, New Hampshire

Approved Minutes Dec 8, 2008

Town of Littleton
Board of Selectmen
Non-Public Session
Monday, December 8, 2008
Town Office Conference Room
9:00 AM

Present: Chairman Eddy Moore, Vice Chairman Bill Latulip, Selectmen Ed Boynton, Town Manager Chuck Connell, Executive Secretary Ceil Stubbings

Others Present: Jeff Whitcomb, Joe Mercieri, Todd McKee

Chairman Moore called the meeting to order at 9:00 AM. Town Manager Chuck Connell recommended the Board go into non-public session. Chairman Moore made the motion to go into non-public session per RSA91-A:3 II(a) Vice Chairman Bill Latulip seconded the motion. The motion to go into non-public passed 3-0. Chuck thanked the Fire Department representatives for joining in on the meeting. Chuck advised everyone that there was a need to discuss the overtime in the Fire Department especially as to what and why it is. Chuck further stated the meeting was called to discuss some possible initiatives to control the amount of overtime.

Chairman Eddy Moore said they seem to be able to get some control of the other two departments overtime and he knows the union contract probably has an effect on how overtime can be controlled. Chairman Moore stated the cost of the overtime is the problem. The Fire Department's overtime will probably be over $100,000. Chairman Moore advised that they have taken money from the Call Department and put it towards the overtime and a couple of times this year. Chairman Moore further said that it does not seem to be that we have control over the overtime whatsoever.

Jeff Whitcomb said they are going to be approaching $90,000 and we knew this last year. Chuck agreed that they did know this when we went into the budget last year. Chuck said that in round numbers yes we projected over $90,000. Jeff said that is what is what it was supposed to be funded at and asked what was it funded at. Chairman Moore said that the thought it was funded for around $60,000. Jeff said that the overtime is not out of control. He further stated that it is covered by shift coverage and call time. Chuck said the overtime covers vacation and other leave time. Jeff stated the overtime covers sick time, call back and department training. Jeff thinks the selectmen are most concerned about the shift coverage. Vice Chairman Bill Latulip stated they have been meeting with the budget committee and we want to try and stick to a 2% budget increase. We just got hit with an increase with the transfer station due to costs of selling. Bill stated that he does not feel lay offs are not the answer and feels we need to cut the overtime. Jeff Whitcomb told Vice Chairman Bill Latulip that the board says that every single year. Bill said that the financial times are tough right now. Jeff Whitcomb said that on the other hand nobody could sit there and one blame it on the union. Vice Chairman Latulip said that he did not say that. Jeff went on to say but that is what is happening. Jeff said they have people that come in off the street and ask the question about the overtime and the union because they are hearing that on the street. Jeff said that it is not fair and nice to do damage control with the public when there is no need to do so. If people have questions about the fire department the answers are there. The answers are not in some left wing groups meeting. Jeff went on to say they have been asking for this meeting for over a year. Jeff said that they are sticking up for themselves because of what people are hearing on the street. Jeff said that he wanted to let Todd McKee talk about how they are going to make this work. Jeff said that one citizen has said that they are taking the town for a ride. Jeff said they have tried to curb shift coverage because not only is it taxing on the budget but also the people doing the work. Jeff then advised the board that they can't meet with them every week and say this is what we are trying to do.

Town Manager Chuck Connell said they don't all understand what they mean regarding shift coverage and asked what it meant. Jeff Whitcomb advised that this is not a new concept. Chief Joe Mercieri said that shift coverage occurs when a firefighter takes a leave day, personal day or sick day. He said shift coverage also shift occurs when a firefighter is out on injury. Chief Mercieri said that in the past they have saved a lot of money in overtime expenditures when Ray and Bill were out for long periods of times due to injuries instead of covering with shift coverage. Chief Mercieri asked the union if they could bring in a call member to cover those shifts. He further explained that callbacks are when they get dispatched to a fire call and they need to someone to come back to the station. Chief Mercieri advised that they call everyone back whether it is a chimney fire or smoke in the building. Chief Mercieri said that it depends on the criteria and that they have to assure we have enough people coming in to cover the task. We still need someone to cover the station when we are out. Jeff Whitcomb wanted to expand on this a little bit. Jeff said that they take the types of incidents into consideration, such as motor vehicle, fire HAZMAT or rescue calls. Jeff said that the people that get called back all the time are the call company. Jeff went on to say that the only time the staff is called back is for a fire, HAZMAT or rescue incident. Selectman Ed Boynton said that some of the call people don't have the certifications that the regular firefighters have.

