Minutes of the Iowa Firemen s Association Board of Directors Meeting January 17, 2010 Humboldt, Iowa

Transcription

1 Minutes of the Iowa Firemen s Association Board of Directors Meeting January 17, 2010 Humboldt, Iowa The meeting was called to order at 10:00 a.m. by President Cliff Renslow. Those present were President Cliff Renslow; 1 st VP Brian Hoffman; 2 nd VP Ellen Hagen; 3 rd VP Jack Runge; 4 th VP Roger Bissen; 5 th VP Al Esch and Administrative Assistant Wendy Lensing. Past President Mike McKinnon was absent. Also present were Randy Novak, FSTB; Jeff Quigle, Fire Marshal s Office; Bob Hagen, Jewell; Jeff Gargano, Humboldt; Dave Zimple, Badger/Humboldt; Chuck Bell, Algona; Myron Carlso, Algona; Mitch Ulrick, Algona; John Cox, Jamaica; Dave Lensing, Humboldt; Brian Seymour, Indianola; Mike Ryan, Manchester; Tony Hosford, Humboldt; Jim Gronbach, Humboldt. President Renslow presented a print to Humboldt Fire Chief Tony Hosford in appreciation of hosting the meeting. A motion was made by Ellen Hagen to approve the agenda. It was seconded by Roger Bissen. Motion carried. A motion to approve the minutes of the meeting held October 25, 2009 in Guthrie Center was made by Al Esch. It was seconded by Brian Hoffman. Motion carried. Administrative Assistant Wendy Lensing: I d like to thank the Humboldt Fire Department for hosting our meeting today. We appreciate your hospitality. It s going to be really nice to be back home in 5 minutes when we get done today. Thanks also to Jeff Gargano, the publisher of our Iowa Firefighter newsletter for furnishing the rolls this morning. The department dues have been rolling in at a steady pace. I d like to take a moment to remind anyone that hasn t paid their dues yet that the delinquent date is February 1 st. The department billing packets also included a survey about how close departments are in meeting the minimum training standards that will go into effect July 1 st and how close they are with equipment meeting the FCC narrow banding regulations that will go into effect January 1 st, Please return these surveys with your dues so that we can have an idea where departments are at with these requirements. It is helpful information when we talk to legislators. Some surveys have been returned with questions regarding what the standards and regulations are. Any that have had questions I have sent information to them. The credit card program is up to 219 members. We are moving in the right direction, but still would like to see more members getting the IFA credit card. This credit card is a very good product. There is a great rewards program, no annual fee, no balance transfer fee and very competitive interest rates. The IFA earned over $2700 last year from the credit card. We receive $10 for each new account and a percentage of the finance charges and transaction fees. With the benefits that the members receive from the card and the fees that come back to your association it s a win-win situation for the IFA members. You can sign up on-line from our website or call and I can get you a paper application. This past week I made my first trip to Des Moines as a red coat. I was there on Wednesday and visited with several legislators and also spent some time speaking with Craig and Amy. There were comments from several people seeing the red coat and coming up and saying that they were glad that the fire service was there. I will give more details later in the legislative report. The Perry Fire Department has their website up and running for convention. The address is I will get a link up on our website to that. They have registration

2 forms available for convention, camping, etc. Bowling is currently still on hold after the collapse of their bowling alley in town. Although the forms are on the website, they still will not be selling campsites and accepting registrations until Mid Year. Be sure to check our website frequently for updates on grants, training, legislation, department events, waterfights and other news. Thanks again to Humboldt Fire Department. Financial Report: Wendy Lensing, Administrative Assistant Reports were available showing all account activity from October 1 st December 31, Total current assets for the Iowa Firemen s Association are $457, Total current assets for the Iowa Firemen s Foundation are $66, Motion was made by Jack Runge to approve the financial report. It was seconded by Ellen Hagen. Motion carried. Proposed 2010 Budget: Wendy Lensing, Administrative Assistant Board met on January 16 th and held a budget workshop. Total income for 2010 is projected at $182, Projected total expenses are $180, leaving a net income of $ Motion to approve the proposed budget was made by Roger Bissen. It was seconded by Brian Hoffman. Motion carried. Officer Reports: 1 st VP Brian Hoffman: I would like to this opportunity to thank the Humboldt Fire Department for hosting this meeting today. In November, I met with members of the Elks in Des Moines to present our annual report on the partnership we have with them on the fire safety house trailers. The Elks have been major contributors to the purchase and maintenance of the trailers that we have throughout the state. These trailers are strategically located throughout the state and are available to any department