Welcome to NewsClick. We have with us retired naval commander Atul Bhadwaj who is a defence and foreign policy expert to talk to us about India's maritime and strategic outreach both in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean especially its relationship with United States, Australia, Japan in the last few years. Welcome Atul. Thank you. Can we begin by asking why is it that India and Indians in general seem to be mesmerized by this whole notion of Indo-Pacific but they are completely ignoring what is happening in the larger world in terms of Eurasian, the developments that are taking place in Eurasia especially as a result of Belt and Road Initiative of China and the kind of communication links that they have been able to build and expand on and are still in the process of adding to it in the Eurasian continent. Welcome to understand this Indian fetish to be a power in the Indian Ocean. We need to go back into history a bit. When the British were leaving actually and there was obviously a vacuum created in the Indian Ocean region and our civil servants our foreign policy experts at that stage were largely had been trained under the British tutelage. So they imagined India to be taking over the role which British was fulfilling in the Indian Ocean region. So there we thought that since they are leaving now we are the inheritors of the British legacy but the fact was that we were not because the British never handed over the reins to us in the Indian Ocean region. All that they did was they basically America took over the Indian Ocean region because it did not want to leave a vacuum which could then be occupied by the Soviet Union. Similarly, we have also borrowed our strategy has borrowed excessively from what is known as the Monroe Doctrine where you think that you are controlling the entire neighborhood. Where but the fact is that we have never been able to control what maximum we have been able to do is protect the you know the British interests which were existing in the region. To say it in crude terms we have been acting as a chalky door in the region. We have not actually controlled the region and we never found anybody any resistance in the entire Indian Ocean literals or for that matter even in Nepal or otherwise is largely because China did not have the capacity to do that. Until recently you mean. Until recently if China was limited in its capacity to act in the region so were we. It is just that there was no resistance and we had the backing of the western paths throughout to exercise limited control in our neighborhood. That means that we are quite satisfied playing the role of a regional power confining ourselves so far until recently to the Indian Ocean like a self-contained ocean that we considered it to be as our domain and it is only now that we have been the US is enticing us to play a larger and a greater role in western Pacific. From that point of view do you see any possibility of India being able to I mean historically Indian say Indian strategic the limits that we defined of the area of interest stretched from Gulf of Aden to Malacastra. If it is going to stretch beyond that to western Pacific it obviously means that we are now entertaining and entering an arena which is fraught with dangers or eventual conflict especially with China. You know if you look at things realistically if you are stretching your area of your operations to extend into the what is now being touted as the Indo-Pacific then obviously you need more resources. You need capabilities so do you have that kind of capabilities imagine even if you have to operate one helicopter detachment in one of the islands in Seychelles or elsewhere or in Maldives for that matter you know the amount which is required is in the range of 25 crows to 30 crows in per month on a monthly basis. Now how much capacity do we have to sustain this kind of a presence in the Indian Ocean that's one big issue and for how long can we sustain that. You know we are a two trillion dollar economy at present so imagine what was China doing actually when they were a two trillion dollar economy. Did they talk about Belt and Road Initiative? No. Did they talk of entering Indian Ocean? No. So why aren't we reconciling ourselves to our economic realities? The other issue of going into the Indian Ocean is do we understand the dynamics of sea power putting out naval ships in various areas means nothing unless and until you are able to leverage that naval power to to to gain economically from the oceans there is no point in just doing the watchman's duty at sea because how does if you actually see how does the western parts navy and their control of the oceans ocean trade is one of the singular you know reasons for the western parts to have controlled the world for such a long time and that they do by controlling the marine service industry the western powers have ensured that 90 percent of the global trade continues to flow on the oceans and those oceans where their service industry prevails where they determine what is going to be the insurance and the reinsurance rates where they determine what is going to be the freight rates where they determine the movement of goods across the world so that is where navy is one small part of that entire arrangement in our case our problem is that we have always given preference to power our strategic thinking is shaped to giving a shape to think of power which actually entangles you into a greater web which entangles you to play not your own role but somebody else's role our strategic thinking has never been shaped by the concepts of freedom because once we mean freedom of navigation no freedom of imagination