Windham – The Windham WVFD Fire Board met for their regularly scheduled meeting with all board members and fiscal officer in attendance. The board approved the minutes, expenditures and bank reconciliation for the month of October before moving on.
The board voted unanimously to change the meeting time from 7pm to 6 pm until further notice.
In the chief’s report, Chief Rich Gano reported that he is still completing the PEP requirements. He has driver abstracts and physicals to be conducted. He is still waiting on a price for physicals from a local clinic.
The department did not receive the Forestry Grant for radios that they applied for recently. Gano said the district will apply for Marks Grant for radios that the state fire marshal offers, when it becomes available.
A discussion was held on what to do about Camp JAG using their services but doesn’t want to enter into a decent contract with the district to pay for services. The problem here is the residents pay for fire and EMS services through tax levy monies, Camp JAG doesn’t pay into the levies. The district doesn’t think it is fair to the residents who pay taxes for the use of services and yet Camp JAG pays nothing. The board has tried to get them to the table on the issue but they get no response. The board hasn’t closed the door on the issue yet, but are considering withdrawing services to Camp Ravenna. The other issue is Camp JAG has control of a good portion of Windham’s land that Windham receives no tax dollars for and can’t develop into something that would raise the tax base in the township and village, which leaves less properties available to develop and collect tax dollars on. A 1 mill levy in Windham only generates about $45,000-$50,000/ year where, in neighboring communities it would generate a lot more. The district just wants the government to pay their fair share for use of services. Only time will tell how this will play out.
A discussion was held last month on staffing issues. It was decided that the district will implement a new system starting the first of the year for a three-month trial period. The fiscal officer said the chief will have to keep it within the budget and control payroll costs or there will be problems. The district is trying to control overtime and eliminate an unmanned or undermanned station. The chief will finalize the specifics before the new system is implemented in January.
Ron Kilgore made a motion to send Lane Smith to fire school at the cost of $2500, most if not all of it will be refunded by the state fire marshal. Brian Miller seconded the motion, and the motion carried. Kilgore then made a motion to accept the chief’s recommendations for roster changes, they will add five new members and remove three from the roster. Brian Miller second the motion, the motion carried.
Year to date, (10-31-19) there have been 530 calls so far this year. There were 42 EMS responses with 24 transports for October, along with one fire response. The average response time for the month of October was 4:37.
Lastly, the WVFD announced they are cancelling their Annual Turkey Raffle this year. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