to use for training purposes. Their main focus is for use in schools, as they simulate a house fire and go through such things as fire prevention, escape options, etc. We strongly encourage all departments to take advantage of this resource. If you need help locating a trailer in your area, please feel free to contact any member of the board. After presenting the report to the committee, we had a discussion and several items were discussed: We need to make sure Blank Hospital knows that the Elks are a major contributor to this ongoing project. The Elks want to be notified when and where the trailers are being used. It will be up to the host department to notify the closest lodge as to the usage of the trailers. The Elks also want to be kept informed of all donations received for the use/upkeep of the trailers. Again, this is the responsibility of the host department. The Elks will not carry property insurance on the trailers. This will be the responsibility of the host department. The Elks are here to help with major repairs and need to be contacted when issues with the trailers arise. Wendy and I will be putting together a flow sheet that will be distributed to the departments that house these trailers to record the usage, (including destination and number of people going thru trailer), donations of any nature, notification of nearest lodge, and repairs as they were done. This information will be included in the annual report to be presented to the Elk s at their annual meeting.

3 IFA Awards program: Each year we accept nominations for departments and individuals that have been great supporters of the Iowa Firemen's Association and the Fire Service of Iowa. I want to thank those of you who took time to nominate these departments and individuals for their outstanding commitment to the fire service. At our work session yesterday, the nominations for each category were reviewed and a selection for each was made. These individuals will be presented their awards at the Mid Year Meeting April 10, 2009 in Johnston, Iowa. Wendy, thank you for allowing us to intrude on you yesterday and for your generous hospitality. 2 nd VP Ellen Hagen: Thank you Humboldt Fire for hosting our January Board meeting and Jeff for the great breakfast. Roger Bissen and I attended a day and half class presented by Fire Team USA in West Des Moines at the Marriott Hotel Wednesday and Thursday. The class was about residential sprinklers. We each received a backpack with all of the materials that were presented to us. We got DVDs, CDs, Power Point Presentations, Manuals everything we need to educate other fire fighters. We were very impressed with the presentations. We learned from Scottsdale, AZ and many other areas that the cost of a sprinkler system in new construction is 1-1 ½ %. The cost of a retrofit is 2-3 %. One of presenters, Shane Ray added the system to his older home. The pictures he showed us looked much like crown molding. Shane will be the Keynote speaker at the Chiefs Workshop on March 6 th. His topic isn t sprinklers but I know he will be motivating. Wendy has a set of the materials and will be showing some of the video to the legislators on the hill. I am hoping that the legislation about sprinklers will not block the right of a city to mandate sprinklers in new residential construction. We are talking about having a TV at the Holiday Inn Mercy Campus and showing some of the video we received to the Legislators who attend our event. Wendy spoke about being a red coat. We ve had a red coat at the capitol for many years. We haven t paid someone to be at the capitol for the last few years. We each took a week and went to Des Moines once or twice and covered things and we thought we were doing a good job. We still hear from people down there that you need a red coat. Wendy was willing and she will be there every Wednesday, weather permitting. She will be the constant. We will still take our turns each week being there also. That will give us at least 2 days of presence there every week. President Renslow commented that we are really trying to have a red coat presence there each week. 3 rd VP Jack Runge: It s been a wonderful weekend in Humboldt. Thank you for your hospitality and congratulations on the nice equipment that you have here in your station. It was talked a little bit about the survey. That survey is vitally important to us and to Randy to develop the criteria and the data as to where we are at in regard to departments meeting the standard. There are a lot of new things facing the fire service right now and the feedback that we get from departments is really the only way that we have to gather the data to drive training programs. The data is kept confidential. There is nothing expressed in regard to an individual department. A hot topic right now is probably the legislative agenda. I wasn t able to be in Des Moines for the