freedom of we've never even now when we are talking in terms of Indian Ocean the problems that confront the world for such a long time has not been given to us by China those problems which are which the world is facing now comes from the international order that the west had designed for the world and in that the Indian Ocean plays a critical role especially because of location of of the oil resources and the natural gas resources in and around Indian Ocean which also is the critical for both India China Japan South Korea in terms of its oil requirements and dependency on west Asia or for for its oil imports China is the only country which is actually going out and challenging the US command of the oceans it is developing those kinds of capabilities and those number of ships that can actually challenge the American order at sea now America needs the help of other countries because it is highly indebted at the moment its debt levels are very high America cannot afford to spend that kind of money on its navy it needs the allies to basically do it's the job that its navy would have performed it is basically trying to multiply its power by having the assets of Australia Japan India placed all under its command if China is having a large amount of trade moving through these routes there is no reason for China to actually disrupt those routes and since the world is so globalized at the moment nor is there any interest for other parties to actually disrupt the trade disruption of trade in the ocean actually harms the western parts and in any case in the Indian Ocean for the past so many decades after the second war Americans took over the Indian Ocean island base of from UK in Diego Garcia and Chagos archipelago and other places which were earlier occupied dominated by the British navy these were one after another handed over to the US and they took over so it's not as if the big power presence has not been there France is very heavily present in Indian Ocean so is UK and they have now recently announced that they're building a permanent base in Bahrain which is going to play host to the fifth fleet of the United States so all these countries are already present there India does not see that Indian strategic planning does not perceive them as as something which is threatening to to interest to India's interest but it sees the presence of China in Indian Ocean as something of a big threat does it make sense to me it really doesn't make sense because on one hand if you're supporting the very concept of freedom of sea then you can't really be saying that I'm preparing through thought Chinese freedom at sea in the Indian Ocean you know the movement of Chinese ships in or submarines in the Indian Ocean because that is granted by the international law and that freedom probably only you can you know curtail that freedom of action of the ships if you declare hostilities till the time hostilities are actually declared the law does not permit you to hamper the movement of ships or submarines the basic issue is what purpose if I place my ships if I advance my navy what purpose am I solving if China is building the Eurasian line as you said which they have built the entire rail network and they are building subsequently it will take another 30 40 years for a lot of trade to travel through those routes through the Eurasian routes but China is also building all along with it a service industry which will feed the movement of the trade and that is the service industry with China would control now but we are not understanding what is it that we want to achieve in the oceans do we want to achieve the Chinese you know just we just want to stop the Chinese ship to me that is a very very ridiculous kind of strategic logic admiral Arun Prakash wrote the other day that with Russia and China moving close towards a military kind of an alliance it's become all the more necessary important that India look to United States as a counter and obviously there is also this thinking that even if you want to you know manage your conflict and tensions with your neighbor China you still have to build up quadrilateral alliances to give you a little more space to maneuver how realistic are these assessment I mean are we in a position to maneuver ourselves if we become part of a quadrilateral alliance to you know send a message to China to relent elsewhere to meet India some way to address some of its concerns these postulations are actually based on that imagination that you know China is a natural enemy these postulations are based on the fact that you know there is there is no alternative to the western hegemony yeah you're right sham sarin in fact wrote and said so in so many words that all this talk about China as as the new global power it's it's not realistic that you are still remains the lone superpower or the lone global power so basically you know India's interest would lie if one is to look at strategically the kind of an order which you know which is basically what has been designed and what has been created the post war international order which is created by America largely when the Anglo-Americans if you would say you know it is it has it has not delivered the international liberal order what they call it is it has failed to deliver to the world what it promised it has failed to deliver a peace in the world it has actually aggravated the inequalities in the world so we've all seen that for the past 20 years the way Middle East has been destroyed do we want the same order to now transpose itself into Asia-Pacific do we want that order to cause problem do we want Maldives to become another Syria so that is the question that India