here present yes present here sir brought in the midst of all that we've experienced today we certainly are grateful for your grace and your mercy that allowed us to assemble in this place we ask for your continued blessings upon our city as we discuss as we assemble ourselves in a conversational way so that our city expands itself persons in our community expand themselves we ask it we claim it you know Lord before I end this prayer I pray not for rain today before your continued son to shine pleasantly on us and this city we ask it in your name pleasant with the part two of the general fun department's presentation and good afternoon I kind of started our presentation last Tuesday I believe at Public Works Week when we give a few ideas and when we were asked to do a presentation we kind of all look back on our accomplishments and I'm not going to speak for everybody here but you sit here like that's 365 days ago a lot happened in 365 days so a lot gets accomplished and sometimes it's hard to point out just a few but some of the things sir we didn't bring popcorn today okay sorry we could have but you miss some good snow cone Saturday I know that so so one of the one of the accomplishments we met we had last year was candy cane parking lot the candy lane parking lot and part of the Saluta Riverwalk we were asked once they decided that the Saluta Riverwalk was going to be so popular to go in and build a parking lot this was a collaboration not only with our divisions but across departments the design was done by engineering the work was done by street division traffic and forestry with lights and landscaping and working on some of the the paving parks and rec came in after the fact parking came in after the fact and Dana Higgins herself secured the millings that we got for free so we didn't have to use a lot of crush and run so it's just part of a overall a collaboration but that was a great accomplishment of just inner city workings every day the other one that we've got we've talked about for years as we want to become a no kill shelter and I'm going to talk a little bit about it in a little bit about next year but the animal services had a live release rate of 78% last month was 86% so our numbers continue to climb and I believe that next slide we'll talk about why they continue to climb and some of the things we're doing the big accomplishment which was a hindrance to begin with was the addressing service free service challenges amid a staffing crisis everybody knows our solid waste division got behind a lot of people argue I think we got behind about two and a half or three weeks somewhere in there and with a increased onboarding process the open interview process we talked a little bit about that last week quickly we filled 35 positions in public works we started with solid waste it worked out so well with the open interviews we immediately went to Caleb when he was here came up and said hey we need to do forestry animal came up and said we need to do animal uh street divisions up here and Denise and her staff was very quickly to expand that whole program for express staffing that we had to work we actually ran some of the numbers on that running through express only cost us like a dollar and six cents an hour extra than what it does for our staff to get them on full time as we work them 150 hours so thanks to Denise I think she's here somewhere her staff and everybody to get us quickly staffing we still follow up follow that model for everybody except CDL drivers so almost every division in public works right now has staff that's going through express that we're putting quicker on the street to get the work done each and every day the other one was the CDBG paving project Booker Washington Heights it was completed in a timely fashion we didn't think it was going to be there for a while the the weather held out but it turned out real well if you haven't drove through there the streets look good neighbors neighbors seem to be happy so it was a great project through CDBG money missing thank you your staff for awarding that the other one that is a kind of an odd accomplishment that we put on our list was the forestry equipment consolidation and that means a lot more probably to us than it does a lot of people but in a conversation Caleb and I was walking our yard one day they've got a truck they haul mulch in they've got a truck they water trees with and we're sitting there talking why do we have two trucks the trucks that water trees with sets here about seven months out of the year so what we decided to do was trade those two trucks in they were ready for replacements their early 2000 models maybe one of them's a late 1990s model we traded those two trucks in we're buying a hook lift truck so we will be able to actually water when we want to water and if it rains like it did Saturday or any other day at my house yesterday we'll set the water tank off we can immediately put another body on the truck we bought it with three different bodies we can haul mulch the next day with it or we can use it for multi-purpose in the winter we'll be able to haul mulch with it we also bought a landscape bed with it so that's just an idea of innovation we have of trading in two trucks buying one truck three different bodies and using it for different things throughout the year it actually is a hook that hooks on the front of the container and drags itself back on old word roll-off truck okay it's just a non-cdl hook lift trucks or a roll-off truck so you can just put multiple containers on it within five months so it should be here we're thinking late june early july so our priorities and goals for next year we're going to evaluate our current solid waste route efficiencies we've actually incorporated a lot of growth and customer base in our areas if anybody's been out to wood creek farms which started about 20 years ago wood creek farms is a massive massive subdivision right now i could sit here and name lists of subdivisions that have been built out over the years you know if you get in our monday colonial commons honey tree some of those areas are just continuing to add homes and everybody said why is they they're they're growing so fast well if you go back to wood creeks wood creek farms early they were stick building houses out there there was actually just one at a time hey here's a contractor build me a house about uh maybe wrong about this six or seven years ago the developer out there started to call in the sx homes and some of the big builders and all of a sudden instead of four or five homes a year they started building 30 and 40 and 50 homes a year and filling that that with the housing boom is happening all over columbia so we're going to look at our route routes for two things possible route adjustments which is one of the most painful things you can do in the solid waste industry but also future route growth of where we need to go if we need to add additional equipment or not the other priority one of our priorities next year sustainability we've got both the leap and lead grants the leap grant is more of a going into lower income areas and learning how that they can save energy it should be a good model through what we're doing not only for our partners but we can grow this program as we go the lead grant for those of you that have been around a while is kind of the mirror to our starred certification we'll actually find out where we are in our sustainability effort those kickoff around june 1st and of course we're always going to be able to talk about our ready for 100 which is the energy dependence by independence by 2036 for renewable energies we have a resolution that i believe will be probably deferred to eni committee real soon from our cpac group that we will be bringing forward on that the animal shelter the completion of our best friends to meet our no kill status the best friends coalition out of the state has offered us a hundred thousand dollars the hundred thousand dollars will be zero dollars of reoccurrence that was one of our stipulations so a lot of this money will go into our shelter and go into marketing our animals so we can reach our no kill status and get us to that get us to where we need to be so we hope to cross that bridge next year with an eighty percent eighty six percent live release right now we hope that we can sustain that and get um up into the 90s and you want to be around 90 for that to happen on a consistent basis the sidewalk grinding for trip hazards sarah's worked on it diligently last year we put 50 000 into it we started grinding in cotton town thank you sarah cotton town uh last year we're actually restarting that project next week and we have some reoccurring money next year we're using a contractor to grind anything between a half inch and two inches and then we'll replace anything over two inches they can't grind it gets too thin the two other projects we got last or next year are paving projects is calhoun street which is hopefully bid real soon and then the uh one that is going to be probably the one of the one of the biggest ones we'll do for a while will be our wood creek farms uh road rebuild we have a meeting on june 27th with their uh their delegates to actually start the process and explain to them what's going to happen out there and how dirty it's going to be and how dusty it's going to be and for those of you that was around when we did lost creek drive in my neighborhood i got i got a lot of complaints about lost creek and how red the cars were when it started raining right after we took the cap off the road so we're going to try to tell them how painful this is going to be in the end they will have a great project we hope so that's my presentation where's the funding for those two you want is calhoun street penny tax no they're both cdb they're both um ctc the striping on calhoun is penny tax so we're striping with penny money we're paving with ctc funds yeah the county transportation yeah gas tax county transportation commission and wood creek farms is also going through county all part uh cost per mile to repay these days we're estimating calhoun street to be about 800 thousand and i don't know the link now wood creek farms is 1.4 million but it's a total rebuild so we're doing the engineering on it we'll believe it'll be a uh some kind of full depth patch we just don't know how deep we're going we don't know how much concrete they're going to put in all the streets out in the wood creek or in the city no part part of them the developer has a list of what it would take to get the remaining streets storm drains and sidewalks in and he has to make that deliverable back to engineering but and then we'll inspect them from there probably just a comment how do you all um decide obviously there's a lot of paving needs how are you prioritizing which ones to start with first so we're also with ctc funds just completing a pavement evaluation study and what it will do will rank our pave our streets based on a percentage or i'm not sure how that's going to work yet we actually had one 12 years ago that we're still working off of and that's how we pick our worst streets robert in the midst of and i must say a complimentary word the midst of all the uncertainties the last but just a complimentary word public words public words have done but just an outstanding job in doing what we need to get down in the midst of thank you and thank you and i'll follow that up with when we talked internally a little bit about accomplishments i'm you know what did we accomplish somebody said we survived and that's just about right we did survive you know the one thing we put first and foremost is our garbage collection that's followed by our recycling collection followed by our trash collection i'm sorry it takes the the last of that but when you're short on garbage you take from trash and you create your garbage but as i go out to see my dear friend that used to work here david notes and i hear him how the county's picked ended up two weeks late i don't feel so bad now that our garbage is getting picked up on time a street vehicle it said video services just keep it we're keeping an eye on you sir it would take more than one truck so what we're actually doing is our video inspection unit should have come to touch a truck so our video inspection unit actually is a camera just like the waste water department uses and we actually go into pipes we look at pipes see what the deficiencies are we map our pipes so we know what needs to be replaced if we're getting any infiltration and stuff like that so that's what those two units do thank you robert next up is parts and recreation mr randy davis director randy good afternoon honorable mayor recommend city council and city man city manager teresa wilson thank you for the opportunity to come before you today to speak about the accomplishments in parks and recreation in fiscal year 21 22 and priorities and goals for the next fiscal year parks and recreation mission statement this has changed lives through a cultural transformational leadership innovation and customer phenomenal customer service if you have questions now though we can attempt to answer them but that was the intent mayor did you have a question for about public works in particular okay okay sounds good so in parks and recreation we strive to be a national leader in providing quality parks and recreation experiences for all in highlighting our accomplishments we were able to complete hi at park phase one phase one included daylighting the stream pedestrian um lighting walkways playground splash pad amphitheater and a band shell and gateway improvements public art projects that were completed in fiscal year 21 22 included place at valencia park wilton park hi at park and 1401 main street the additional parking spaces that you heard about in robert's presentation took place in 21 22 additional parking spaces and lighting at the salute of riverwalk parking lot we installed pickleball courts at woodland park one pickleball one tennis court was transformed into two pickleball courts and at southeast park four tennis courts were two tennis courts were transformed into four pickleball courts welcome we received the greatest for the record i want everybody to know that this gentleman who's been fighting for pickleball doesn't even play you mean to say he did not play i thought he had a paddle i will i will challenge you oh i'm coming i am down not on this court you will so another success in this fiscal year we received a grant from the south canada recreation south canada parks and recreation tourism to improve access to the salute of river currently we're we're moving forward with the conceptual plan and in securing design consultant for finley park that will conclude within this fiscal year the budget priority and goals from the projects from the community development block grant but those happen in in previous fiscal years actually that's correct we've made improvements to a number of our playgrounds in particular eb sessions which is in the book of washington heights community we also made improvements at lord park two playground features there and we made improvements at fairwald park which is located off of north main with a walking trail outdoor exercise equipment and a shelter and two two playground structures there as well oh yes we're actually in phase one of ts martin in which we um probably should have made this this presentation as phase one of ts martin park and we're pursuing um another initiative going forward in the new fiscal year at um ts martin randy randy in in the goals and budget priorities for 2023 where does the design redesign of maze park fit into that uh structure i know you've listed a lot of stuff but not understanding exactly where these different improvements go when you talk about ball fields and bleachers playground splash pads