2019-02-14 (draft) Cost of Government Commission minutes

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Cost of Government Commission February 14, 2019 meeting minutes Jones: It is like hitting a moving target because the information keeps coming in in spits and splatters, then when we asked for information we got information we could make some decent recommendations now that we are at the end of the commission all kinds of new information is available in the newspaper. So I am questioning how are we able to come up with decent recommendations when we can’t even get a simple answer to a simple question for example what are the costs and who would of thought that the costs associated with giving stipend to the police would have anything to do with rank at all. It is a cost, it’s a vehicle, you use your vehicle. McIntosh: Rank always plays even military it’s a big difference Jones: So when you are talking you are replacing a fleet of vehicles with people and compensating them to use their vehicle it doesn’t cost a sergeant any more than a private to drive their own vehicle. It should be a fair compensation to compensate them for using their vehicle. I mean even the basis of all this is getting a little bit nuts Buehler: Unless it becomes part of the salary package Jones: Then when we take all of these vehicles away are considering that a cut to the salary to the police of this county. It is supposed to be the use of their vehicle it is not supposed to be part of compensation because it is a vehicle exchange situation. So then is it based on their performance? Buehler: My preference is to just keep it at 100,000 foot level here and promote the concept to say we need to move forward on this because there is potential savings for the tax payer but we want to first put out the fact that a vehicle that offers the officer more safety and get the savings to boot. But 61,502 per vehicle, based on my discussions with the manufacturer representative, that’s wild. (22:07): It appears to have some premium in there, that’s a whole lot of bells and whistles Buehler: Well I know about that but there are rebate programs and I don’t think that number includes that rebate this one guy told me, you go to the local dealer for chevy, chrystler you make your deal and then the dealer gets this huge like 10 grand kick back per vehicle. So I do not know if that is included in that number or not unless the dealer is keeping it. (22:35): So this is the only comment I want to make on it is that your estimate is extremely conservative on multiple levels. So if there is truly a decision against this. There has to be something involved with the decision that doesn’t include financial savings. And police officer safety and you know all of the other benefits that come with having a police fleet. McIntosh: I am reading the news article and it is almost sounding like they chose to go with a hybrid program because they didn’t have enough money to a complete fleet of 4