2022-04-13 Fire Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes April 13, 2022 Page 6 Commissioner Paleka left the meeting at 12:10 p.m. The Meeting reconvened at 12:40 p.m. Financial recommendations: It is recommended that HFD develop budgeting benchmarks to assist county management's understanding of budget requests. Chief Todd says they are actively working on this, but stated that they need to do a better job. Long-term goal is to be able to get into the budget, figure out where they are, what it costs to maintain equipment, apparatus, stations and costs for training. With more funding and staffing, they will start making progress on this. HFD's funding was compared to other municipals serving communities of similar size. They are the only department that is fire, EMS and ocean safety. In comparison to Tacoma, similarities include full time positions, fire positions, EMS positions, and the population. If you look at the budget, differences include their overall budget was about $36 million more, fire budget was $29.5 million more, they have twice the administrative staff to do the same amount of work and they run less fire stations. Their county spends 30% of their budget towards fire and EMS services; our county spends a little over 10% for fire, EMS and ocean safety services. In comparison to Kauai, their county funds 12% of their budget just towards fire services. In comparison to the police department, their budget is $72 million and its $30 million for fire services. Chief Todd stated there's a slight disparity there. His goal is to bring this to the public view. To change things, they asked for a business manager position and clerical positions, they need the administrative staff to make a difference. Over the last 2 years, HFD will have close to $7 million worth of donated items from the Sayre Foundation. Chair Kosaki stated in regards to the wish list, personnel should be asking for things they need, rather than what is wanted. Chief Todd says the goal is for the department to be able to fund all normal operations without having to rely on charity to fund it. He believes expansion of the mission is something the Sayre's Foundation could work on, like new technology, focus more on volunteers or other programs like the junior lifeguard program and other community programs. Chair Kosaki mentioned that the Sayre's Foundation has $20-$30 thousand in their bank for the junior lifeguard program. Chief Todd stated that HFD is not doing the junior lifeguard program this year because it was pushed too far back due to COVID, but the program should be back next year. Deployment recommendation: It is recommended that HFD evaluate their volunteer program to enhance the incentive for participation, develop organizational structure and support roles, and invest into volunteer infrastructure and training. Currently they have only 2 paid positions for 150 volunteers to help them with training and everything else. There has been some discussion about having volunteer support personnel, not just volunteer firefighters. Mr. Benner stated that the volunteer firefighters are valued and they need to be formally fit into in the organizational chart.