4 Governor s address but I did watch it on television later that night. We have a lot of hurdles in the state. I think we are making some positive progress. Hopefully our economy is changing. My legislative thought process for this year is keep it simple. I think they want to get in there, get their business done, get the budget done and go home. My feeling is we have to suck it up and do our part there too. There probably isn t going to be a lot of time or room for some of the special interest type things that get thrown at them. As I listened to the Governor s address he has expressed an interest that he is going to try to support DPS as best he can, realizing the vital part it plays to the life and growth of the state of Iowa. I think we should support him in that. Personally, I think that should be one of our biggest legislative missions this year is when we see our legislators, we need to tell them the importance of what DPS does for the state and we have to toot our horn once in a while. Other than that I think it s going to be a year to keep it simple and pretty narrowly focused. I did sit in on a pipeline summit that was held as a web-ex. I told Dave Zimple this morning that it was a very efficient use of time when you can walk into your office at home and be a part of a summit that is being generated in Kansas City and very much feel a part of the summit. You could listen on your telephone and watch the presentation on your computer. It was just a wonderful use of time. It sounds like they have some cool things planned and they have a simulation put together that s pretty cool. The last thing that I would like to talk about is the budget. We did have a long day yesterday as we looked at our budget. Nobody likes to talk about it but I think if you look at last year we were predicting a net profit of $5000. This year we re down to $1000. You know the dirty word of a dues increase, as the cost of doing business increases and revenue stays the same, if we can t seem to increase membership a dues increase may be the last resort. Last year we ended much better than we projected. Obviously when you are doing your budget you want to underestimate your income and try to be accurate or over estimate your expenses. As we see a trend of the narrowing of margins it has to be something that is on our minds. Wendy does an excellent job of giving us realistic projections and numbers and the data in here is supported by fact. We try to base our projections on what we truly feel are the real outcomes. There are some things that you can t put in the budget particularly on the income side because they are totally unknown. It would be easy to make the budget look much better if you could put those in and hopefully they will come about again this year and give us a better year than what we are projecting. Wendy, thanks for your help yesterday and your hospitality. 4 th VP Roger Bissen: I d like to also thank the Humboldt Fire Department. Chief, I saw your equipment out there and you ve got some really nice equipment. I d like to thank Dave and Wendy for allowing us to intrude on their home yesterday for the budget workshop. It was a good day for us. Back in December I went to a Fusion Center meeting. The Fusion Center contacted me and said that they wanted the fire service to be more involved in their program. I got a hold of Cliff and he asked if I would just go ahead and sit in on that meeting. Basically, what the Fusion Center is wanting is for the fire service to be a little more involved in the process of information sharing. A lot of this stuff is going to be law enforcement information and if you are outside the realm of law enforcement then you aren t going to be able to get some of it, but the whole goal of all of this is if there is a problem in your building, who s the first ones in? It s usually the fire service. We feel the chief officer or some key people need to know if they are going to be sending their people into danger. In our December meeting we were trying to put objectives together on which direction this whole committee is going to go. We have all kinds of agencies that were there. We had law enforcement, emergency management, fire, EMS, and the public sector there representing their groups. After we get some direction and get some guidelines in place it will end up working really well. Cliff and I went to a joint training facilities meeting back in December. We toured the academy and the fire service training bureau. We had law enforcement and fire service there. They pointed out a lot of what the needs were for both sides. There has been talk of wanting us to join together on a facility. Penny Westphal and Randy Novak are going to be doing some research on what are our goals for the future and what are our needs and we ll get back together and we ll have to

5 make a decision on whether it s the right thing for us to do to join together or not. It s not an easy decision to make. With budgets the way they are we have to look at all sides of things. We also need to look at what our needs are for the fire service. Legislation has already been touched on. I m looking forward to working at the capitol the next few months. I want to touch a little bit on what Ellen talked about with Fire Team USA. It was an eye opening experience and I was really impressed with the presentation. I went back home and I had visited with some people in my community and I had asked them What would be your first response if we started talking about residential sprinklers? Their first response was money, what s it going to cost? Second response was, is it going to flood my home? Those were the