Jeff Whitcomb said that the staff and the call company cover most of the low-grade HAZMAT calls. Jeff said that one other incident is when the guys go out for a motor vehicle wreck. In this instance the call company would be called in to cover the station. If nobody from the call company shows then the staff is called back in. Vice Chairman Bill Latulip asked about medical calls. Jeff Whitcomb sated that 90% of the medical calls are handled by the regular firefighters. Bill Latulip then asked how many fire calls they have responded to in a year right now. Chuck asked if a fire truck goes to every medical call. Jeff Whitcomb advised that they respond to about 90% of the medical calls. Town Manager Chuck Connell asked why it was necessary for them to go to medical calls. Jeff stated that what actually happens is whoever gets there first they start the patient care. The fire department brings the rest of the equipment in or the paramedic will get the ambulance and that the response is a time saving thing for the patient. Jeff went on to say that they either force entry into the building or extract the patient out of the building. Town Manager Chuck Connell asked if there is also the matter of who owns control of the scene. Jeff stated that the senior person on the scene has control of the scene. Jeff said that he has 5 years experience and that Todd McKee has 3 years of experience. Jeff said that he is a Paramedic and that Todd McKee is an EMT. Todd said that in the event that things go down hill then he takes over and does the patient care. Jeff went on to say that the ambulance has two people on but it is not always the case that there is a paramedic on the ambulance. Jeff went on to say that just say the paramedic has been dealing with the patient. As an example the patient it is not an ALS type of care patient at the moment. Chuck there is also a BLS which basic life support and ALS, which is advance life support. Chuck asked BLS is more of a generalized care and if the ALS is more advance care which would be with IV's and such. Chuck then asked what is and who is this roving paramedic that he has heard about from the hospital. Jeff Whitcomb said that the hospital has 3 roving paramedics that work full time. Jeff said the hospital put the program in effect because there was not a program in the area. He stated the paramedic person is a working emergency room technician and responds if there is a call in the Littleton regional area that the hospital serves. Jeff said the department has an advantage because they always have a paramedic on staff. This then led into a conversation as to how many paramedics were on the fire department and how many were available from the hospital and the ambulance service.

Jeff Whitcomb said that it is not a duplication of services when the Fire Department responds to the medical emergencies. Jeff said that there are times when the Fire Department is not needed. Chuck asked if there was any way that could be determined. Jeff said that it could not be determined until they get there. Jeff said that it is up to the dispatch. Jeff said that anybody that complains about this has not had to not deal with this. Jeff said that yesterday was a good example. They had an elderly patient with a broken hip and femur at the school. The care of this type of patient with this type of injury does not happen with two people. Jeff said that he thinks the problem is they drive a diesel and they have to pay the truck. Bill Latulip asked if they had a smaller truck like a rescue truck if it would cut down on cost. Bill Latulip went on to say that when the Selectmen are asked these questions from the pubic we don't know the answers. Chairman Latulip then asked if the guys that are called in are coming in as overtime hours for the medical calls. Todd McKee said that it has not happened. Jeff Whitcomb said that they have a good bunch of people and we have a couple of people who are faithful and come back every time they are called. Chief Joe Mercieri said they come back 99% of the time. Jeff Whitcomb said that the real answer is no one is coming back on overtime to cover a medical call. Jeff said that the other question that is asked is why do they take the big truck. Todd McKee said that last year we had a diabetic emergency and while we were taking that individual out there was a fire on Grove Street. Todd said that they have had times in the past where they have waited for an ambulance for a good amount of time. Todd said that in this instance they waited for an especially long time. Vice Chairman Bill Latulip asked if what they were saying is that most of the overtime is shift coverage for vacation and leave time. He further asked if there was anyway to curb that. Selectman Ed Boynton said that back when the Fire Department Overview Committee had met they talked about part timers being the answer to the overtime problem. Todd McKee said that they have had an unfortunate time with guys being hurt and out on extensive leave. Chief Joe Mercieri said the other side of the coin is the call company burnout. Joe said that they do have a small group that does come back. Joe went on to say that one is retired and one does has a full time job. Joe said that after you keep bringing them back time after time it was getting overwhelming for them. Selectman Ed Boynton said that earlier they were joking about getting older and the two individuals on the call company are also getting older. Chief Mercieri said that one of them is no longer going to go inside a building anymore due to age.