it's trying to understand how those are being allocated and where um they're allocated and then my other question is is i know that there was a prt grant at one point for more access one of the the complaints we still get though is that there's not enough public access on the riverfront at different opportunities and i guess i i want to kind of know how we're coordinating that because you know one of the things if you've had the opportunity to float down the river you're still having to go through you're having to hike over boulders to get there and there really should be an easy slew access off candy lane to get people in but also at various other points and as as we're discussing riverfront development finishing the greenway making these connectivities access is one of the things that's very limited and so i'd like to you know make sure that we're pursuing the prt but also making sure is that as we're moving forward and improvement areas that we're discussing excuse me the additional access to the river that's that's accurate um mayor recommend what we're continuing to look at in terms of um access will address it in one aspect with the South Carolina Parks and Recreation Tourism Grant which will allow the the canoers to walk down the on the pedestrian bridge walk to and go down the steps into to the water right now currently they have to walk over boulders to get underneath the bridge to get into the water so we hope to make some improvements um with this grant but we'll probably need to look further down the line and prioritizing improvements not only for our greenways and and park facilities but also our river access yes sir that's um that's a hundred thousand dollars yes it's a 20 percent match yeah we would continue i think there's already been about a million allocated so i think if that money stays in from the general assembly mr taylor we would um continue with the design phase that we've already started and hopefully begin to see some construction if that money comes to fruition i haven't seen yet that it's nailed down but i'm pretty sure dana has shared with the uh delegation members who asked what we've been able to do thus far we do yes so in further um progress for us 22 23 we want to develop a master plan that will help us identify current and future trends and priorities in parks greenways and recreational facilities and many of those projects are capital improvement projects to um get to your answer mayor that includes many of the infrastructure improvements that need to happen with our our facilities ball fields fencing bleachers playground splash pad which will also um taken to consideration maize maize park we're going to we plan to partner with it to install public use computers in our recreation centers upgrading department's inventory process with city work store room software to improve operations and efficiency explain that a little bit it was one of those things that i marked that i i didn't quite understand what what that city works store room software actually how does that improve the operation so this will allow um real-time data on ordering and knowing what you have in your inventory for us materials and supplies and it'll allow us the the efficiencies from um from managers to know what's in our inventory and we'll know more accurately how frequent and how often we need to order materials and supplies without being redundant and over ordering of equipment and supplies and we will be able to be efficient in this process with the with the intentions of hire of not necessarily having to hire another person in inventory which currently we have that had to utilize in technology to to become more efficient and effective yes sir correct well um youth teenagers adults and seniors will all have the ability to come to our parts to have access to the internet that that again is um one of those items that will and working with missy kaufman that's going to be in our our cip which which is not part of this presentation here yes we have some preliminary numbers that we've um started to to research and then it'll take approximately based on the number of computers in all the software it'll take um we're looking at approximately a hundred thousand dollars maybe well i can't speak to the to the cost of you know what it takes from a it perspective but from the preliminary numbers that i receive was um approximately a hundred thousand dollars from it i would just make a note that this is one of the opportunities where having grants folks being able to tackle um talking to other cities and other opportunities there's a lot of corporate support for programs especially in underserved communities in parks and recs where computers and other things can be granted and i think you know this is one of the things is we embark on the bringing in the grant folks to help us achieve our goals these are even the smaller grants like this we need to make sure that they're they're reaching out because there's a lot of opportunity that we could get reimbursed for this type of investment and not have to to use our funding but use funding that's available out there for these types of projects i think parts of recreation has been really successful one of our departments who's invested in um a contract with a grants professional mayor as you're aware and they've been pretty successful i know if you or henry want to speak to that um randy but maybe make sure he knows about the need for additional technology yes we we meet um just about every other monday and we go over um a number of grant projects that that we're exploring we'll also ensure that on a technology standpoint that we explore opportunities and work with potential donors that would be interested in the implement implementing technology in our parks particularly for underserved populations if you start out with uh yeah miss herber wow i just want to clarify um this um partner with it to install computers and then we mentioned every having um internet access so we have internet access or wi-fi access at most of our parks or all of our parks okay for free and just to add some clarification as well um it along with parks and recreation did an assessment of our current computers that we have deployed in in our facilities um it's been about six months or so and we did a clear assessment of what we need to upgrade and replace and we've started that process actually at the billfield center their new computers already installed at the billfield center so we are assessing in collaboration with it to ensure that our public computers are upgraded because one of the things that we want to focus on is there there are young people that are out there that may not have access to a computer at home there's also um teenagers and some adults that don't have a laptop so by offering these public use computers they can come into our facilities and apply for a job so that's the that's one of the goals of upgrading those so we can make sure that our the the public our youth our seniors at times have access to those particular computers uh henry and it'd be a great idea as we program these computers like the first thing that pops up on the screen when it turns on hey if you're looking in looking for a job direct them to our website first sure i'm sure that it can help help us out with that so staying on the issue of technology um we want to continue utilizing online registration in a payment portal which includes registration for all of our programs rentals athletic programs after school camps and summer camps and that process started in in may of 2021 and we really picked up started in january after mayor came into office and ensured us that we're open for business if the revenue really took took off from there another um innovation that we want to to embrace is equipping our maintenance division staff um with ipad so begin again um close out and respond to work orders in a more timely manner which again will make us um that much more effective and efficient yes and um in the coming fiscal year we want to complete the design for finley park renovations and secure additional funding needed for construction randy when will we have the final design and total cost updated cost projections based on the design we're probably um a couple months out from that that i think in september i would i would say that's a realistic time frame so the goal um is to finalize the actual design stand tech is working through design now so the goal is to have the finalized design completed by the end of the year and the hope is working with with jeff and his team to identify some funding sources so we can move into the construction do rfp identify who's going to actually do the construction and move it forward but the design itself will be done by the end of the year indria they is stand tech having any public design charats or getting outside input for programming for the for finley park you know we did a we did a lot of that preliminary uh when we were presenting in the community so we got a lot of feedback already from the community they are taking what we have presented to them what worked and what might not work right right we're kind of going back and forth about about some of that now as we're going through the process thank you that concludes that concludes my um presentation questions thank you randy great job thank you that takes us to another one of mr simons department's general services with our director kelvin keesler and general services of course encompasses fleet services and support services good afternoon mayor city councilman city manager uh thank y'all again for giving us the opportunity to present during this budget workshop and provide our accomplishments for this current physical year and look at some opportunities as we move forward uh first uh tell you a little bit about support services um we maintain 56 buildings within the city of columbia and tim parking structures for you need me to hold on for a second yes sir um is it possible at some point absolutely we have uh as far as what support services maintains we can definitely get that to mr simons he can share that with y'all absolutely okay so again we have uh 56 buildings that we maintain uh and 10 parking structures uh during the course of uh 21 22 we completed uh renovations at the payment center and customer care center at 3000 harden street and open that facility up and then we completed the cpd code enforcement uh at 9 20 hemlock and open that facility again like miss wilson said we do comprise a fleet services division so i just wanted to touch on that i know that's not general fund but what fleet services does touches all departments uh we adequately and effectively maintained approximately 2950 pieces of equipment we completed purchase of approximately 95 percent of the physical year 21 22 capital expenditures for vehicles that was a challenge uh with some of the computer uh and chip shortages but we have successfully navigated through most of that and uh working to finalize that last little bit uh we've invested in certification training uh for sleep fleet services staff uh leadership training fire apparatus training uh tire replacement uh safety and fort lift training we've added uh two fully electric vehicles and we're very excited about that to the city's fleet it's a f-150 lightning which will be coming hopefully here before too much longer to street division and then a nissan uh leaf uh to support services division moving into our uh budget priorities and goals uh for fy 22 23 uh we would like and support service to complete the 1401 main uh renovations we'd like to restart our roof uh replacement program with the target of replacing uh four roofs uh this uh physical year 22 23 with we are in need of some uh maintenance projects uh at fire stations three fire station six some exterior painting at o'clair town hall and some minor interior renovations at uh divine street police that's a cpd south region we would also like to look at hiring as a consultant to investigate uh building replacement for rest we west region police that's uh in harbison uh as i don't know if most of y'all know but it's a small hoover building uh that has kind of reached the end of his life so we'd like to look at um investigating that with cpd uh consultant and finding a new location for west region police we'd also like to look at a multi-use training complex you know as uh we have a lot of different training opportunities uh around the city within fire and police to maybe utilize a multi-use complex to kind of combine some of those efforts so we would like to look at that uh with a consultant as well then moving forward the uh address needs of our city parking facility uh within support services we do maintain those 10 parking structures uh so we would like to uh to include some capital projects that need to be completed along with some elevator replacements at two of our older facilities then in yeah sir you're not you're not doing any projects until we get the parking study back correct that that is correct sir what were the two older structures so that's taylor street uh parking garage uh sumpter street and then also lady street we're looking at as well those are our three older facilities and that that would include looking at skinning the outside or repainting and some of those things that that we've been discussing yeah we have some uh major needs as far as uh interior uh life safety uh battery backup stuff for lights exits uh some spalling that's going on inside the garage when you get taken care of but yes we would like to look at some of those aesthetics uh as well as for those facilities there unfortunately all of those garages are prominent corners that are visible from multiple areas as visitors and folks come into town so i think we need to be looking at that as well yes sir uh so taylor street lady street and sumpter street yes sir so so that great question uh we do program those we have a vendor that does the exterior outside of the building we have staff that do inside the building pressure washing so uh emergent exit light devices so uh battery backup inside of our parking facilities for our lights some of our older facilities are not equipped with that um sites and lights inside the facility yeah so and investigating what we need as far as where that location work with police and maybe you know work with police to determine where that location would be and i think mr taylor and scep may chief may address it when during his presentation i think we've talked about it maybe in the public safety committee it's time for him to do a full assessment that's really just one part of it but as far as the regions the needs the facility assessment holistically for pd yes sir no they'll work together yes sir sure well we we did do it internally last year or so a whole assessment for pd internally i don't know that it was received so whichever way internally or externally but we we've already presented something one time with our internal effort so we'll figure that out certainly yes but that west region i think helvin brought that up because from his standpoint that's just an immediate need whether or not as part of a bigger study or not i mean that's a butler building yeah well you're exactly right i mean and if that you know that immediate west region need is something that a realtor to help us out with i mean sure we we actually already have an idea of a site for that west region yeah yeah we do all right all right uh and finally on the fleet services like i said they touch all areas and wanted to highlight two specifically the equipment purchases and delivery schedule and anything we can do to expedite fleet purchases due to minimize the impact that the supply chain issues we're having we're seeing longer and longer lead times for equipment and then increased fuel costs for 22 23 will continue to be a concern those