needs to ask and that's that's exactly why is peace more important or is protecting western hegemony more important for our strategy can Russia and China the combining coming together of Russia and China can it be used as a counterpoise to the western hegemony India can find its rightful place in this order only if this order is cracked only if this order becomes more multipolar unless and until you have that kind of a multipolarity in that order you will not have the room or the leeway to move around and that multipolarity I believe is possible with the rise of China Russia and also India now if we are not able to grab this opportunity and like you know as we had sustained the British Empire for such a long time because without India the Britain would never have existed or would never have lasted for such a long time so are we ready to be used in a similar manner again is the question that you know we must pose ourselves I think on that note we conclude today's interview thank you for agreeing to this interview and we look forward to talking to you again on other matters related to India's strategic and defence related matters thank you very much thank you for watching news click


Hi, I'm guy Hi, everyone. I'm Sandy and We're here to learn about starting tomatoes from suckers so Our title is economic implications of starting late season tomatoes seeds versus suckers And this all came about kind of through a Sarah grant. We got in 2016 of the two-year Sarah grant and we wanted to see about you know Time and money-wise and starting Tomatoes late season from seed versus from suckers And if you don't know what suckers are you will find out here in just a little bit, but all tomatoes have suckers on them We'll start off maybe a little bit here. I'll tell you a little bit about our farm and then we'll kind of get into the sucker business on that This is minus Sandy to picture Lady by the fence is our daughter Nelly and she farms full-time with that girl's flowers right here at the farm and her husband Joel and then Seniors our son Conrad Ashmore. He's a equal partner in the produce here at the farm And he also farms organic corn beads and small rains and hay with another partner The next to him is our other daughter Maggie And she farms full-time in Eastern Kentucky and Clay County raising organic produce and along with her husband will That raises lots of proteins down there. You know the work She This was this year's crew We generally raise about six date acres of produce along with about two acres of cut flowers We sell at the one farmers market. We wholesale Some small groceries and Dayton and Cincinnati. We have an honor system here at the farm and Do a CSA a small CSA a winner in a seller one, but that was Kelly with the red flowers She was a produce this year then Emma of the yellow flowers is her second year with Nelly Nelly and our granddaughter Maribel and Sandy and the rest of the crew here I Said we sell at a farmers market Everybody's pretty familiar with that. This picture is a Liz and she was with us in 2015 and actually she's the one that kind of encouraged us to do this Sarah Grant She was real intrigued with the suckers and we've talked about Sarah grants and if you don't know about Sarah We'll talk about those in a little bit She started she looked the outline The grant actually and then we've been doing cat flowers since uh, oh 20 some years and now they took over that part of the farm about seven years ago So Sarah is a stable agricultural research and education It's kind of through the USDA and they give out grants to farmers and ranchers colleges High schools for educational purpose on stainless lag They're a really neat organization and we were fortunate enough to get accepted and actually we've got a short video It's about four minutes and it's going to explain quite a bit This came about they do a spot checks every year and this is how this little video came about We are Guy and Sandy Ashmore from that guy's family farm. We are in southwest, Ohio and between Cincinnati and Dayton and our Sarah project was a economic impact of late season tomatoes Crop with starting from suckers versus seed and we're getting our suckers from existing tomato plants and See how much time savings that would be in the busy time We also kind of limited on labor and equipment for greenhouse space So suckers could be just taken from the plant and started and we're doing a trial here with three different varieties And we are a certified organic farm. So we are following all those practices as well The varieties that we have in here are really field varieties and not varieties. You might find in a tunnel situation So we have some Arkansas travelers for testing some heirlooms Big beef a very traditional red slicer and then we have fourth of July, which would be an early producer It's early tomato. Yeah And one thing about for being certified organic. It's hard to find late season tomato starts that are certified organic So that's one reason we're really excited about these suckers We can take them right from our farm and not have to worry search somewhere for expensive late season tomatoes And we're open in the tunnels, you know, a lot of research has been done on disease resistance So we're kind of hoping to see how suckers will do with Plants started from seed. Yeah, we're also, you know, curious about, you know Wisdom and knowledge from the past So this whole idea came about from someone telling us at market that their father would always start his late season tomatoes From the suckers. So that just, you know, a light bulb moment. We decided we thought we could do that We are also a farm that didn't Produce too many transplants in a greenhouse. So we did a lot of direct seeding We Depend on another grower that would do some of our transplants.  