Town Manager Chuck Connell said the shift change 24/48 served its purpose and it served it well. Chuck then asked if we weren't occurring some big over time there. Todd McKee said that they would get paid for 52 straight hours instead of 42. Chief Joe Mercieri said that without the shift change they would have occurred a lot of overtime. Chuck then said the next change was 24hours on and 72 off. He asked why and what are the advantages. Chief Mercieri said that they were looking for a shift that would be more accommodating to reduce the burnout. Chief Mercieri said that the 24/72 seemed to fit because it prolongs a longer shift and a longer time off in between. It was a little more accommodating because it gave them a different block of time off. It did impact the overtime in a positive way. Chief Mercieri said they were looking for a healthier schedule than the 24/48 schedule which was fine but there was were the problem is you have 168 hours of coverage each week and with the number of shifts they were overlapping. Chief Mercieri said that what do you do with those extra hours, as it would result in leave time or overtime. Jeff Whitcomb said their cycle is eight weeks. Over the eight-week period it averages 42 hours.

Selectman Ed Boynton said the Board has looked at the overtime reports where the overtime is over 200 hours. Todd McKee said that part of what happened at the end of the year he feels was a bad decision that was made by Karen Noyes in the Finance Department. Todd said that he has been with the department been since 1991. Todd said that the overtime slips stay at the Fire Department. Todd advised the Board that if they wanted to see the overtime slip hours all they had to do is go into the Chief's office and he has a report on the overtime history. Jeff advised the Board that there is an answer but it has to be asked from the Fire Chief. Todd McKee said that Karen did not want the overtime slips here at the Town Office.

Todd McKee said that there was a question about his overtime and the pickup that he was working on and if the time was charged at overtime. Todd said that it was documented that he did not in fact work any overtime while working on the truck.

Jeff Whitcomb said that three years ago it said in the personnel policy you earn so much of leave time per month. You used to get three sick days and three personnel days per year. The town approached everybody and said they would like to change this to leave time accrual and the employees said to go ahead but you can't control people calling in sick. Now there is no way to discipline that. Jeff then said that so instead of the old system now it is all calculated at one leave bank. Todd McKee said that the other thing that changed is we used to get 3 sick days a year. Todd said that he keeps a lot of leave time on the books as an insurance policy. Selectman Ed Boynton asked if there is someway to get the total number of personnel leave time and the total number of overtime we need to cover. Chuck said that there are people that do give back their leave time. Todd McKee said that they have done it in the past. Todd then asked what could they do to help as they are working in the system they were given. Todd said the union is blamed unjustly. Todd said that 50% of the shift coverage was offered to the call company and it worked ok for a short time but then the guys get burned out. The last time it was in there it worked ok for 6 or 7 months and you end up with a few people who can still come in. Bill Latulip asked how many active members were on the call company. Chief Mercieri said there were approximately 6 to 7active members. Vice Chairman Latulip asked if beefing up the call department would help with the issue of overtime. Todd McKee said that they had a meeting this fall with the call company and they were offered 50% of the overtime. Todd said that there are some people on the call company that they have not seen for two or years. Chief Mercieri said he put them all on the inactive list and they were sent letters stating they were now inactive and they have not responded. Selectman Ed Boynton asked if they were all certified. Chief Mercieri stated that they were all certified. Vice Chairman Bill Latulip asked what is the going rate for a level 1 firefighter. Chief Mercieri stated that the highest rate is $11.00 per hour, which is ridiculous. Chief Mercieri stated that he had done a lot of research on this and an individual has to make a commitment to be on the call company and that the number of volunteers are down. Chief Mercieri said that some of the towns are doing things that are very dangerous. They are taking green guys with no training in to get the job done.