two big things. The stats that we were given I believe were that the average fire costs about $45,000. If the home is sprinklered, the average fire cost is about $2650. If we have room and content fire that starts in the corner of a room, the sprinkler head picks that up and activates and puts that fire out and your cost is a lot less than it is 8 minutes later when you have half the house on fire. You have between a 7 and 20 gallon per minute sprinkler head versus 150 gallons per minute coming from a 1 ¾ hose. The water damage is not there like you think it might be. I really think that is the way to go for the future. We just need to convince other people. I m with Ellen, don t tell us that we can t sprinkler a home. Randy Novak added that it is not only a property conservation issue, it is also a life safety issue. If the smoke gets to you before the smoke detector goes off you are likely to die from smoke inhalation. The residential sprinklers are creating that opportunity to escape that fire and it is also a firefighter life safety issue. The home builders have brought up that this is going to increase the cost of a home, which makes a home unaffordable. When we were watching 5 10% home cost increases over the last 8 or 9 years, when the economy was good, where were the home builders saying these homes are unaffordable? They didn t say anything about it then. Think of it in these terms, a sprinkler system would cost you on average if it was put in new construction, the same as an upgrade in carpet and padding. The home builders say it shouldn t be a mandate. Where were they when we mandated the use of the electrical codes or plumbing codes? Those are o.k. If they think some of these things should not be mandated maybe we should un-mandate the plumbing and electrical and let the chips fall where they may. Those are all considerations that should be part of these discussions. I think the arguments against sprinklers are really not as sound as everybody thinks. Roger Bissen: Everyone that gets involved with building construction, the type of floor joists that they use now, they call them an I-joist, just about every new home is built with that. The time that you have with that type of construction vs. a full 2x12 is hands down so much shorter, so it is a survival issue and a firefighter safety issue. 5 th VP Al Esch: First, I d like to extend my gratitude for Humboldt hosting this meeting today and Dave and Wendy for opening their home to a major intrusion yesterday. One of the things that I ve done since our last meeting in Guthrie Center was attend the Iowa Society of Fire Service Instructor s Conference in November. We had some pretty good speakers there and a pretty good turnout. I was elected to their Board of Directors for a two year term. We have a little bit of dove-tailing between the two organizations which should be beneficial to both groups. One of the things that the society is doing this year is applying for a 501c3 status and hopefully if we get that done we can look for alternative funding sources. We can t survive very long on just dues without raising them. It s a challenge. One of things that we see on the horizon, a quote I heard when the gavel fell to start the legislative session was, we are probably going to have to do more with less funding. As Iowans we may have to step up to the plate a bit more but as firefighters how much more can we do that. We ve been doing that for so long now it s almost second nature but on the other side of that you start to get burned out doing that as well. You need to balance that line a little bit. I attended both Delaware and Dubuque county meetings. I made a couple presentations for the IFA and talked a bit about what was going on in the association. I talked about the legislative agenda and also about the advantages of having an IFA credit card. I think we had about 3 applications that were sent in because of that.

6 I did make a trip to the legislature on Monday for the opening of the session. One of the comments I heard was you re a red coat, love you, glad to see you re here. It does make an impact having someone there. I didn t realize how much. It was good to hear that. I didn t talk to very many legislators. I talked to a few of them. We talked about the agenda. The biggest thing is that they have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. Steve Lukan told me there is going to be a major re-write on tax credits. This may be an opportunity for sticking in a provision for a firefighter tax credit. Whether or not this develops I don t know. I will be talking to Steve more. This past Friday I met with a couple of representatives from the Concrete Ready Mix Association safety committee. Over the past few years they have worked with Mike McKinnon on producing a safety video for the rescue of personnel from a concrete ready mix drum. That is available from them and they were looking for an outreach and possibly a partnership with the IFA in getting the word out, getting literature out, and possibly making their DVDs available. This is really in the infancy stage. We ll see where that goes. It could be county meeting type of presentation but they would like to see a ready mix truck on the scene and do evolutions on rescue. President