costs are continue to rise they will affect every budget in the city we'd like to develop a fleet maintenance apprenticeship program we're having a harder time getting folks into the industry maintaining equipment so we'd like to develop and grow some staff internally and bring them on board and become long-term employees for the city of clumbia we've been working with midlands technical college uh but would like uh any other areas to reach out as well also richland want we've worked with us from one in the past i think that's one of the best things i've seen up there to be honest with you killin i think it's a great opportunity um and anybody who hasn't spent any time at fleet maintenance should go down there and see what these guys do and when they do it and how hard they work but this would be a great opportunity for us to to tap some good long-term employees with an opportunity brad nice at ready i see runs the state apprentice program where they do a copay with you so that'll be your first call okay perfect thank you all right and then we'd like to develop electrical vehicle roadmap for converting a percentage of our fleet to all electrical vehicles again looking at what needs and then also infrastructure that would be needed as well as we move forward and then complete the fleet services expansion project to provide adequate space for all maintenance activities we're currently working on some equipment outside uh there has been funding identified for that expansion at fleet services we're working with an engineer now on that design just just for my own and i i don't remember but when we bought belt line part of the back are we using all of belt line currently now we are every inch of it we are any other questions are recharging stations your responsibility apart from service so we're we handle the facilities and those structures are inside the facility and we maintain them so they're ours are you charging for are you charging for charging now so i i don't think we're currently charging for that uh we do not handle any of the fees associated we just maintain it so parking operation actually handles the fees associated with that all cities that are moving now because of the demand are all moving to pay for charge units all paid by private sector just like an atm or this and that they're all running it separately met with a group last week that you know is interested our problem is like most cities everybody's pushing to expand this but we don't have the infrastructure and the grid availability to handle all this at one time so we've got to be very cautious as we move forward that we don't put in this push to do this and then it creates other problems for our residents and others so there's a lot of work to be done on this yet before we can start converting at the rate that some communities are or some folks want us to um it's i mean it can be but you got to have the the quick charge and that's one of the things that's that's being pushed out there you know people are still having issues of getting from place because what we have i mean you got to have a quick charge to get that and so there's and you know one of the things is there is no rate either that's different for the quick charge so they're paying 1314 plus markup so really talking about 17 cents a kilowatt to upcharge so there's there's a lot of discussion to have on that as we embark forward and i just wanted to reiterate miss wilson that as this council has expressed beautification and ensuring that our city looks up to the standard that we hold ourselves just ensuring that as we go into this new year we continue to maintain the exterior of our buildings is really important i think it sends a message that we care and we want people to come to our city so some of the even small but significant changes of pressure washing and making sure that you know um our windows and and medians are looking good it's going to be important absolutely that's right thank y'all very much thank you kelvin next up another one of mr simons department's the emergency communications 911 miss jackie richbart director hey jackie thank you all so good afternoon um and thank you all for allowing me to come up and share what you and talk with you about our accomplishments and our budget thank you sorry um so one of the accomplishments that i would like to share is we received the training officer of the year from the state of south carolina and that was a big accomplishment for us because we've been accredited i'm sorry we've been consolidated with the county since 1999 and so this is the first time that we ever received that award so that was a big accomplishment for us we were very excited for that our second accomplishment is our clear accreditation so we successfully completed our second year of clear accreditation and we've been accredited since 2003 so we just want to kind of keep going down that that path to continue to be accredited um our next accomplishment is our annual complaints we um dropped um the complaints by 50 percent so that was a really big accomplishment for us for the last couple of years they've been kind of high but we've dropped them so we're we're very proud of that and and glad that we're able to to get those complaints down and we kind of what we do with those complaints is when we have a complaint instead of kind of holding it off and talking with them later we address it immediately and we see that that's been very effective so and also our stats we process over a million calls um last year and out of those calls we dispatched about 430,000 calls and it's taken us it took us 12 seconds to answer 911 calls and this year so far it's taken us about 10 seconds to answer 911 calls um according to the NENA standards 95 percent of our 911 calls should be answered within 15 seconds and we've consistently been below that number so that's a really good accomplishments what we do in that area is our supervisor and our manager now become telecommunicators and call takers and so we kind of help with that a little bit and then when we have a major incident um our my administrative staffs takes off their administrative hat and put on a telecommunicator and call taker hat and we go in on the operation floor and assist with um filling those calls and handling the calls can i ask you under your 2022 stats at the process to what is that what date is that through are you on track to be at 1200 i mean 1.2 million again is that where you're headed yes yes so this is just a quarterly number well we actually did it from um from january until uh april okay yes so our complaints dropped 50 percent um so the concerns vary from um yes um but they they we kind of dropped them 50 percent because what we used to do is just kind of wait until maybe when we have end of the week or end of the month and that wasn't working so well for us so what we did is we looked at it to say how can we you know kind of address these like immediately and so the what we start doing is immediately when we receive the concern we pull all the data and then we just bring the employee in and talk with them let them know what happened and what they should be doing going forward so that's how we're able to kind of cut that down the dropping of the complaints then comes from the addressing of the our employees and so they are now being trained more immediately and you're seeing the the benefit of that training absolutely impact with the right when you put them back on the floor yes okay okay very good and just one more question just so clear under the process phone calls is that city or both city county city and county city and county yes thank you you're welcome and we'll move on to our budget priorities and goals and so we're focusing on the staffing and retention and i do want to say thank you to miss javis and her wonderful team for the staffing and retention we were able with the career fairs we were able to attract eight applicants that we'll be bringing on um may of may the 31st so the helping with the career fairs has really been beneficial for us so i want to thank her and her team again miss Sharon and see the professional development that kind of goes along with the complaints again we're sending some of our employees out for additional training also we're doing some online training with them as well and that's also assisting with the customer service our complete of the installation of our guardian tracking software that is what we will be implementing for the 2022 2023 budget and that will also help us with making sure that we see trends and things like that before it becomes a complaint so we're seeing the trends up front when it comes to issues or concerns and if we have to bring an employee back for training additional training in a certain area this system will assist us in capturing that data what is that like if it's taken too sorry i mean it's hardly i'm sorry if a call time is taken too long for a particular employee what is it what is it track what's the guardian track software maximize okay so what it attracts is um so if we have an employee that's maybe taken too long in processing a call right now everybody's working we're all working and so we're not able to actually see that until it becomes a complaint so the system what to do it it will flag to say because we have 120 seconds to answer phone call from 911 what's your emergency to engine to respond to whatever address so we're not meeting that 120 seconds time frame this system will flag it capture it send us the report and then we were going to look at what's occurring and why it's occurring and kind of put the employee operations yes is this also roll out the I guess does it track what services are sent to respond to calls whether it's EMS fire police no it it's not that time that is separate a metric that's you track yes that goes into the efficiency of your operation yes that's all cad software tritec cad software that tracks that well we use that to kind of narrow down these hot spots on where we're sending all the services for folks the homeless and mental health and addiction calls yeah and you know from it's very interesting if you look at the data that we're able to track and how we should be using that as we move forward to help help folks when that came up in our fire service obviously you know it's a future growth of their department where the where the calls are coming from thank you welcome and um this year 2022 2023 we are looking forward to completing our third year of khalia accreditation we're going to be attending some more training classes and some PAC meetings as well and that will assist us in in reaching that goal to successfully complete the third year you do your accreditation every year I thought the cpd did it about every four years we do we do the accreditation every four years as well four years yes but what they do is they do it online so instead of them coming in house so we do it online so that they can look into our files and look into our records through the web instead of actually coming here and then on our fourth year of accreditation is when they actually come on site and upgrading of our flooring chairs painting and consoles in the center we we're looking forward to getting that done we've actually already started with the chairs we received them on Friday and we also did some painting thanks to Kelvin and his team they are amazing so and we have to be in compliance with the risk assessment we had a risk assessment and they kind of told us some areas that we needed to improve and so we're looking forward to moving forward and accomplishing some of those those items what one of your things was focus on staffing and retention where are you in the staffing levels currently so currently we have 18 vacancies and like I said on May the 31st we'll be getting eight employees on board and with the increase that we received we were able to attract some some very good candidates we've also hired some candidates from other nine one centers so yes so we have 18 and like I said those eight and thanks to miss have to keep saying this miss javis and her team we're looking forward to getting the other positions field and I should know this off the top of my head I don't from the time someone hires the training process what is the time frame from training a new employee for them then to be able to get into the console it depends on the position and it depends on the individual so if you're training on something like fire or EMS it could take up to six months to a year law enforcement because it's always just redundant I mean it's the same all the time law enforcement can be for them to actually be by themselves can take about three months and I just had just for my clarification you'll have 18 vacancies after the eight she'll have so to be that the eight will reduce the 18 to 10 yes yes and all those are on us as the city to fell or is there a county I mean don't we split E911 yes my budget is split 50 50 city and county it's still all under us to manage yes do you want to talk about the you know in this kind of interim time frame we're in and the work that you have been doing with Ms. Snowden from the county and the sheriff and I mean Mr. Simons might want to speak to it as well but I don't think that would be some context for the council that you know we're kind of still in a waiting period but we've briefed the staff the sheriff and myself you Mr. Simons we try to keep the staff updated on the horizon of a consolidated center the location they we've taken them to the potential location so they can see it and feel it and understand what that might mean for them but the biggest thing for for me I know and for you as well is ensuring that these employees as that time gets nearer that we're transitioning them as employees of the Richland County Sheriff Department but beginning to phase in and as we've already done with some of the salary increases phasing that in in a way that it's going to be seamless yes so we do have meetings with them and I work with Stephanie and her team as well so right now we're like you said in a in a stalling phase the information we did receive was that it was the transition would occur July 1 of 2024 and so we're still kind of working out the information about the salaries and the staffing and things like that so that's still ongoing we're super excited we the space is going to be largest what we need and so we're excited about about moving over because we've been out of space for over over 20 years so we're excited about that yes and thank you for all you're doing to you know make sure the staff is getting all the information because that that's um hard sometimes to be hearing about something on the horizon and not knowing all the details so I really think that um you know more recently the information has been a lot better and we're going to keep doing what everything we can to be transparent thank you gonna take those new chairs with you and that's why we've been you know we've really put off to be honest about that Mr. Brennan some things we really can't put off life safety things you know just even for two more years these are like some serious you know this they got to get those chairs and the painting done we don't want to have anyone hurt themselves in any way yes sir where are you located at well you know street at the fire the fire headquarters at Laurel in the back you know fire the 911 always used to have to be kind of tucked away and hidden away from everything we used to be at the water department at um 1225 Laurel but yeah now we're um housed with chief jinkins yes sir where the old Burlington was Burlington is gone yes ma'am thank you thank you Jackie thank you okay so speaking of yes sir yes sir Jackie ma'am just just just just a general question since you're 24 hours day seven days a week just how many people are on staff at any given it on a