You would just stick that right in the soil mix about there we do First, you know Two or three days they're gonna look like they're dead. It's kind of like spinach and then in about two weeks. They'll be almost rootbound in the container Went to Sarah as we've seen the research projects They've done in the past and I think like they're free thinkers too and willing to support new ideas maybe even old ideas like the suckers from transplants and They've been great to work with so far and I think they're really good at spreading education across the country of different regions They have and it's really been a big help and we always like looking at what? Everybody else is trying and you don't know to Do it really on the farm if it's going to work or not in a real life situation And I think Sarah's gonna help in us do that. One reason we want to date season tomatoes is we get We're in a bottom ground or farm is mostly bottom ground soils or all it is we get lots of late-dos Lots of moisture. So we get lots of early white down here So our tomatoes a lot of times on last as long as season as other farmers So we kind of wanted to push that envelope a little bit and have some early tomatoes for our winter CSA which starts in October and November and That's kind of the reason for this Sandy mentioned in the video that a customer at Farmers Market mentioned it and that customer is actually about 80. So his dad was raising these you know back You know knowledge that kind of gets lost Here's our tomatoes in the field we raise about I don't know 2,000 field tomatoes and We try to do white spacing so we get more airflow to try to avoid Early blight and then we mulch so we don't get water splash. We'll be still really fight early blight It's a pain problem. So this is about the size of tomatoes are when we get the suckers off Like Sandy said we wanted to use varieties. They're using field production. So that's what we have You know, there's we're not you want to learn how to raise tomatoes Really good in a greenhouse or high tunnels. We're not the person to come to you We don't do that that much, but we do have a That's kind of why we wanted to try this out to see if we could use our field to varieties for this and The first year we did fourth of July big beef in Arkansas Traveller the second year We went with green zebra and said Arkansas Traveller Green zebras really did not like the tunnel for us So here's the plants in those the suckers You know what they are the side shoots that come off the plant a lot of people turn those off anyway for try to get better yield Better production. So there's one right there by my thumb. Actually this one's got three suckers on it The one right here in Sandy's hand is about the size. We kind of like to do them They could be bigger and you'll see these other photos. They are bigger. So that's a sucker Yeah, you just just snap them off. It's almost as too easy to believe how this works These suckers are bigger and we use a 72 cell tray We just you know, just stick them in there. We don't use any Rooting compound or anything like that. We did but stick them in some great soul mix we get from peach Mountain Then what happens you put them in there and then they look like cooked spinach and about a day or two And what we do is we try to keep now the direct Sun Here we got them underneath the flatbed wagon when they get some daylight Yeah, but they're out of direct Sun to get some indirect in the morning and they'll look like this You know, you'll think they're dead and we always do every year and then after about a week You know, they're standing up and you're just kind of remarkable Here's a one week old sucker you kind of see by the stem and top my hand I'll affirm it is and that's the roots already after one week There's after two weeks and you know, it's not root bound, but it's just It's always remarkable A little fuzzy, but see there and then there's like six weeks on the left Versus the two-week suckers on the right you can even see the suckers got better color And you know that time of year it's just really tough and into June and July to have time to Keep up for us in the greenhouse Right, so that's the control group, which is just Plants that we had started in the greenhouse Which are the ones on the left and then the suckers were on the right. So You know, there's always that fear that we weren't going to get them water I want to kind of just tell the same women saying you'll be struggle to do it They're our busiest months of the year And I said, you know farmers working to prove six or more acres of vegetables and we've got a small crew We try to be as efficient as we can and you know, but everybody's you want to keep your cost production down and their suckers Are free Then here we are in the tunnel and you part of this serigrant if you've ever looked at serigrants, you know, you do get money And ours was about $5,300 for a two-year grant And actually I paid for this tunnel and their labor and you know potting soil Seeds We you know with that grant we had to have a field day and do a public demonstration and just some things, you know But you normally do farming so really wasn't anything out of the ordinary Probably the biggest thing out of the ordinary is us using this tape measure because we really got that precise and Usually you give by the wet holes that have our purge you put your tomatoes, but you know, we uh, we Smartered it up. I guess you might say and I'm trying to do this so we can keep track of all this for serigrants and I was thinking