Cliff Renslow: I appreciate being able to have the meeting here and Humboldt s offer to hold the meeting here again in the future if we want to. This is a busy weekend. We worked on the budget yesterday and it took a little time but I feel it is a comfortable budget that we can work with. Wendy is going to the capitol one day a week. I think it s going to work well. They already recognize her down there. Last year the Hall of Flame coordinator had a family emergency and had to leave the state. We had to rush around to get things in line for the state fair. Wendy will take care of the scheduling for the Hall of Flame this year as well. Anyone that would like to help this year can contact her. As you have noticed Past President Mike McKinnon is not here. As most of you may know, Mike has taken another job with a college in New Mexico as a Fire Science instructor. He was not able to be here this weekend. He has told me that he will be here for the Mid Year meeting, the June meeting and memorial service and the convention meeting in Perry. A lot of our communication is done by phone and so he is still in contact with us. He won t be going to Washington, D.C. this spring as a delegate for NVFC. Bob Platz will be going, 1 st VP Brian Hoffman and myself will be going and Wendy will be going with us again this year also. As far as Mid Year goes, Stoney Creek is about full. I blocked some more rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn just west of Stoney Creek. The number there is and the deadline is March 19 th. Committee Reports: NVFC Bob Platz: Bob was unable to be present. He sent a report. There isn t a lot going on right now. He is going out to Memphis in February to help read SAFER grants. He will be going to DC in April. He would also like to again thank anyone that helped with the NVFC Fall Conference last September in Coralville. Legislation Wendy Lensing: The Department of Public Health oversees EMS. Their Administrative Code has a statement about law enforcement using AEDs with the proper training that is set by EMS. We are going to try to work with EMS to get them to write a similar administrative rule for firefighters. Currently if a firefighter were at a scene before EMS arrived, if the firefighter was not trained they could not use AED even if it was on their truck. They are currently only allowed to use the AEDs on one of their other firefighters. Everyone else has touched on the sprinkler issue. When I was there last week I did get copies of our legislative agenda to all the legislator s mail boxes. I will be going to Des Moines on Wednesdays during this legislative session (weather permitting). President Renslow: One more thing, John Cox I see is here, I spoke with Senator Danielson and Senator Hancock last Tuesday when I was down there. This is an issue of a volunteer firefighter being hurt on scene and having added expenses that aren t covered by workman s comp.

7 Senator Danielson told me that he is going to be investigating that more thoroughly to be sure that volunteer firefighters aren t getting the shaft. We are leaving that in his hands right now. John Cox: I spoke to Senator Beal Friday and with Representative Tjepkes. Public health has a pre-draft right now that hasn t been in committee. I sent you a reply I had from the gentleman from that department with his suggestions for changing the work comp code. This is a study bill right now that will be going to committee and it s from Public Health. The suggestions that Adam Lounsbury made for changes to the work comp code can be added to the that bill. The other suggestion was to change what we passed last year on the Job Protection Bill and Dave thinks that would be more reasonable to do because he would have to get ahold of Rep. Schueller because he s the one that did the bill last year and have it take the one section to retain the benefits and the second part would force it back as the responsibility of the city. I m going to call Rep. Schueller and talk to him. Everything I send to everyone I also send to him since he drafted the bill last year. President Renslow: Like I said, when Ellen I were talking to Senator Danielson he said he would be doing some checking on what he can do so at that time we kind of left it in his hands. We re waiting to hear back from him. John Cox: With what happened to me there are no laws to protect volunteers. We need to get either the Iowa Code changed to show that while we are acting in an official capacity we are an employee of the city, there is nothing in the Iowa Code that states that. It all pertains to full-time, career guys. It s hogwash when my council tells me, Hey you re just a volunteer, take a hike. They are saying the law doesn t say we have to pay. President Renslow: I have everything that you have sent me and I forward all of it on to the rest of the board so that they know everything that is going on also. Convention Committee Brian Hoffman: We had another incident at convention involving a golf cart this past year that resulted in some damage to personal property. Wendy contacted our attorney regarding the liability of the IFA. Basically the jest of his was, everybody that goes to convention needs to act in a proper manner and part of the responsibility of the