on a cycle like one shift right so it's 25 25 on one shift so we have um if it's day shift you have six call takers and about 17 telecommunicators and in night shift you have five call takers and about 14 or 16 telecommunicators and you got it and that's enough people to do it seven 24 seven no oh absolutely yes sir I mean optimum staffing is how many people it's 25 so 25 person shift yes but how many shifts and over a course of a so we have four shifts and each shift has 25 um employees per shift um our space is not large enough for us to have we need probably about five more employees but we don't have the space I'm probably not asking this question right away okay so tell me to tell me just till I have a understand what's the shift schedule Monday through Sunday so the shift is from seven in the morning to seven at night that's for day shift 12 12 hour shifts yes and then our night shift is seven at night to seven the next morning okay and then on the weekends same thing yes and so my staff only works um out of a 28 day period they only work 14 days a month we have to they have to have that time off so just I'm just so that's how many hours 80 hours 80 hours every two weeks yes sir I was just curious how you shifted up that sir thank you hey so speaking of the shared space chief Jenkins with the Columbia fire department obviously Columbia and Richland are served by a wonderful chief thank you all oh are we ready okay my bad so um I'm gonna say thank you to uh mayor this council city manager for giving us the opportunity to come before you we certainly don't take this for granted and we count it as a pleasure so um just this is just what we're about uh community representing both citizen and employees integrity with professional service above self so that's kind of what we're about and left my pitch out left my pitch out picture too that's right so um just want to talk about some accomplishments and basically you know some accomplishments that we did we are a fire safe community 2019 20 and in the process of the war for 2021 this is a this is something that the fire march often give out every year to uh departments has proven to be a fire safe community so we have had this destiny destiny ever since they they've been voted the other thing is fire station two we're on track to replace fire station two which is which has been a long process but we we're we're finally going down that road and we do appreciate everything uh we address firefighter safety you all uh approve uh the bunker gear the extractors which okay make dial suits three piece three piece you got to add the uh the boots in there okay okay but we do appreciate that that was a huge undertaking that was that was that was just great uh and we appreciate it the other thing that we're doing right now is direct hiring program and what that is normally we put people in a crew class it takes about 18 weeks to get them through it but what we're doing um we are actually hiring experienced people now we still put them through it in a abbreviated class because I'm gonna just say this if you train by Columbia you train by the best and we produce nothing but the best and I'm quite sure if he was in here um Mr. Jeff he can tell you because he's still one of our employees so um but anyway and okay well okay okay I'll use your vernacular so um but but again our direct program is very success we we were able to hire some people you know that do have experience and normally we wouldn't do that because again we still want to make sure you put people through through the training that is necessary to be a Columbia Richmond fire firefighter we also uh had what's called our family life and officer wellness the flow program this for this is not only for employees but if families aware because you know employees go through that mental stress and so we actually have a program that we invoke um and so that they can have somebody go talk to digress and I'm I'm real um happy that we have a person that is in Dr. Bussell's in your class um update the 40 I mean the 20 under 40 uh which is um Ms. Amy Luke's and she has she just does a phenomenal job with our firefighters and their family so we do appreciate appreciate it and this is at a very nominal cost very nominal so operating improvements uh we developed we developed a process for virtual inspection smoke alarm installation as you know during this COVID you know we couldn't really get out to do these things so we did it by virtual and it was it was very successful so we're proud of that also we added in field of the PPE position this is a cost saving to the department because normally what we have to do we have to send us a gear off to be repaired and clean everything so we got a person now that actually does it so it saves us money to have a person on board to do that uh also um onboard a community risk reduction chief this person really does a lot of research on how we can make our community safe and this is this is something that's good for the for the community and it will continue to help us be to be a uh a safe community so the other thing that we're preparing for is we're all going to go through the accreditation process and this person will be responsible for that but not only that but as you know we have to be evaluated by the ISO um so this person will be responsible for that as well and one thing I can say some people say well you don't bring it into money you know the department bring in the money but let me just say this we are one of the few agencies just about our existence say the taxpayers money why because when we got it when we got a good ISO rating it brings the insurance uh premiums down and the City of Columbia is a class one uh and we're in that less than less than uh less than one percent across the United States they got a class one and we've got to count it to a class two which is there any effect of the accreditation to the ISO rating because I was getting ready to say where where is about as far as you can get an ISO rating well let me say this and you're right and that's all them tell people one reason why a lot of the departments don't get accredited because we are basically governed or graded by all ISO but I but but those are two different things though so um I get that I just didn't know what if if it added any anything to the ISO rating I mean because we're already at the at the top and we appreciate that it won't it won't add anything to our our departments in the service business not moneymaker business absolutely it won't add a thing to it but I mean but to be accredited I mean you know that's that's just hold hold different elevation of things so we are preparing for our ISO rating because we're going to be actually we should have been graded already um but since everything kind of got pushed back we're thinking it may be later on in the year it could possibly it could possibly early next year but we got to make sure that we stay on top of that and even in our grading um you got if you get a score of at least 90 you're class one I think we were like a 93 so we were well over that 90 I think about about a 93 or 92 94 was 94 so so that's a good we don't want to lose any points but we want to maintain what we got areas well let me say this um 911 has a big role in our ISO and just by getting those calls out water has a big role in our ISO uh personnel has a big role in our ISO the delivery of water to fires in our response time has a big impact on our ISO but those are the things that we got to make sure and we practice delivering water by doing water shuttles we practice that so we got to make sure that we maintaining our water our personnel our response times is just a gamut thing that we got to make sure that we're on top of and we try to stay on top of so our concerns and my concern is recruitment it is recruitment and retention so in order for me to recruit we got to make sure we competitive and if we're going to be competitive we got to make sure we take care of our folks you know sometimes we talk about um you know getting more people do I need more people absolutely but the one thing I'm concerned about my top priority is is taking care of the folks that we already have and that would be through you know whatever means pay that's that's probably the biggest thing right now and equipment and you all have really stepped up to the plate on some equipment as far as our second set of gear and so we got to make sure that that we are taking care of folks when it comes down to um retaining them and that would just takes me into my priorities my immediate needs again increase pay retention for retention and recruitment and I'm sorry for harp on that um but that is just the reality and the reason why I say that is because again we train people well we really do and we have a lot of training and guys like they like to train but all guys and gals are very marketable and what I mean by that you got people always trying to snatch them up and get them on 18 why because they also wear a train and so we just want to make sure that we retain the folks that we are training it costs a lot to train people also um facility needs our fire houses you know I didn't say fire station but these are houses this is the way these people live at so we call them houses this is where they live at and we're going to make sure that they got all the comfort that they need as being at home and that's why we need to make sure that we take care take care of our houses we're not buying any jacuzzi's now well if you just about be clear about that if you just buy a pool that you can swim in then we ain't got to go to drew in the center when we practice are they saying you're paying for drew well the center out of your paycheck and your property tax so you ought to use it uh we use it we use it there um so we need to outfit our kitchens and our bathrooms our bathrooms are kind of really out of whack I mean we look we are resided in houses that were built years ago years ago and you know we did do a facility study so we got all the information as far as how we need to be moving forward and what we need to be doing so so yes sir I just had a quick I mean is anybody ever talk I mean it seems like every every every great fireman is also a great builder I'm glad you asked that and obviously curious has there ever been a program where we we provided the materials and and and our fire guys you know restored the stations themselves that's a great question you just asked and I'm gonna answer that question for you okay all right so station two and station 11 when we open those houses up the fireman actually did the work there to get those those stations those houses open up so yes I mean we could we could certainly put a program like that together because we got some folks in the fire service that are builders painters and just do an array of things that that could really build a station well I say not build a station but to upgrade the stations free who free no that is further the street down by the by the fairground about about in the back of the ballpark and and keep in mind 11 is blue and court opportunity opportunity to us road and keep in mind that was never designed for long term it was a temporary thing but I do appreciate on the fact that we've gotten the funding to to the do station on station two we currently on that station yes city or county is it city city on it yeah city I'm sorry the station two on the grant don't we haven't we received money for that for parts of that we've already got some money tucked away for that I don't know if we actually received on the money yet but okay like seven million dollars like eight seven so that is in the process it's going as quick as I like for to go no to be honest with you no but is it it is in process what's the timeline that's a good question because I can't answer it right things like 2025 project is being funded with cdbg met funds property acquisition probably is going to be the longest timeline we have we do have a real estate broker on board helping us with that we've already hired the A&E firm so as soon as we have the property nailed down they can start designing so so we're working but it is slower because of all of the red tape involved honestly with the funding source but but we have a site selected we're in the process of firming it up right now what's the service area on that neighborhoods that's usc area rosewood down blood for old the limpy area and you know and also parts of downtown as far as first to do in the area uh some other needs are our burn building upfit we have to train we have to train that's part of the iso rating it's our training and we have to do live burns which means that we got to have a good burn building the burn building we got now is is is is old and needs to work on it and you know I hate right I hate to say it this way but I more want to make sure I keep our folks safe by putting them in a new facility then try to patch what we got you know because sometimes patching it'll hold up for a little bit but then it's gonna work we're right back up but we we need to we need to really redo our burn building are are we able to utilize condemned buildings and other things to use for training opportunities because I know that we've seen a tremendous especially in the residential but I think there's also some commercial entities is that something that we're actively trying to work and use and pursue so that you can use those as training opportunities as well mr. recommend we do and as a matter of fact with abc before they tore those buildings down we actually went over there did some training you know cutting roofs and so that we can't do no live burning that because there are certain criteria that that that has to be met before you even do a live burn in in in a structure but we have utilized acquired what we call them acquired structures to do training in and that has been successful so when we see a building that could possibly use then we'll use it but also you know I think we've been at Fort Jackson a couple times and did some stuff out there as well so again that is our immediately prior priorities also and I mentioned that the iso and that's coming this this year and accreditation they were a little late this time I know I gotta get on them about that um also you know the county contract to be coming up so we definitely got to be get working on that you know what our priorities we need to do on that so that that'll be coming up and of course we talked about the new positions operator lead assistant one safety lead administrative assistant two fire marshals and three training officers we do a lot of training and we don't have enough training officers so what we have to do is we have to utilize other instructors off the shift and they do help out but you know they get sent to overtime so that's kind of our priorities uh and then we get into uh the monitor priorities forecast needs again a training center and I think our facility guy kind of talked a little bit about a joint place so we do definitely we would love to to partner with cpd on some type of joint training center facility I think that would be ideal is there any value for the smaller rural communities to come here and train so if we had a thing where we could charge them for training facilities or joint grants one of the things that we saw in charlotte when we went to visit the police training which also had the fire training on that land they they were getting a lot of money from the federal government to enhance their training facility because they're able to do cross training with different agencies have we looked into that as a possibility on how we could create that so that not only do we get a newer facility joint facility that benefits but also having some other resources to help offset that that cost you know we talked about doing uh something just of that nature