that For the labor hours, it could only be the farmer So you couldn't hire things when you're hire someone out or use their hours for a serigrant So it has to be you doing the labor and tracking it And then we didn't uh, you know, we had three beds in here. We always call them beds, but We had six rows and they were side by side Sandwich planting big beef right here and the suckers are what she's planting right now And on the right that's laying out to get planted for the ones from seed Um, we did 80 suckers and 80 seeded transplants And then we you know, we string and clip like are giving it up And this just kind of shows you that you know Suckers have suckers right below that clip is a sucker coming out. So, you know, if you had a Heated greenhouse of lights, I guess you could just keep taking suckers off and forever It's pretty remarkable And this is probably this is 4th of july. They're a smaller tomato. You never raised them. They're great tomato Maybe about an inch and a half That under two inches. These are probably about uh, we've you know Six weeks eight weeks That time of year, you know, you got full sunlight. Things really just take off And this is probably, you know middle of september And this picture here is kind of demonstrating You can see there's two rows there and the suckers are on the left and the ones from seed on the right You know, they look identical You know, we're looking down any difference in diseases or growth habits So here's some figures So in 2016 we started the seeds on may 18th And then we snapped the suckers off on june 16th Both were planted on july 11th and we picked till killing frost, which was november 11th inside that tunnel Harvest began on august 8th In the 2017 You know, we were behind again I mean, we was a week later getting our seeds started and a week later kind of getting the suckers Both were planted on july 17th, which is a week later than the year before And then the harvest began almost two weeks later that year and killing frost came in october 21st and what was kind of interesting on this Tomatoes in 2017 in that tunnel actually out yielded the ones in 2016 even though we harvested a couple weeks shorter and we found out and it works and we'll say this Grant started in 2016 I think the first suckers we planted like about a handful out the field was 2013 And then we kind of increased it just a little bit trying to Play around with it. It's really time saving. It's easy. You know an economical way to produce late season tomato transplants As opposed to we found that suckers increased the yields And they ripened up to about a week sooner So we were harvesting the sucker tomatoes about a week sooner than we were to want some seed Even though the seeded plants were over And if you actually went to um the sarah website You can look this up and it has like our daily logs It has the amounts of tomatoes that were harvested Each day or every other day and all of that's on there. I couldn't actually get it to fit into this Present They're on the sarah website even more information and we just Counted what tomatoes were marketable, you know, they had one one damage or something like that. We did not weigh them And there you go, you know, one one's like all tomatoes if they're inside or outside Like I said, we saw no difference on what they preferred There's a little fuzzy there They're gonna say the sucker tomatoes, you know transplants used almost 20 less hours of labor 19 half to produce in five less weeks of Worrying about them, you know water numb and making sure they're not cooked And uh for sarah, we had to put a dollar amount stuff. So 19 half hours equal about 390 dollars in labor The sucker tomatoes yielded 21 percent more fruit Which it was fabulous and that equaled like 368 more dollars also in those two seasons We were surprised at the increase in yields. I didn't really think it would be that much difference Uh, we were able to harvest five to seven weeks longer than the field Because we're like, you know, it took them out about Second week of september third week and in the tunnels. We really saw no difference in disease. I was kind of worried Since uh, we take the suckers off We usually have early blight already kind of starting on our plants. So I was or we were Thinking now we're taking suckers in the tunnel. They're going to just continue with that early blight There was no difference in disease in there And we think everybody should try it and just uh pretty fun to see if you only do one in your flower bed So here we go the valuation transplants from suckers did increase profitability Reduced our time and resources needed and created a late season crop that had environmental economic and social benefits for the farm farmers and customers This forward thinking using traditional wisdom of the past can lead to greater financial stability for farmers and they all need to be More financially sustainable And that might be good Okay, I guess Sorry, these are messed up So recommendations was uh, it's a simple process of producing a second and we this one kind of says that you might be able to do a second Production just out in the field Without putting them in tunnels depending on where you're at. So, you know, if you wanted to I think everybody's yields start to decline on tomatoes no matter if you got early blight or not coming, you know into september So there's a potential to keep the farmer ahead of disease. And like said on the first crop Uh collection of suckers can begin as soon as they are formed Then two weeks later transplanted grow a second crop and then you keep planting, you know, every two to three weeks if you want it We haven't done