Chief Mercieri said that Todd and Jeff were there to save three people from a burning building just recently. Jeff Whitcomb said they needed to get back to Todd McKee's presentation.
Todd went on to say that it is people and their time, time is special to everybody it is not the way it used to be. Jeff said that money is not the answer and that people don't give a hoot about the money they care about volunteering. Jeff said they need to increase what they make because it is the right thing to do. He further said money is not going to attract people. The people we brought on with the exception of one are not from Littleton. Todd said they had meetings with the full time guys and before he came back to Chuck to help cover overtime he thought it was fair to talk to them first. Todd said that he did not want to make an assumption and we called a mandatory meeting. Todd said that 10 people showed up most were active call firefighters. Todd said they did not want to make a commitment to cover 50% of the shifts. They don't want to have to think that they are responsible for 50%. Jeff said there is two reasons for that they are very qualified people they don't have the certifications or qualifications and they are timid we rely on them so much to call back. Joe believes they were called back for 300 calls. Joe that is more calls than surrounding towns have had. Selectman Ed Boynton asked how many of the calls were EMS or fires. Todd said they are pushing 1,000 this year. Todd said they are doing more than they have ever done.
Todd McKee said that he makes a lot of money in overtime because he is willing to work a lot of overtime hours that others don't want to do. Bill said that the explorer program was a good program but the person that you had went to another town. Joe Mercieri said that it says something for the town of Littleton's Fire Department that this is a good fire dept. Bill Latulip asked if could we afford to put more effort in the explorer program. Todd said that there is not a big expense to the program it is time and manpower commitment. Jeff would say that the easiest solution to this whole thing is to put the correct amount of people on the shift and not have the shift coverage. We can't do that right now. What came out in the Fire Department Review Committee Overtime report was to fund the overtime the way it should be or to slow this down put the right amount of people on the sift and if someone takes time off you don't cover the shift. The problem with that is money. Hiring four people versus spending the overtime line. Jeff said that numbers wise it is a lose lose situation.

Todd McKee said he has had the conversation with three different people about the overtime resulting from misinformation that is out on the street. Todd said that two of the people were business owners. Todd said that he advised you need to hire so you can cover the shift time. Bill Latulip asked how come Bethlehem can do it and they are all volunteer. Todd said that he has started to hear from other people that we will need to be all volunteers. Jeff said that what is happening now is the other towns are now hiring people. Jeff said that they have the biggest fire department around. Jeff went on to say that if you get rid of us this town would be in a mess. Todd said that he wished there was a way we could handle this now. Chuck Connell said that Franconia sends people here that are pump operators what do they do when they have a fire. Jeff said that we physically had crews working inside a building and we had mutual aid come and blow us out of the building. Jeff said that he does not want to knock. They do surround and drown. Ed Boynton asked if they ever ran the ad for part time personnel. Todd said they did but they did not receive any applicants. This led into a discussion on the pay rate for part time personnel and what surrounding towns are paying. Joe Mercieri said the other question is how do we retain that person. They get everything a real firefighter gets. Joe said that years and years ago one person worked in the family today both work one or two jobs to be a call person on top of that your asking a lot of these people. Joe said that if we get them in early we use them and keep them interested. Joe said they just lost one heck of a guy for a full time job. Todd said that they have had five new people over the last year. Jeff said that changing our schedule is not going to do anything. We still need one person no one wants us to have more overtime and more time off. Jeff said that their productivity has sky rocketed. Todd advised that their training has increased. We train twice a month. Todd said the training consists of some video training, one part medical and one part fire training.