host city and the IFA is to keep everybody safe. Although we don t want to be the campground police and we don t have time to do that, it was his suggestion that maybe we add to our host town policy that they become the people that need to police the campgrounds a little tighter if that is what we need to do. I don t think any of us want to go to convention to be campground police or golf cart police. We are all there to have a good time and hopefully we all want to remain safe. What I did was put together some suggestions, sent it to the board and sent it to the convention committee and the responses that I got back are some of the changes that we might want to pass along to the host city. Perry has taken a look at this and the response that I got back from Perry is that they are probably going to be looking at a registration form for golf carts. Wendy Lensing: When Brian Eiteman sent me the information about their website being up and running I did pull it up and they do have something mentioned on there about golf carts being inspected and tagged or something to that effect. Brian Hoffman: His to me was that they would have a registration form, lighting inspection, name and responsible person in charge of the golf cart and an inspection tag of some sort and a $5 registration fee. I know we don t want to spend any more money when we go but we are also adding extra duties to the host community. As Jack mentioned once, it s a pay to play fee. I ve even mentioned maybe we need to look at the antique fire apparatus but right now I think we need to focus on the golf carts. Some of the things we discussed were curfews and this and that. I don t think we want to get to that point yet. I think people need to be responsible enough that if the host community puts out a list of rules that they would like to see people abide by that they will do that. I guess what I would like to do is add to our host town information packet that they put together a program on how to handle the golf carts and the second thing I would like to do is see us add that we are included as an additional insured party when they take out their insurance for their events. The golf cart issue has grown significantly over the past several years and I don t see it getting any less. I think that we as a board need to encourage these people to make it as safe as possible. I think Perry has taken the first step and I would like to see us include in our paperwork those two items.

8 Jack Runge made a motion to include in the host town information that the host town puts together a program to handle golf cart issues and that the contract includes that the IFA be named as an additional insured on the host town s convention event insurance policy. It was seconded by Ellen Hagen. Motion carried. Jack said at the state fair you have to fill out a form and there are a list of do s and don ts for the campground and if you don t adhere to that you can lose your camping rights for up to two years. Just having some sort of paperwork that they have to sign may start the wheels turning. Guests: Fire Marshal s Office Jeff Quigle: There is a lot of proposed legislation that the Fire Marshal s office is interested in: Carbon monoxide/smoke detectors in new housing construction to include both single family and multi-family construction. They are in favor of this bill. Flammable Liquid clean up bill. Several electrical and building code bills. Change in Chapter 100 to prevent the adoption of sprinkler installation in single family dwellings. A lot of the larger communities have sprinkler mandates in place. We are very much against not allowing adoption of sprinkler mandates. The chance of survival goes up to 80% in a sprinklered residence. Also looking at the SSB3030 as far as span of control for supervisors throughout the state government. Fire Prevention Bureau: All FTEs filled. Inspections Conducted: 1,246 Health Care Life Safety Surveys. Revisits Conducted: 608 K Tags Cited: 3,618 Number Break Downs: SNF: 520; Ambulatory Surgical Center: 18; NF: 38; Federal Misc: 10; ICF/MR: 374; Construction/Remodel: 139; Hospital: 141;Hospice: 6 The Federal Health Care program is currently meeting our Performance Measure in having all statement of deficiencies to the health care providers within 10 days of exit from the facility 100% of the time. The Fire Prevention Bureau conducted 239 School District Inspections which equates to 72% of Iowa s school districts having a current inspection. Iowa law requires an inspection once every two years. 282 Daycares and preschool inspections were conducted during calendar year These inspections are now conducted once every other year. Working with the DNR reference software for our Above Ground Storage Tank program. Talked about State Inspections Arson and Explosives Bureau: New agent in Eastern Iowa in Stockton. 3 agents going to bomb tech school. TRaCs software with State Patrol. Tracks all types of stats. Very excited about starting to use this. Stats for the Arson and Explosives Bureau last year: 76 accidental cases; 66 arson; 113 undetermined; 60 explosive disposals; 1 blasting complaint; 6 bomb threats; 19 suspected explosive devices. Staffing levels with budget we can keep going with what we have, but we can t lose anymore.