that But I think it's very possible Another thing I really think is that you could take the suckers And actually not even put them in this 72 cell trays. I think you could just plant take them and just put them right in the ground To have to put some shade cloth over them because they wilt so bad But I really think you almost could take away Almost all that later Uh, maybe we'll try that this year. I keep saying we're going to other things, you know Kids around around the spokes here, but uh, I just I really don't see any reason why you would have to put in that cell tray Except to keep them shaded, you know, the shade cloth can work with that with hoops, I believe Or rainy week, maybe or rainy week coming up, right to be overcast I don't know if that's the last slide. Yeah, that would be for questions, but yeah, so I guess uh I kind of went through that kind of quick, but Questions about anything So are all the tomatoes you grow uh indeterminate? Yes, yeah, we've raised one variety for disease But probably all of you know 30 varieties you've raised 29 or are indeterminate And you're indeterminate to put on lots of suckers Unlimited supply on that We didn't try any determinants but uh That'd be something else to work on I said it's almost just uh too simple a process When the gentleman told us about it, you know, I thought maybe He'd forgotten something from his youth that you had had more steps to it But it really is just as simple as breaking a sucker off and putting it in the soil And if anybody raises tomatoes, you know, they lay on the ground they start to root anyway So, you know, it's not as surprising when you start to think about the whole plant Well, I have a question Um, are there any varieties that you don't think I mean, I can't wait to do this this year Are there any varieties that you think just wouldn't work? You know, we had green zebra in there Yeah They were just kind of went crazy. They Multi branched really bad and the yield was really just not there Oh, okay beef and um Fourth of July and Arkansas travelers just did Fantastic. So I don't think I know cherries just take off Yeah, the research thing but we've done cherries in the past and they just uh, I love it Did like three different varieties of cherries. They really really Yeah, I'm getting into Sarah if you have any ideas for Sarah and I tell you I I'd have put in a plug for Sarah and Otha I said in them two workshops that Otha gave over the years on the writing Sarah branch And uh, it's very helpful on that The main one they said was make sure you can read your grant You do it by hand make sure it's readable or it probably won't go through it And they couldn't have been more easy to work with So really we've got any type of grant, you know I think, you know, if we wanted to do a new grant with your cherries versus determinants, uh, You know that but something to dispel into it Sometimes people get a Sarah grant and then you realize you need more information and they will help you with that if you really got a viable project All the times you're counting I think I will try it Yeah, I'm excited to try it as well especially just, uh Snapping them off and sticking them in the ground Right. Yeah I mean really what do you got to lose?  Anyway, it's up to the first bloom or more So you got to use for them Guy, do your customers recognize your real organic project label yet? No, you know, we just got Bad about in august, I believe And we've headed up at market trying to get some encouragement We really haven't pushed it too much either, but uh, hopefully more and more will and more more of us will join with it, you know I think they've got a good good program. And I think they're Really passionate about it Couraging by that certified mechanic and they're been great to work with also Amber, do you want to put that link for the evaluation into the chat now? I can do that for sure People a chance to do that because it looks like some people are already kind of drifting away Dropping out There's our email, uh, feel free to contact us Have any questions suckers or anything else we're doing? I have to share Guy, I would love to come out and see your farm. How do you feel about visitors? Oh, we always like to have visitors, you know, okay Always try to have an open forum policy, you know I come down to show you sometimes people stop by we don't have time but they're welcome to go anywhere They want them. We know you're coming. We'd love to have you Hopefully maybe and Time tomatoes are ready to sucker. We won't be wearing masks Right, right We're here to see each other, you know Thank you guy All right. Thank you Guy on the Can you hear me? This is martin. Yes. Yeah. So part of this air grant was was the hoop house also And to see if you can extend extend the season on the tomatoes It sure was They helped pay for that high tunnel And that one there we've got a few high tunnels that one's that's just a 48 footer Usually I think on research they kind of go with the That size seemed to be more common than trying to get a hundred footer because don't really need a 100 foot maybe for a research And you need more than you know a 20 footer. So it's kind of seemed like that 50 foot's kind of a A good recommendation for when you do that We we actually put that one up ourselves. So you know, I kind of counted as some of the labor for the grant Yeah, if you did go look up and there's a quite a bit of information On our grant. I mean if you went to 2016 Farmer Rancher Grants and look Ohio, you would find us in that you could see all the The grant proposal we wrote up and then our You know research at the end how we wrote it up and a few days we hadn't things