getting them to kind of go in with us to do a facility get an opportunity to get extra amount of training that is days or times that is basically designated to them to help build a new facility but we have we get requests sometimes from I mean other other agencies that want to use our burn our building to do training now they don't go down some of them do burning they may just use it for example like russian county they may want to just go in and do some swatch stuff you know opposed to doing any kind of burning but just utilizing the building itself so that that is a strong strong possibility that we could probably explore but we we we have talked about that doing something like that okay and of course we will need showers break rooms training props uh classrooms just all the bells and whistles that go along with a with a with a real good training facility um so also you know just hopefully just continue the replacement plan and and the maintenance repair chief just had a question one other agencies or organizations want to use the facility do we charge or do they get them for free we don't charge them we have not charged them um equipment replacement our AEDs we really need to replace our AEDs um and also our education tools you know with everything age comes everything and they grow older and we need to replace our AEDs and our and also our extra station crew tools you know we go out and we have to you know revise somebody heartbeat or whatnot we got to have the equipment do it with also we go out and we got somebody in trapped in vehicles we got to make sure we got the equipment um to get them out and we we run quite a few of those uh them type of calls and uh this is our organization chart and what I try to do with our organization chart is not just give you the the um the areas but also include it what these area exit done do so I just put a little a brief description of what they what they act what they actually do so they give you a general idea so some of our areas are very taxed and I would say that all folks work extremely hard to make sure that that we uh kind of stand on top of things and they they multitaskers they don't mind taking the challenge you know one big challenge they would did even during COVID is when when it first started uh we were partnering with not with a couple people in USC Prisma um also with um dynamic pet food to develop a decontamination box for N95 masks because you know we you couldn't get them so we partnered with them and we were the one who first wanted to utilize that the UV lights to decontaminate those but also also to spray our equipment we actually instead of going out purchasing something we actually were not developed we utilize our scba cylinders to make a spray nozzle we had to buy the nozzle but we utilize those to actually to you know decontaminate our equipment and some are in all stations so we kind of kind of did that and staffing right now we're about 30 positions short in our in our suppression uh so in in essence we're about 90 I think this may be just a little high it says 96 percent I think we're more probably 94 percent staffed up between 94 96 but we got 30 openings in our suppression and uh when you look at 30 half of those are county because when we when we put people on shift we try to make sure we even everything out between the city and the county and and that's what we do and we've got a couple of men in administrative you know thanks to Jeff for taking one of our persons so that's okay but anyway the and and yes how can we feel those positions well we'll feel we'll feel those administrative positions we'll feel those as far as in suppression all it takes is one class for us to feel those positions uh again with the direct hiring and also um you know putting through recruit class uh we can do it we are wanting one unique thing about us when it comes down to bringing people on it's we don't have to send to the fire academy because we got our own instructors that teach our folks so we can put them on pretty quick it all just depends on what kind of experience they got rather they direct hiring we put them through I think six weeks six or eight weeks of training or rather they're brand new somebody who like me didn't know anything about fire service but I first came in here which were required eight about 18 weeks of training so but but we could we could do that ourselves we still utilize the fire academy of certain things but as far as the training we do all training but certain things we have to go to fire academy do though but that's kind of it in a nutshell you have any recruits currently that aren't counted in that 30 number all of our recruits in in class right now I think we got about I think we got six 16 15 to 16 in recruit class right now and so so they're not counting this is outside of that number yes they're not counting in that 30 that well all of them work for the city of columbia yes all all of them work for the city columbia it's just that that x amount of our own are being paid from the county fund but all of my city columbia employees no sir yes sir depending on what rank they are in you know person all of my city now they get paid out of that account because we because we have to you know we do um if we move somebody from from a city station to a county station and we have to transfer that person out of that city account basically to that county count they be paid out of that account so yeah and that was my question um and we've talked a little bit about those chief Jenkins is the is the expectation that it would be it would continue to be 50 50 as you are going in contract negotiations or well we're not a true 50 50 that's what yeah that's to remember you saying and because now as far as basically in our suppression yes but remember we are the county does not pay for all city fire marshals they don't pay for the ones that are funded out of the water water and they have volunteers and they have volunteers so you when you did whole scheme of the thing you probably talk a second round maybe just north to six hundred employed well including volunteers so the budget you're going to bring forward here in a little bit is we will take that forward to the negotiation for the new contract with the county so there could be some fluctuation there what's what's the process from the numbers you're presenting the wants and needs in your budget we say okay what's the next step for the Columbia Richland fire service negotiation with that number well i guess what needs to happen is that there need to be some conversation with the county as well to make sure that we're all on the same page for their commitment to their portion of the funding that's correct does your number take into account the growth of certain corridors in the county that we've talked about in the fire service committee um not quite not quite well let me put it this way we budget for what we need for the position that we got now if we increase just like when we talked about when miss wilson she signed something for them to look at the lower richland area and we sent it over that to them so if they add those positions it's certainly then the budget got to grow for those positions especially in the lower richland area without with all the growth that's going on you know where the budget is the budget now you know the submission has occurred to the county it's the total budget for all fire service that we provide in the county in Richland county their portion which is increased compared to years past we'll see that well we in the committee which I think we got to a point but I mean if you recall when we when we met in those first set of committee meetings the suggestion I know that I had and then I spoke with administrator about is that really using the committee process if it's going to function probably as it should be as advisory to be having these discussions ahead of the budget process for both the city and the county and I think you all made some good progress but I don't I mean you know it is what it is I don't know that all that happened so the he's the chief has submitted his budget request like he always does to the county and typically what happens is there's this waiting period and what typically has happened as we get back what level of funding they're gonna they've committed to and I hope that won't happen this year because we did have that conversation again in the committee that he will get what their funding which may or may not align with his budget request after the fiscal year starts. I think we set the seed I know Mr. Taylor's got a question but we set the seed and expectation moving forward as we get to this contracting that that we're providing a service and the cost is the cost this isn't a negotiation and I think Mr. Brown seemed very up to where that hadn't happened in the past and we haven't had a committee to really push that forward but moving forward in this contract discussion I mean I think we kind of set the the expectation is as folks there's a cost for the level of service and that's what it'll be. How long is the contract for? It's a five-year contract. I think we're coming to the end I think this year I got one more year. So the budget that was just submitted to the county is for one year or five years? One year. Okay yeah what I was going to ask is and I have no problem with the committee deal but I'd love for you to schedule a workshop or one of these work sessions on fire and how it works and the budget works after due. I've always heard you know that you know somebody didn't play ball or this that and the other when it came to funding the right way and I just would like to have a better understanding before we get into the budget next year and especially if the five-year contract is in and I think it would help all of us to have a really good understanding about this and be very unified in whatever we're doing. So if you schedule that for for August, September I would very much appreciate it. I do think it's important that as we talk about that one of the things that we continually talked about is the level of service and how important it is and as we talk about new firehouses and budgeting and CIP how that plays in to emerging EMS because of getting service and time out as y'all know as we see we're spending a lot of time being the first responder where geographically and if you look at the data that we have from 9-1-1 our case is proven just in the service calls so that's one of the things that we're edging. I've talked to Mr. Pugh and some other folks but we'll continue to do that. I've had it explained to me two or three times and I still don't understand.  We are choosing violence today, okay. Good. We'll try again. I will test you after you have your explanation. Any more questions for me? Are you going to call the fire service advisory committee getting any time? Yes, when would you like well to meet? I'm ready. I just want to add one thing because I do think what the mayor was talking about with this five-year contract coming up I mean I think there's some some really some serious thoughts and he brought it up I wasn't going to today but you know whether it's the merger of EMS into the fire department and some things like that that need to be a city county discussion that I just think make you know earlier when Robert was talking about the growth that we were seeing you know in areas that are partially city and partially county I mean I think it's time for a for a whole new look at how we're dividing services, how we're dividing payment, how we can merge things to create some scale. I mean I just and again I think if it is the contract does end this next year spending some time in fiscal 23 to be prepared for it I think would be and I think we all need to be on the same the same sheet of music as staff and council when we're dealing with with with other entities. Is it I gotta tell you during the campaign somebody sent me a picture of a fire station with a chain link fence in it separating the trucks from the ambulance and if that's not a if that's a real picture it is it's real it's very and I'm just saying that that that that's the stuff we got to fix in this next and I and I think coming up will be the golden opportunity to address all these issues so we can really come up with a good working contract that really unifies uh the the to the russian county and city and and let me say this miss wilson if you think it's the best that the your committee made a couple of times and then you know they make a presentation with the with the chief to however you want to do it I'm fine with it but I I would I would like to have a pretty good feeling uh in the in the first quarter at the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year of of kind of what we're looking at you know it's probably twofold sir because I you know I don't really necessarily control when that committee meets I mean the chief and I can talk to the administrator about no I was talking about our committee if whether whether it's just our committee members on on that I'm not talking about I got we need to know where we are before we I understand well I think that's important councilman taylor is for us to all have a vision to to put forth to the committee is to avoid one voice absolutely I would think of a workshop of the whole okay and if you would schedule I would appreciate it good mayor council city manager thank you thank you and all of your staff thank you all thank you chief break can we keep on trying to know we need a break okay yes sir yes sir thank you all yep needed a break I understand a lot of information we are back online and we've got a wonderful court administrator Katherine Jackson who's here with us today I hope all of you have met her but I don't know that for sure so we will take out the municipal court okay I'm Katherine Jackson court administrator for the municipal court thank miss wilson and miss Benjamin for the opportunity to serve the city with that said I am six months in so we're still treading water a little bit um accomplishments major accomplishment was due to the shutdown and covid and of course all the courts and everything else shut down we had a backlog of cases so or what we did prior to me coming what was put in place was for the clerk so the staff to work overtime and evenings some weekends uh when we came back to schedule the court cases before the judges so that they can be heard and disposed of that was very successful those cases were disposed those that weren't disposed were continued or jury trial but the covid cases itself were in some kind of status of being heard we also streamlined the process of handling backlog cases pre-covid there were cases a bit of cases I think about nine thousand or so that were pre-covid just sitting there and so what we did was we divided those cases among the staff in smaller increments for them to schedule them and with that they had to research those cases some of the cases go back as far as 2010 2012 so those cases had to be rescheduled researched first before they could be rescheduled and then put back on the docket to go before the judge judges to hear so they are still diligently working on those cases in addition to the current cases that are steadily coming in we also streamlined the process of making sure that general sessions would receive the documentations that they needed to hear their cases by creating a form it's just a simple form for signature once the bailiffs drop the forms of the documents off to the general sessions court because for some reason when they were getting over there they weren't getting them so we created a form so that it could be a sign-off check checklist to confirm that they had received that they currently now receive the proper documentations to hear their general session charges our department right now is in the process of