9 State Building Code Bureau: We did lose a Construction Engineer plan position in the 10% cut. We are currently meeting the required 60 day turn around on plan review and have noticed that more plan reviews are being requested. Electrical Bureau: The October - December quarter we received 6148 total inspection requests, 4182 inspections were completed within three days of request for inspection, giving us a 68.02% completion within three days of request for inspection. From January 1st thru the 9th we received 296 total inspection requests, 209 inspections were completed within three days of request, giving us a 70.61% completion within three days of request. To date we have 17,953 total inspection requests since inception of the program, and 671 total inspection requests since January 1, To date we have issued 15,516 permits since inception of program, and 515 permits have been issued since January 1, I do not have any stats on the # s of electrical licenses. Licenses are being issued within their guidelines at 100% of the time. Next year is going to be the State Fire Marshal s office 100 year anniversary. We are the oldest of the 4 divisions. It was formed in We will be trying to come up with something special to do. The Commissioner s office did announce that due to Jim Kenkel s retirement that they will be going through a selection process to name a new state fire marshal. Right now it is just open to DPS supervisors and those resumes must be submitted by February 1 st. Ellen asked Jeff if he had any information on the fire death task force. Jeff said that it needed to be looked at. He believes that 2009 will finish with 44 or 45 fire related deaths. Ellen stated that she thought what the task force had done so far was good. They had partnered with the home health care providers that were providing information to residents when they were visiting homes. Jack commended the fire marshal s office on the electrical inspection program. Jack also talked about the on-line reporting system like what Minnesota has that we would like to see implemented in Iowa. It is looking like possibly $250,000 start up and $14 15,000 per year maintenance and updates. There was lots of discussion on the benefits of this system and how to find funding for this. Fire Service Training Bureau Randy Novak: The Governor will be presenting his state budget to the legislature the end of January. We don t know what it looks like but we anticipate next fiscal year to be worse than this fiscal year. I am on a 7 furlough day schedule for the remainder of the fiscal year. I have taken 2 of them already. My contract staff is on 5 furlough day schedules. The impact of this will be seen directly at some of the regional fire schools. We will have people there, but we won t necessarily have a full complement of staff there. $68,042 is the 10% budget reduction to the training fund. We have started looking at and are cutting courses at the end of the year so that we balance that budget. Sometime this past week the money from the checkoff was supposed to be deposited. We have received official word that it has. The money we receive from the checkoff and the monthly money that we receive from the DOT for the Paul Ryan fund will not make up the $68,000. Last FY we offered 1388 programs with over 21,000 participants which is 9% increase from FY 08. I don t think we ll report a 9% increase for FY 10. When we close out this year I think we re going to see less numbers. We are at 9 FT staff members. Sandy is no longer with us. We have received approval to replace that position. I will be applying for next federal FY National Fire Academy state support grant. In the past that has been $28,000. We have been using that to fund Instructor

10 I and Instructor II, Fire Officer I and Fire Officer II courses. Those are endorsed courses by the Fire Academy so I m allowed to use my state training grant to do that. There is some word that language has been inserted in the reauthorization of the US Fire Administration that would actually bump those grants up so we are hoping to see an increase in the amount of those grants. If so that could mean more classes that we can offer that the feds are paying for. We are dually accredited to 12 levels. The certification program is looking at adding up to 3 additional levels for this current calendar year. Currently working with IFSTA on 8 th edition of Instructor s Manual. There will not be a Summer Fire School this year. The fire school the last weekend in January will be the 86 th Annual Fire School. We project that by next year we may have moved out of the January dates and moved a little closer to the end of February. We will probably add a 3 rd day to the fire school next year. We are offering 41 classes this year. There will be a Rescue Skills Weekend February 27 th 28 th. Basic Fire/Arson Investigator School is March 1 st 12 th. Volunteer Fire Chiefs Workshop is March 6 th. This will be a cost-share this year. Live Fire Skills Weekend will be April 17 th 18 th. Training Officers Workshop that would have been in May has been cancelled due to lack of funding. Working on selecting National Fire Academy direct delivery and regional delivery courses. We are trying to utilize minimum numbers and work with locations to most effectively use the training fund dollars. Fire school posters will be out before Annual Fire School. If anyone knows of a county that needs someone to come and speak at a meeting regarding the minimum training standards let Randy know. While they are cutting back costs on things they will not turn down requests regarding minimum training standards. Randy stated that documentation of training can be done however a department wants to do it. It s up to them how it is recorded. It just needs to be recorded. Randy also