like that but Really other than writing a grant and Wasn't much more than what we're doing already, you know, unless you were sort of an organic you're doing daily logs and You're keeping lots of paperwork anyway. So really Was it much a traditional labor on our part? Right, I guess if you were going to put them directly out in the field that you just risk in the length of the season, right? using suckers Right Frost would be your limiting factor on that I Yeah, depending on how big an area you've got to plant, you know, I mean we're kind of doing field production But I think if we did it in our form Thanks, you would try to set those As much as we could just because we'd already have early bites starting and that way we wouldn't want to start right next to them You know, we try to move them away Like I said, probably as much as you could so you wouldn't have that carry over Trying to limit that So what what fertilizer do you use when you did the suckers? We use pound I believe it's like a five four five or so Generally in a tunnel that size they only put down like about 50 pounds Then we you know, we added compost with that also It seems like it was kind of weird this year Uh, actually we only found two hornworms I don't know what happened But in the tunnels in the past we've had a worm problems in there We had had to use some bt in there and I've always been kind of surprised how like army worms and The hornworms get in those tunnels Uh, you know, sometimes I think they're worse than they are in the field Maybe just because you're in there with them so close or above your head But this year was um, I don't know. Hopefully it's the same next year But I think you're just kind of amazed to know worm problems I think the tournaments would be a good idea. Did you put any fertilizer mid? Mid season I know we didn't we usually have men just once We didn't know four years like a fish or like either You know kind of revisiting this project I think determinants if you had determinants and you did those it'd be very interesting because you might get a bigger flush of fruit Towards the end before frost then the end determinants kind of spread out the the yield So you might you know, because you're kind of bumping up against that frost even though they're in tunnels, you know I mean we get down to you know 26 or something we're pretty well done. It's like there's 28 at night. Like I said, we're in in bottom grounds We get frost a lot earlier in the fall later in the spring Uh, but you know determinants just kind of thinking off my head That might be a way to get a bigger push of a yield a shorter span than the end determinants Thank you


I guess we're going to get started with this meeting so I guess first thing in order it's just everybody just say who you are that's here. Aubrey Jenkins Fire Chief. Allison Teratio, County Councilmember District 5. I'm Michael Burr, Director of Emergency Services for Richland County. Wilburon in the City Council District 3. Daniel Rickam in City Council District 4. City Manager Teresa Wilson. Leonardo Brown, Richland County Administrator. Good. We also have Eric Chance, who is also on the bicycle. He's just not at a mic. Okay. So thank you all. Hopefully you all had an opportunity to review the minutes and if we go with the minutes we're going to proceed from there unless anybody got any revision or question about the minutes we're going to proceed and not to belabor anything. I think the purpose is which is item number four which we'll be talking about you know the budget and just receiving information from both the city and the county and I guess Missy if you're ready. So this is Missy Kaufman, the city's budget program management and grants director and Missy is going to take us through the budget development for the fire services and the Columbia Richland Fire annual appropriation of funds but how we actually get there from the city's perspective which I think gives a pretty good overview of the information that you all have been asking for. Thank you Missy. Good afternoon. Good to see everyone. As Miss Wilson mentioned we're going to go over the city's budget process and particularly the fire department's budget to include but the city portion of the fire department's budget and the county's portion. We'll cover a little bit about the city's budget process in general and spend more time obviously speaking specifically about the fire department. I'm sure the city's budget process mirrors probably what you're familiar with the county's fire budget process or the county's budget process in general. We start our budgets around now. Departments will be putting together budget requests here usually starting in December or January. I know that the county does have a little bit earlier time schedule with regards to when your budgets are due from departments so normally I think the fire department is submitting budgets a little bit earlier for county operations to the county. We've moved through our budget process. We have two readings of our budget and adopted by June 30th and of course our fiscal year is just the county starting July 1 through June 30th. I understand just part of what we're going to talk about today is based on what I think has been discussed at some of the prior meetings and part of what we'll focus on is the different revenue sources that the city has along with specific fire related revenue sources much like the county and local governments in general. We have a general fund that's generated from property taxes. Also part of our general fund are the fire specific revenues which include the fire hydrant fee and the fire millage which is set by Richland County and