going through a audit with SLIT state law enforcement division and it's for security awareness everyone that works in the court from the judges on down have to either be NCIC certified meaning they can pull the national criminal background checks on defendants that come in the court or even for the judges that actually read the rap sheets so if the judges are not certified they have to go through the security awareness which is a few minutes and 15 minute training and a test for certification for certificate at the end the fingerprinted by the police department driver's license and other documents to go along with that so we're in the process of being completing that certification probably within the next month I'll say June maybe we should be done we should be done with that process that that wasn't any type of anything that's led mandated we do something we want it to do so that we can make sure we're certified in that regard that is mandated by SLIT we have a room that you have to be certified to go into that NCIC room okay and actually to pull to pull rap sheets before anybody come in as far as jurors serving juries and defendants we pull rap sheets on them but it's not a pecuniary thing I mean it's not something that it is it is mandated by SLIT we have to understand it's mandated but it's not that we were not in compliance I mean we're doing something that every other court ought to be doing yes man yes okay yeah they're going through the state at this point with all of course yes I know I'm sorry I did say earlier 2010 cases are these pending cases or 500 some of them are pending yes they're pending cases 2010 yes or meaning that they've even been in a jury trial status they've been continued for whatever reason yes ma'am well now this is just my opinion from my former criminal defense days but a lot of times they tend to be cases where it wasn't extremely easy to prosecute but they also couldn't work out an agreement so they kind of sit and hope that something to work out that that is how they tend to develop and continue to yes sir okay so with the SLIT audit we are in compliance so far all the documentations the security awareness trainings have been completed the fingerprints the driver's licenses and any other documentation that's required to get through the security awareness training has been turned in the other portion will be the staff member that's the tack person they are they managed this this audit she has to be tested so she's now studying to the material to be tested to become certified again to do that job so our goal and priority our main goal is to dispose these backlog cases that's the main priority to dispose of those cases actually how long do you think you're taking I have no idea I just it's the goal yes sir well when you consider one year two years three years well this year it won't be this year possibly possibly possibly I'm saying possibly again they have to do the research they have to pull the tickets they have to go into those dockets and do just major research before we can even put it on the docket we have to put the file back together again so just for cleaning up purposes yes sir 2010 case that has run the gamut of three of you not just look at that and say you have no case you see who the attorney is you might understand why it's still out there well I think I think I think Ms Jackson may have some opinions on that particularly those old older ones but again our judges also weigh in on this is that not right and I don't want to put you any words in your mouth but I really don't know other than for us to do the research and put them back on the docket for them to be rescheduled to be heard well but didn't you have a discussion with us about for those really old ones and some of them that we thought there was a method perhaps that would work but I'm not sure if you know from a the judge's perspective today what are you talking about when we talked about hiring possibly the temporary folks we discussed that to come in we talked about hiring temporary people to staff to come in and assist but the staff minds that was when they get in and see the details of it they were concerned that it might not be properly done and they'll still have to go back and do it well I was just going to suggest that maybe we um and I don't not this our role but maybe prioritize some of the things to me is particularly this traffic court from 2010 I don't know how much staff time we want to use in researching the traffic ticket from 2010 however if it is something more significant or gun crime you know I think those may be different but I think we may be able to come up with a system to easily prioritize what we want to put a lot of staff time into not that I'm trying to get any people to pass but when you think about um that number and the amount of work um that it may take just to just for you know going 15 miles over and I don't mean to make that seem very simple but usually have to have the officer to show up there are a lot of factors that you have to have officers may be gone right so I don't know if maybe you all can work on a system or make have some recommendations on um prioritizing what you you want to make sure we get through the docket and then maybe finding a way to deal with the ones that may be of a lower priority based on resources and time as far as trying to send them through the docket can I ask a follow-up question to your question that's what I was going to say we got a you know a priority of disposing the backlog just like what are your recommendations for how what we can do to reduce that backlog and be rid of it because what I'm looking down here for I just don't see any recommendations I mean when we're talking about budgets the question is you know is there monetary things we need to budget in that can help that and if they are you know what do you think we should do so in my mind since the since the COVID cases worked where they worked over time even as in weekends perhaps the pre-COVID cases could work the same way because we already have a staff that's knowledgeable in completing it um so Ms. Jackson I apologize I can't hardly hear and if you if you they now that helps me a lot thank you ma'am okay I'm saying in my mind since since the COVID cases we allowed staff proud of me coming to come in and do evenings and weekends maybe that would be they would be open to doing that as well right now what what we've been doing since we've tackled it within the last month and a half is allowing them to to do so many cases and increments because they still have their daily case caseload of new cases coming in so every two to three weeks we reassign another 50 cases for them to research and do the work and put it back on the docket for it to be heard and has that and I know that you had talked about that in your accomplishments have you seen success with that in terms of streamlining um because it sounds like right now it's it's just um adding on additional work to the regular caseload it may not be sustainable in the long term it is it's a slow process but they were more the staff was more apt to work in smaller increments than what they were proud to be coming when they were given say the year of 2012 to do the whole year it was like nothing was getting done it was a stalemate it was just sitting so so in my mind when we cut it down to smaller increments and came back within a two week period two and a half three week period they did come back with better results where cases were being researched um and put together and put back on the docket for them to be heard just from my own advocate because I don't know we had these caseloads are they broken down by traffic DUI violent crime how are they broken down and maybe that's the way we ought to be approaching that is all right we got two thousand traffic violations there are accidents speeding tickets are this and that do you go in there and say you know they've been there for five years move on focus that's what I'm trying to to understand I will let miss Jackson answer your question and I appreciate the questions we're asking her about the recommendations of how to to do just that what I've been told and maybe I'm wrong is the judges don't care about that they're saying if it if it's a case out there that hadn't been disposed of one of them well at least I'm not I hesitate to speak for our judges but when I'm when I have spoken with the chief administrative judge the impression I get is they gotta put their eyes on every single one of them I mean to me that's a I mean we need to know that first before we send her down a path and the staff of sorting out and trying to streamline and I don't want to speak for the judges I may be wrong about that I don't know what Teresa or Pam can can add to that but I would think you're exactly right but I don't know I'm asking the question somebody needs to weigh in on that then so court I understand but they have to court administration can set the dockets put the cases up but the cases will either have to be not processed by the prosecution or heard by the judge they can't just dispose of the cases so they handle them to get them up to the court or the prosecution will not process them before they get up to the court so they can only manage the case of coming they can't make a final decision on the case but they can make a recommendation on what can be no process and some things back in my day used to be no process by the officer some of them by the judge but I mean what I'm asking for is can we get a recommendation on that well can I just I mean I mean I was asking this from a budget perspective not from a court operating perspective and that because I don't know if right now is the proper time to talk about court operations but you know from a budgeting perspective are there things that you would recommend Ms Jackson that you would think would help us do we have enough judges do we need more judges do we need less judges do we need more courtrooms I mean what are the things that that just you know as our administrator that would help us eliminate and reduce the backlog faster than what we're doing today or are you going to just say I mean and it may be the case there's nothing you can do it just is what it is I mean I don't know I won't say that there's nothing we can do I won't say that I won't as far as judges I'm we don't first we don't have the space I I know we talked about one time with the possible request of a full four full-time judges but when we bring that in then what happens when the backlog is gone I mean because right now our dockets are like this afternoon we had 160 cases this morning we had 25 that's normal cases not backlog yesterday we have 57 cases and in the afternoon 10 so I don't know if we if we bring in permanent judges what will they do after the backlog is over we we got to get we got a little ways yeah we've got to get the backlog done well but and I think one of the one of the biggest time-consuming parts of it is researching the case to determine whether it should be heard by the jury be be not crossed and that part takes a lot of work so miss Jackson did have a suggestion about hiring extra staff in order for them to go through those cases in order to prioritize them as as um councilman councilwoman Herbert has said so that we can figure out which ones can go which track um because right now it's a very labor intensive process to look through every single case that's out those are the kind of suggestions that really I'm asking about I mean you know we need more issue we look at more staff more judges you know whatever it is so that's a great point yes so it you know it is a matter of manpower and so we certainly can work on you know kind of doing the math and trying to figure that out but it still gets to the point where some of them have to be heard by the judge and so that piece maybe that could more hours spent more judges spending more hours at the court maybe night court maybe some of those things that can expedite the processing of those that have to be heard by judge let me just say for the record not being an attorney at the table I'm not for simply just non-processing processing stuff just because we got a backlog I mean that I don't want to incentivize bad behavior by lawyers and drivers and people with criminal element at all right and once you have to research the case in order to find out okay the officers no longer here you know maybe there's a victim involved and you got to notify the victims so you can't just throw that out so there there is a process that they're going through and they are working very hard but you're right we we certainly can look at you know some type of manpower multiplier to move those things a little bit faster now so the the only other thing I'll add to is even if it ends up which would be helpful a whole bunch of bench warrants but someone who lived where they lived in 2012 may not be where they live now so we can't even get them noticed for hearing so there are a lot of complications so I know we're having obviously and I think the point was trying to understand to make sure that we're budgeting correctly so that you can achieve your goal at some point I think we got to talk about the other courtroom and this and that does that work and is it reflected in the budget that we're going to talk about here as well you know making sure and I think that's kind of the bottom line here we it's not but we have an opportunity to include it when we get to that point and and we would need to know these additional needs to to put with that yeah this is this is this is one you this is like this is like free podium time we like my friend the fire chief and asked for everything you ever thought about in the next year too you say no no don't ask we probably don't say that regardless but you just like I say this is your chance to to really truly look here and say look I need 10 researchers and eight courtrooms and and you know in a snow cone machine to make that that'd be public works robber would get that done he's got one paid for by somebody else so the request that we do have is a set off debt clerk she collects the monies the fines that are not paid and right now we have staff that are currently doing it in addition to their duties so that set off debt clerk would definitely help us in collecting fines through the Department of Revenue let me ask one question just about that and I apologize for not having it right in front of me what's the annual collection of fines that we achieve in the minister court yeah dollar amount anybody I mean it was seven hundred and eighty eight thousand but I was I'm thinking where does it live to G or to the courts or to the general fund well not all of it half of the goes to the state how some goes to um about a hundred and seven court administration yeah it goes to court administration and this is 14 percent of whatever we state does the court administration is sorry the court administration does yes sir state court administration yes well state assessment on municipal fine is about a hundred and seven percent you get a hundred dollar fine you pay two hundred and seven dollars or something like that all right so from an accounting perspective when you say let's just say it's five hundred thousand dollars is that five hundred thousand dollars grossed up to this or is it five hundred thousand net to the city what we'll be talking about so it'll be five hundred and seventy thousand dollars worth of gross fines net five hundred to the city how we show it in our things that there's a huge state assessment on the municipal court right right minus the 14 percent court administration I'm just saying that they take that piece out let me and I'm just and if and miss any manager the question I'm getting ready to ask if you tell me this is not the right time I'll respect that and we'll go are