Jeff said that here's the thing that you don't see. They see the fire truck go to Shaws. We went to buy the groceries after we just came back from a call and need to get our dinner. We are out anyway. When you're out you go to the store. When you hear that on the street we are not out lolly gagging around. Ed Boynton asked why don't they bring their lunch in the morning. Ed said that the person who talked to him about it wanted to know why they were at Shaw's buying groceries. Todd said he has heard a lot of complaints. Todd said that a lot of people are making a judgment on their 30-second drive by the fire department. Bill Latulip said that when they were at the Opera House they had a bench outside. Jeff said that back then it was different and there was less responsibility. Bill Latulip asked if they post all the calls in the paper. Joe Mercieri advised that they don't and the newspapers seem to not be interest. It was suggested that they post the calls on the side of the building and the web page. Chuck Connell said that it might help if people knew what they did. Jeff said that he done an hour and a half presentation on Channel 2 recently.

Todd McKee said that he was upset at what was in the paper regarding his salary. Todd said that he did not make what was reported. Jeff said that is not what they make. Jeff said that is not what they wanted the public to see. Jeff said that people who don't give a care about anyone but themselves put that report in the paper.

There then ensued a discussion regarding mutual aid and the respect the Littleton Fire Department receives when going out on calls. Jeff said that they have been discussing this for an hour and a half and have not gotten anywhere. Jeff said that it's not too late to finish this year. Jeff said they could say no one is taking any time off until the end of the year. Jeff said that the staff should be allowed to carry their leave time over. Ed Boynton asked what happens when you take a week off. Jeff said they get paid for 42 hours. Bill Latulip said to reduce our cost in overtime we need more active call men that could help cover the shifts. Bill went on to say that this is not going to happen overnight, This led into a discussion of regarding the numbers in the call company gradually decreasing over the last 18 years. Jeff said that the lion's share of our call company come from out of town. Chuck asked why are they coming here. Todd said they want to belong to the Littleton Fire Department because the training is better. Jeff said that he brought this up on his Channel 2 presentation. Todd said that Littleton is a tourist town it is not just the 6,000 residents, there is 15,000 people in town during the day. Todd said that there is another answer to cover the cost of overtime. Todd said the impact fees being charged are too low. Joe Mercieri said that last year he provided a report showing that the fire department could have taken in $50,000 in impact fees. Jeff said the impact fees for box stores should be higher. Todd said that if you go to a place like Hooksett a building permit is $50.00 per square foot and is a much smaller amount for residential permit. Chuck Connell said that it is hard to charge $50,000 for a building permit. Chuck Connell said they raised the issue and he is going to ask the question. The fire department had one person on the truck and now we have two. Now you want three. Jeff said that one person on the truck did not work well. Jeff said that he has been through this on TV. Jeff said the answer you want is to walk your self to the fire department and ask the questions. Chuck said that he understands what Jeff is saying and the correct answer is to go to the Fire Department. Joe Mercieri asked the board what is it you want us to do. Ed Boynton said that he has been on the Fire Department and he has been in the union. Ed said that the public has the right to know what we are spending.

Todd McKee said that in the future they should put the complete salary for everyone in the paper. Todd feels they have been targeted and it should be done for each employee. Jeff said the town's people should see that in the town report. Todd said that he had a conversation with a member of the budget committee. Todd said this person has been on the budget committee for a long time and he has never read the union contract. He was attacking the amount of leave time and throwing darts at the union. Todd said he has no problem giving the public a copy of the contract. Todd said their workweek is 42 hours but the average is 48 hours. Bill Latulip asked them to mull it over to see what you can do. Jeff the only thing we can do is not taking any time off. Eddy Moore said that would not solve the problem. Ed Boynton asked if the leave time was use it or lose it. Jeff said that it would only happen if they were near their limit. Jeff said that sticking to 2% increase is not realistic. Ed Boynton said that two more personnel is it adding fuel to the fire. So where are we gaining by adding more personnel? You do not have to cover the shift time. Eddy Moore said the bottom line still goes up. Joe Mercieri said that if we go back to one guy on a truck you'd be better off sending a taxicab. We have the equipment investment and one guy showing up to a fire means they would have to wait. Joe said that with 2 guys on the truck one of us is going to go down and get hurt or killed because we don't have enough men on the job. We can't help with a fire with only one person. This led into a discussion on the benefits of hiring part timers who could cover the shifts or hiring per diem people who are only paid for when they work. They get paid a guaranteed rate. Jeff thinks it would money wise but those people only work certain times of the year. Chairman Eddy Moore said that as far as overtime goes overtime is the first thing to go. Todd said that no one who works for the fire department expects overtime. Todd said that if it goes away tomorrow we would be ok with that. Todd said that he takes it because it is available but he can live on what his hourly wage is and he lives within his means. Todd said that he pays for that overtime on the other end because he is not home two or three days a week. Chuck asked how often do you have the problem to fill a shift. Jeff said we just did it last week and there is two shifts not filled this week.