stated that they would be checking compliancy on NIFERS reporting before awarding revolving loan funds as that is part of the administrative code for that program. Dave Zimple complimented Randy and the Fire Marshal s office on the positive sounding comments that they reported. Despite the cutbacks it sounds like things are being done very well. Unfinished business: None New Business: John Cox: I would like to see the association create a committee to establish a fund to help injured firefighters. A lot of states have them. We do not. When I got injured there so no place for me to turn to other than what I was receiving for workmen s comp. There is nothing out there in Iowa. I sent Wendy information on something from Texas. If we could figure out if something like that is feasible and where we could get donations to fund it. In Texas they send in a narrative of what their hardship was and then the board or committee decides whether it is legitimate claim or not. I was covered for medical and covered if I died, but nothing in between. I took 12 weeks of family medical leave right when I was injured January 5 th of last year to protect my job until the job protection bill kicked in. After my medical leave was up my employer had jerked my insurance up from $60 a week to $280. This created a financial hardship and that increase was triggered by my injury. The city told me to take a flying leap. They won t pay for it because there is nothing in Iowa Code making them responsible for that. I m being penalized and am $10,000 in debt and could lose my job over this. Tuesday they are going to end up doing surgery on my other knee. I fell in a loop hole. I m being penalized by my employer for being a volunteer. They jerked my insurance up to 5 times what is was. What I m proposing with legislation is that an employer has to maintain your regular fringe benefits and anything above that (if they start charging COBRA

11 rates, etc.) the city would have to pick that up that added expense. I would still maintain my own cost, the $60, and the city would have to pick up that $220. There is nothing to fix what has happened to me but maybe we can fix it so this doesn t happen to the next person and their family. Two days after I was injured my wife found out she had a brain tumor and 6 months later when she went in for a check up they found she had a brain aneurysm. We had so much stuff dumped on our plate in one year and 2 weeks before Christmas she had brain surgery again. President Renslow: The member benefits committee will look into this. The board will be putting forth a resolution at the Mid Year meeting to change the title of Administrative Assistant to Executive Director. With everything that Wendy does for us, Ellen had found a job description that more accurately describes her duties. This will not change her duties, it just more closely fits the description of what she is already doing. The description of an Executive Director is more commonly employed as a means of distinguishing the Senior Operating Officer of a non-profit organization. The title helps to distinguish these organizations from businesses and calls attention to their non-profit status. Often the scope of their responsibilities involves direct interaction with both employees and volunteers of the organization, working with the Board of Directors to ensure the entity is functioning according to it s mission statement and goals and working with the financial officers to ensure that the non-profit is working within it s budget. In addition to addressing the day to day functions of the organization most Executive Director jobs require the individual holding the position to look toward the future. This often involves working alone and with others on the team to create and develop events, fundraisers, strategies and organization enhancements that will raise public awareness of the underlying cause for the formation of the non-profit and help to ensure the future function of the organization. It is not unusual for the Executive Director job to also require that the director function as a spokesperson for the organization, issuing statements to the media and making public appearances on behalf of the organization. We feel this describes Wendy s position and the title will lend more credibility to her position when she is scheduling meetings and things like that. It will be in the next newsletter and brought up as a resolution at the Mid Year meeting. Good of the Association: Dave Zimple on behalf of the Iowa Pipeline Association: I would like to thank Jack and Ellen for being on the web-ex earlier this week. We had a few technical difficulties getting it started. I would like to thank both of them for their comments on going this via computer this year instead of having everybody come into the Stoney Creek like they have in the past. It seemed all of the comments were positive. I don t know what that will bring in the future. Starting Tuesday the Iowa Pipeline Association will be starting their 25 meeting tour of the state of Iowa. We start Tuesday in Nevada and end up on March 25 th in Fort Madison. Randy is going to put a link on their website for registration and I would like to ask the IFA to do the same. (Wendy said it is already on there) The IFA has been very supportive of the Iowa Pipeline Association has been doing. We have a four year plan starting last year where there will be a meeting in every county within that 4 year period. You should never have to travel more than one county to a meeting. I know a lot of people in the room have been to the meetings and I thank you for that. Last year the numbers were up like 30%. The meeting was adjourned at 12:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Wendy Lensing Administrative Assistant Iowa Firemen s Association