the fines this is kind of directed to miss Jackson and to the chief are the fines that we're charging today where's the last time they were modernized up and are they achieving the preventive or punitive things that that I mean for example it's another question I'm not a lawyer I know you see where I'm headed I mean for example today we write a ticket to put it on on a car windshield and in the charge for that fine for that parking ticket I'm not so sure it keeps you from from parking in that parking space illegally parking tickets are different I just use I use this as an analogy sir we all will agree that the fine for littering does not accomplish what it was attended to accomplish set by the state that could be the answer to the question but the question is are the are the fines we dealing with today accomplishing what they should accomplish and if they're not then what do we do Howard if you need to go to the state legislature and have them upgrade all the fans because they set the levels on most of the fans to do parking tickets are not I was just using that as an analogy well you can just say it's a wrong analogy but don't go all sit along me again we learned that all right gentlemen we're not having the dogs but no my question though is simply this is it so we don't have any ability to raise our fine well I think there's a thing there's a bigger question I think the bigger question really is the fine things are put on there if I'm not correct so there's some discrepancy in there sir I guess your question is twofold is understanding are we maximizing our ability so that it prevents people from committing that crime are we just getting by my question really is are we here does does the penalty pay for the cost to administer the penalty no and if it doesn't what's it gonna what's our ability we visit that from a municipal perspective municipal forks are limited to $500 an hour 30 days in jail so the worst defense that we can charge for is $500 an hour 30 days yeah Howard I don't have as much experience in these municipal courts as you seem to have no no I understand there's I don't want to say I don't want to be labored out the question was a hand if we've got a big backlog and we could you know if if you could process these things and and generate enough revenue to cover the additional new costs was it something worth taking a look at I think what I'm hearing very quickly that this this the question is do you want to lose a little or lose a lot it's not you know and I and I would tell you this what I have learned is one of the legislative priorities we should have for next year is probably talking to the general assembly about about increasing some of these defining capacity for you to have municipal governments I mean if we have to go to full-time judges to do this and we're capped at what we're capped at I mean we shouldn't um I don't say that I was gonna say it shouldn't be it shouldn't be the more you prosecute the more you lose the safer you don't you know what I'm saying so that's just something to think about on that list that's right thank you thank you so the last thing is that our staff is steadily participating in workshops uh summer law workshops and and trainings to better their workload how to professionally more do their jobs they some just came back from a workshop in Charleston back in October some will be going in August to the municipal court training there and just hand those different subjects and different subject areas that they actually do and so if they bring their trainings up any changes you know deletions and anything that they need to do is done in those trainings obviously we'll be coming back around to this like they say in court I like the right to bring the witness back taking it for taking it under advisement yes all right so thank you miss Jackson very much and we will move on to the Columbia police department our final department presentation for the day um as the chief wraps up his slides Pam will come up and we'll together work through with the chief explaining the models that we've um we've talked about in the public safety committee I think with you all the pay plan proposal now we've got the modeling done and we've got a recommendation or two on how to implement the pay plan which is also um incorporated one version of it in the general fund proposed budget but I want to get feedback from you all on that as well so chief thank you yes ma'am miss wilson thank you you're gonna advance that okay all right I'll get to so let me start by saying that um how privileged I am to serve with all of y'all I know the position sometimes um that we find ourselves in this budget process has been um you know difficult to construct collectively um as a city and individually as an agency and this the sacrifices that go into this are not lost on me so thank you for allowing me to be part of this team um this budget was constructed in line with um miss wilson direction mayor and in this council um it really is in line with your all strategic focuses on organizational efficiency safe communities beautification and appearance we also set the opportunity to as directed to really take a look at our positions our current positions our capacity for recruiting and hiring and training so we constructed a personnel budget that really reflects our current strength plus our capacity to hire 60 police officers in this next budget year so I'm gonna review a lot um of the material that I reviewed in our committee meeting and then talk about some of our priorities I'd like to start with accomplishments I really consider what I'm about to review as extraordinary considering these unprecedented times that we're in and the staffing staffing challenges that we um that we are experiencing things that come to my mind when I reflect this past year in particular as professionalism empathy compassion organizational commitment and I underscore that determination very courageous acts resiliency pride and pride in their selves and pride in being employed this city so I think the the very first thing to start with is just to maintain the exceptional service that we have this year and that's with the daily population of increase about 75,000 we deal with people commuting the work state government the hospitals schools we have five universities and colleges and of course our partnering state agencies our operational tempo is incredible and not sustainable with our staffing levels I would add that we average about 170,000 calls for service make around 6500 arrests and respond to a staggering 8,000 plus vehicle crashes every year year-to-date our overall crime I'm going to have to tweak these numbers from from last week it's very fluctuating our violent crime is down four percent our murders down 29 percent property crime is down five percent crime and five points is down 18 percent we in top of all those calls for service annually we'll work about 240 special events a year and just with the university alone we'll work almost 100 events and ball games and again that's on top of our normal calls for service and normal assignments we just received our re-accreditation a few months ago as you all know we stood up our alcohol team and this year they reviewed over 500 licenses applications yes sir they do yes ma'am I mean we're not going to start jumping in either because you need to get through your slides but maybe see why did you call out the eight percent crime reduction and five percent why did I call it out right I think there's a lot of attention that goes on what's not done in five points and I wanted to point out what has been done to me that's a direct reflection of us focusing on you know a problem that occurs whether it's through our staffing in the neighborhoods our working with the university working with the department of revenue on a couple of outlier problem problem bars and really scrutinizing our alcohol licensing process oh wow the rest of the city is still attended to just as much we staff five points um through overtime and extra duty and we do not pull staffing from regions for on-duty officers to work in five points wanted you to say that yes we received the Dominion award for excellence this year that's the plays out and and I think they'll be re-interviewing for that fourth three plus the one we got for a total of four with one two an additional one to go you know they'll go back through the process I think it's just a matter of weeks in terms of the just the administrative work that Department of Mental Health does with the onboarding is there um have is there data available on the first clinician uh that we already had and some of the successes or challenges that they've had and you may not have to you may not have that now but if you could share that with us I think that would be helpful we do they um they have um we obviously track every call for services they're on and and each individual they come in contact where they are able to provide some wraparound services or get them directed to the appropriate care and do you all feel like you're prepared in terms of knowing where to refer to and you know what options there are for people when they are referred out because I think the biggest um I think concern that that we had was ensuring that there were actually options for folks experiencing mental health crises well I I think you know I think we're starting to maybe start pill the onion back um as we experienced that first task force meeting I think we've got a lot of services it's it's probably um corralling all those services getting everybody pulling in the right direction we have to understand services are not a Monday through Friday um eight to five it's you know most of the situations we're dealing with they're certainly prevalent during the day but I would argue the after hours is what you know is a impediment for us as far as being um ability to address you know real crime problems it's you know it's ties up our officers pretty extensively um I you know again for another discussion but I think we have to examine very closely opportunities we might have for alternate sites to take someone that might be in crisis or in lieu of jail that it has a quicker turnaround they get the officer freed up and a more opportunity to get that person to the services that they need to you know break their cycle of homelessness I guess would be the best way to put it um we moved into a new code enforcement facility on Hemlock um it's which is over near our bluff road annex um it's um it centrally locates Sam it's a great um it's a great location and facility that we've worked with one of our local business partners to um to make happen at um little to no cost to the to the city you know I look forward in showing that facility off to you all it's provide some greater oversight and efficiency for for code enforcement we promoted 41 officers this year to various supervisory command positions we established a real-time crime center which is just a state of the art facility that's scalable and is going to be um I believe a a true game changer for us and a force multiplier for us as we continue to build that out and of course our crime gun intelligence center is one of 33 in the United States we're extremely proud of that and I had the privilege of representing our department and our CG unit in Washington with about 20 of my colleagues to strategize and talk about evidence-based programming to reduce violent crime just in the last few weeks we graduated one captain from the FBI National Academy and we just graduated captain Yates from the University of Louisville Southern Police Institute those are both very demanding courses that are in in-house and take them away from us for about three months but they are the the best executive level training for law enforcement in the world and Captain Blundowski which is our five points commander he recently just completed the Charlotte Mecklenburg police department's command college and I know the mayor had an opportunity to see their training facility and and the emphasis they put on training and career development and that was quite an accomplishment as well uh Robert Calving we just recently installed new equipment in our drug chemistry lab that was necessary we did that through a grant that was necessary because of the requirements now for marijuana analysis we got to do qualitative and quantitative analysis and we just stood up and acquired and stood up a new state-of-the-art bomb squad response vehicle we replaced one that was several decades old before you go to the next thing a couple three questions here first i did want to just say thank you and dr bustles for what you're doing on that homeless on the street task force it has people talking in columbia i mean talking in a positive positive way i learned from just watching a little bit of it that we put it get into homeless business from nine to five Monday through Friday i think that's what you were saying a second ago without really saying it that we need to work on the night times and the weekend times with these providers and and and again i just i thank y'all for bringing that to the community's attention you didn't mention and we moved forward with the police study we talked a little bit about that earlier today on the district and stuff is that going to be in the yes sir and then also in i think that i see in the budget requests that we're adding some additional code enforcement officers yes sir can you just tell real quick what you expect to accomplish with with the new people and then i got one other question once you okay so so we we are adding three positions in code enforcement so there's nearly 53 000 parcels now 28 000 rental units 83 or 8300 rental properties and another 5 000 commercial properties our our code enforcement right now they start about 10 to 13 000 cases a year we believe that that adding these three positions especially with the rental ordinance we can that we did the vacant building registration that it's going to position us to be more efficient and that's two housing inspectors and one and one housing inspector dedicated to nuisance enforcement well they deal with appearance issues not cut grass trash in yards rental property and things like that nuisance enforcement okay yes that's just want to make sure i'm fully support us doing everything we can to again restore some pride back and i also believe in a lot of these areas that the more people take care of their neighborhood the lower crime that we have so you go hand in hand with what you're it goes hand in what you're doing we you know we can also we also know historically there's a little bit of you know again we say this sometimes tongue-in-cheek but it's i mean is we don't write tickets and do enforcement for for revenue but what we do see with code enforcement through rental ordinance and vacant building and and lock cutting there's a we see a revenue about a hundred thousand dollars through rental another twelve thousand through the vacant rental ordinance and we'll also recoup probably maybe around five thousand with demo recovery this year so there is some some offset there okay i can say i think that's a very very good program the last question and i'm just this may be something that we refer to the public safety committee but uh what are we going to do with this d8 situation and these eight places and that's these cannabis shops around i mean i mean that's turning into a nightmare and again that may be something you can simply just say let's refer it to the committee but i just i think that's just something that i wanted to get on the table at some point in time so um i suggest somebody refer to that to committee it's on the table and it's been referred i think we will find ourselves um walking right back down main street and having conversations with our state elected officials understand you know