Joe Mercieri said the cost to outfit a firefighter is around $3,000 but with us if we wanted a pool of 50 people it would be a cost. Jeff said the problem is you have a number to work with and where the cuts are made. In the same hat you are trying to recruit people to work here, but if my gear needs to be replaced this year then have to buy new gear for three regular staff. Ed Boynton asked what is the life of the gear. Todd said that the life of the gear is 3-5 years. Todd went on to say that on the call force we get 7-8 and sometimes 9 years. Todd said they have a gear washer so the gear lasts longer. Jeff said that we can't operate like this if you want to hire people you have to budget. Jeff said the question is we are still nowhere with this. Jeff said there were a couple of recommendations from the Fire Department Committee. The recommendations were to hire more men and that the overtime was under funded. Jeff said that you have had many years of the same thing happening. The first myth dispelled was that the
Fire Department is not mismanaged. Todd asked why has that literature from that committee not been made available to the public. There were questions on the committee minutes /report. Larry Blaisdell compiled it all together and the report was not complete. Jeff said the report was a final draft. Jeff so again where are you going to be in November and December of 2009? Jeff said that he has been angry for ten years because everyone talks behind our backs. Eddy Moore said they have to cut $180,000 from somewhere. Jeff feels people need to be realistic too, you have a couple of cowboys that just want to cut and cut. Jeff said do we hire two people a decision has to be made. Jeff said we need to make a decision on what to do. Bill said that if we went with the two part time people and see what you can do with that then we have dealt with some of the overtime. Jeff said that when we talked about bringing in a part time we didn't get out much what was the benefit we got out of it. Jeff said that there is no reason why we can't go back to the guys in the union when the contract says we have to offer it to them first. This would just be a temporary solution. Selectman Ed Boynton had to leave at this time to attend a personal matter. The conversation then returned to the topic of part timers and the possibility of hiring per diems. A part timer must have regular scheduled hours. The per diem can work 160 hours part time can work up to 28 hours without benefits. Chuck said that the other thing that he is hearing is that full timers don't want to work with the part timers. Jeff asked if the plan of three people on a truck has not been abandoned. Chuck said it was still on the agenda. Bill Latulip asked if hiring one person instead of four would make a difference. Jeff said that it would mean a shift change to three on a shift but you would have to pay us an extra day. Bill is that hiring one people instead of four. Jeff it would if we change shift to three on a shift or you would pay us an extra day. Chuck asked if the extra day would be overtime. Todd said no it is straight time. Chuck advised that in 2009 we are not going to add a new full time position. Bill Latulip said he would like us to have more meetings. Chuck said that one more person would save us 75% of the overtime. Bill this discussion tells us how you do things. Todd he is still amazed and wished that Ed Boynton was still here and some of it still seems new to him. He can't believe that the myths are still out there and that Ed Boynton was part of that committee. Chuck advised the fire department that he hopes they will look at all ideas. Chuck asked if the minutes should be sealed. Everyone agreed to not seal the minutes. The group agreed to meet again in January. Vice Chairman Bill Latulip made the motion to come out nonpublic session. Chairman Eddy Moore seconded the motion at 12:40 PM. It was noted by Vice Chairman Latulip that the minutes were not sealed. Motion to adjourn passed 2-0 at 12:41 PM

Respectfully submitted
Ceil Stubbings

The Town of Littleton prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital or family status. The Town of Littleton is an equal opportunity employer.

Town of Littleton ®2013 all rights reserved
XHTML | CSS website ©2013 notchnet