that's it would be wonderful to have autonomy to address what we consider to be public health threats to our community whether it's gun violence or um the the vape shops and the paraphernalia that comes with it i i think um you know we know how to govern and police our community and we know what our community expects and wants and i think that's where the authority ought to be to do it thank you sir and i just want to add briefly i'm totally in support of the additional code enforcement um david has been doing a great job and um but i know that we need more help and and if we can respond to folks because we have folks who are calling and what i'm really trying to get is citizens may not necessarily have to call the council people first call no seriously but you know that they feel that that the calls are being handled quickly but um y'all are doing great but i i totally support i agree with mr taylor on this one um what that's why i wanted to put it on the record i agree with mr taylor on this one that yes and one last thing is saying take going back oh my how do our five how do our business community five points homeowners is there a campaign that we're going to run it says if you're having an issue with and i hate to say this with a homeless person when you call in is there something you need to to say to make sure that the pathways folks respond or do you just going to respond with a regular police guy and they call it in i mean is there is there a way that we should educate the public here i think there's there's probably some messaging opportunities for us yes sir um you know we do have a publication that we it's on our website and we have widely distributed within our our business community especially that talks about the services recommendations on how to deal with the you know the transient population and we do that to create consistency because what we see from business to business and citizens the citizens there's different levels of tolerance and um you know empathy and you know just everybody has different opinions of approaches but um whether it's you know allowing from bathroom facilities or you know providing a meal or or a drink or it's a lot of mixed messages so we we publish that and we talk about that often you know in our community meetings and with our business leadership and i think it has been very helpful both in five points and in downtown and in the Vista with creating some consistency but it's an everyday challenge and you know the pathways unit is a is a new it's not brand new but it's we have greater capacity now so i think there would be some messaging opportunities i would suggest that we consider a hotline for that since you've got a direct because you have talking to some other communities they have a direct line number for the the mental health and the other piece is as we continue to move with your committee and so forth i think we also have to make sure that the people who witness the same folks and there several people who are located downtown and other areas of town that are repeat they go into that they're also somehow we're engaging the public as they go to the judges because some people and especially in mental health are being released and and really are impeding the quality of life of a lot of folks they're not getting treatment either so they're endangering themselves at the same time and i do think that the more we can continue to educate but maybe a direct line for folks to communicate would be helpful what i was hoping to get to just and i somewhere around the middle of june the economic development and community development committee is going to come together and all of council will be asked to participate in in a in an impressive event and a community meeting with our what we're doing to improve our business conditions and soil conditions i would like to make sure that the police department is well represented that and and to talk about this program because i think this is i think this is one of the things that will have an enormous positive business impact across columbia and that's why i say whether it's a hotline or whatever just think between now and june how we don't you know how we tell how we let these folks know the easiest way to get to to y'all when you got this situation well i was going to say i thought people called the nine emergency number that's what that's what i'm saying that do you want do you want you don't want to call 911 you want to call go ahead now person i still got that call by the way yes sir and i think in general we're moving in the right direction in terms of establishing the pathways unit and keeping people out of jail because frankly that's not an effective approach and it just puts people and continues to put people in a vicious cycle and until we address some of the other root causes of homelessness that don't necessarily have to do anything with law enforcement they have to do with a wide range of things that we talked about both during and after the task force meeting i think ensuring that we are being very very loud about this program and this option especially for business owners that have come to us asking for solutions will be important and i'm happy to work with you to think about ways which we can be creative to get the word out about this this program whether it is you know using a hotline or some other number to to get people used to not calling 911 but perhaps still engaging law enforcement in a different way and of course there's the mental health crisis line that i think also at the task force it was and i'm sure that will continue to happen connecting the dots with the providers on how we need to redirect so i mean it all has to kind of work together yeah and if you don't mind i'm going to shift really quickly to something that i know happened this past fiscal year but maybe we haven't talked about it yet i know that we did receive an allocation of about $700,000 towards technology camera technology where is that and i know you and i have also talked about potentially the need of going to visit our friends at the state house to ensure that we have all the cameras and surveillance that we need to address some of the crime that we're seeing so that's kind of dovetails into i can answer your question now or no dovetail that's great okay so i'll next slide we'll look at our budget priorities and goals we have five focus areas as i mentioned in our subcommittee meeting hiring and retention fleet replacement facilities officer wellness and technology and i'll start with hiring and retention and i teed it up once before by just you know acknowledging we're not alone in this in this dilemma that you know nationally numbers have suggested about a 44 percent increase in retirements 18 percent increase in resignations and a lot is attributed to really what we have experienced here in columbia well as well a lot post george floyd incident we saw riots we saw our civil unrest for a couple of days and then we saw 60 days of protests the onset of covid and then ultimately low unemployment nationally it created a just a perfect storm for recruitment and retention challenges so we we have had great discussion about creating a compensation plan i've made no secret that you know we're a capital city i think we should be the absolute best in the state and create a compensation plan that allows sustainability of that not just here today and gone tomorrow but one that creates competitiveness for for years to come and i think we've and i know miss benjamin will probably talk about this a little bit more but we really wanted to create horizontal vertical movement through a pay plan and also allow the opportunity for onboarding certified officers and so you bring some tenure with us it makes it more attractive for how they would fall within our pay our pay bands fleet replacement we absolutely feel like we need to be one vehicle one officer to maintain consistency with our partnering in agencies and also our agencies that we compete with for employment our facilities as mr taylor mentioned we're proposing two combined studies strategic plan for facility design and location and what i mean by location is right now we have four regions and a couple of regional substations if you will our regions are divided by council districts it's not divided by calls for service or staffing or deployment and i think we've got to look at that through a different lens and so i'm proposing that we do a study on our location of our facilities and type of facilities we want in a number of facilities that we need and then actually what our staffing and deployment needs to look like in our city then a focus on our current facility improvements we know that we can't build brand new facilities you know across our city and we certainly can't flip the switch even if we decide to start somewhere but we have existing facilities that we need to address as far as security we have a couple of proposals for fencing right now main street the main and laura which serves as our metro region headquarters and our eoc we're very close to installing security fencing there and then of course at our headquarters in the vista we saw firsthand what happens when you don't have the ability to lock down your facilities and that also is something that you know we believe is scalable and we have to assess each one of our facilities it also has a in my opinion has a direct connection to officer wellness you want your facilities to be that home away from home for our officers they spend an enormous amount of time you know at work we need to have lockers and showers in our you know in our region facilities and we have got to improve the physical and mental well-being of our officers I think we have taken much for granted and that is something that we can't miss to mark on moving forward we have had a fitness coordinator in our budget for a number of years and it's has not been filled we are going to aggressively pursue a wellness coordinator and and re-engage and commit to mental and physical well-being do utilize flow facility over here the post-traumatic group as the fire department uses are y'all utilizing that service no we use ss sc leap and then we often also have a service provider for me you know fitness obviously is part of the game but the mental health piece and the hours and the what our officers deal with is also I think a very important piece of it and I know one of the concerns had been having more flexibility about meeting with someone when they need it not necessarily set by appointment and I don't know if there's on-call service or whatever we can look at but I would ask that if you find a service like that that fits the need that you bring it for us to make sure that we budget for that because I do think that is a very important key for for our officers long-term health yes sir and then the last focus area of course is technology and dr. bustles as you mentioned the so the 700 some thousand dollars that you you referenced that was a direct award an earmark that will go towards offsetting the implementation costs for axon and or I should say I shouldn't necessarily say axon specifically at this point but they have a product they have an all-inclusive product that we are looking at we currently have technology that has reached shelf life and it's pretty widespread it's our body warm cameras it's our in car cameras it's our interview rooms and our evidence management so they have a package that integrates all that and it integrates well with our surveillance and camera system that we're going to be onboarding and it creates connectivity to our real-time crime center what is the budgetary cost of that system the the end camera the body cam the connectivity because I know it's cloud-based as well which is very important but one 1.1 million is that right missy we have that budget we have four 400 some thousand budgeted for body camera and it's a 1.1 million so it's less than 700 thousand from the grant so we're getting it is what you're telling us we yes we're fully funded and it's happening yes it will happen we are also in this budget is our security camera but a roll of security camera surveillance camera roll out with the LPRs that has not been carried in our budget before and this will be the first year that it's in our budget that's 1.75 and that's for areas throughout the city hospitality districts was it not in the budget last year for it was just in another part of the budget is that okay so we have purchased yes camera system absolutely significant investment and there's a back there's a backlog in the order for chips or something yes what i'm being told we have a number of the lpr systems the license plate reader systems that have been deployed and we have seen where they have paid significant dividends already on violent crime and theft councilman they told us all we we typically don't you know identify exactly where our technology is but i i'd say you're pretty pretty warm is there any more questions related to the priorities yes ma'am so you i don't know if you'll want to well you'll be close so pam then i'll try to take you off through the more more panned than myself i'm sorry and you're comfortable that you can hire the budget amount the 60 officers that i mentioned yes sir i'm sorry well we hope that um one they go we we hope the the new structure makes us competitive for hiring and competitive for retention you know the other thing that i i think is is a positive assumption that the other benefit from you know this compensation plan would be how we attract certified officers that are instant what we would consider with just a little bit of onboarding would be a most immediate impact boots on the ground saying that for the commitment that we're making all davis is back there in the back three but it's not gonna look good for us to be on three slots and that's the thing too i think that's a mandate and pressure major you heard that well let's talk about what it costs to do it with that point being made um it should have been just reached you i'm sorry was it not we will so i think it goes without saying the pressure we all feel i mean i'm certainly feeling it as we um attempt to you know do what's right and this is what's right to do obviously i'm not a big fan of chasing salaries so if we take the sleep which shows the faith we have in the chief and the department to um be the capital city police department that ought to you know be paid on this level for sure there's two options here though that we're gonna try to walk through with you we've already budgeted for one of the options and um looking for some feedback on if you think the alternate is better than the option that we're gonna describe that we budgeted for they're both expensive as to be expected the alternate model um is doable as well my recommendation would be though once you hear hear it and understand it because it is a little bit more expensive it would probably it would make more fiscal sense to start it in january the option that we're proposing we would start it in july so i'm just trying to give you a little bit of understanding of this is truly a balancing act off the fly to get us where we think we need to be if we do this it needs to be sustained for some time it is not a situation um where we need to keep hearing about what other other agencies are doing because other agencies are about to do some stuff too from my understanding from our our cfo's discussions with our neighbor his counterparts so we need to all feel good about and embrace which one of these options we want to go with and it may be that you all say we need to go with option two so let us explain it one option no sir option one is let us explain it there are two options here there's a layering that has to happen you've got to bring these officers to the minimum which is a part is one factor of both of the o