collected by the county but remitted to the city. The hydrant fee is of course collected by the city. Our enterprise funds which cover water, sewer, stormwater parking and then other moving into our grants and special revenues. The county portion of the fire department's budget is treated as a special revenue which is designated specifically by accounting rules and accounting principles. So county fire number one and are both funded out of county fire services as a special revenue based on the contract that is funded by the county. We also do collect fire service fees on behalf of the county and Irma fire districts and Lexington as well now for those residents that are in those jurisdictions. So those funds are remitted specifically to those fire services. Just to talk a little bit too just so you know what makes up the county and city fire department budgets or the budgets in general are operating budgets would include personnel operating expenses on the city side. It would include capital if there's funding for capital. The county's fire budget does not include capital on county budgets for capital on your own. And then of course the we have a capital budget which is really related to our our CIP or capital improvement program. Getting more specifically with regards to the fire department's budget, the city, the city portion of the fire department is in the city's general fund. The county portion of the fire department's budget is as mentioned is in a special revenue. The county portion of the of the fire services department fire services budget includes fire and personnel. It does not include any funding for vehicle maintenance, building maintenance, equipment purchases nor overhead outside of the fire department for other city other city departments and operations. Vehicle maintenance is something that was moved out of the county's portion of the budget a couple of years ago and is now funded straight by county services. The county pays the city the amount of the budget approved on a bi-monthly basis in accordance to the fire services contract based on the approved budget. If the budget is overspent, the county does not reimburse for the shortfall. That's the current agreement. The current fire contract is is adjusted. My understanding is that the fire contract expires in January 2023. Folsom is going to come talk a little bit about how they submit. Good afternoon, everyone. All right. The way we develop our budget for the fire department on either side just goes for the city or the county budget. So when we start developing a budget, we go to each division head, look at what their requests are and what their needs are. And so when we start talking about salaries and fringes, you know, we start looking at existing salaries. We try to forecast our increases such as merit increases, cost of living, retention raises, higher education, special operations centers. Now, this is not everything and only what we look at, but we look we try to look at all of those and placement of personnel at that time. When it starts come to goods and services, the same things apply. You know, we look at the start examining the expenditures from the previous year. Also, sometimes we'll go back even further is three years just to see what we trend, how we're trending, what's going on in the world at that time. Sometimes a few costs can be up. And you know, just previous years, a few costs can be down. So you try your best to forecast those such as forecasting bunker gear replacement. Bunker gear is a 10 year life. But the reality is our bunker gear will last no more than five to eight years on a busy on a busy company. Maybe five years or not so busy company, maybe six years. So you try, we try to forecast those needs. Again, we talked about fuel prices, electricity. Think about medical supplies in the last two years, medical, medical supplies such as these N95s has gone up the percentage I can't even I can't even fathom. But those increases are those a lot increases when it comes to medical supplies, equipment needs. So we try to forecast on goods and services, everything we can. When it comes to extrication equipment, the closing that we have on, no, although we have an allotment, but you got to you know, we put in there for emergency purchases or emergency situations where they get blood on the uniform. We had an increase in bed bugs. So we had to develop situations and new materials and new ways of preventing that from bringing into the station. For one instance, if we get a bug, a bed bug, we go to a bed by a bed bug call.  Now we got to we got to call Terminix. We got to disinfect the truck and we got to disinfect the station. Those are added costs. Now some of those costs, we cannot forecast, but we try as much as we can to forecast those costs. But those are some new things that happens with with reoccurring costs. The city budget. Alright, this year, how we work out in the city budget, we have six different budgets for the city 2301, which is fire administration has 22 positions that we split 5050 with the county. We have 2302, which is our fire prevention, which 12 members there. 2303 is fire fire suppression, which is our biggest division fire training, which is seven positions split 5050 with the county and our shop maintenance, which is split by 5050.   Our prevention is our on the floor, our guys, our personnel that's in on the floor, we call boots on the ground, of course training. I know what training is. And fire shop maintenance is our logistics department, which they handle from the SCBA, upfit the PPE cleaning and testing every year the annual testing that we have to do, taking supplies and stuff to the various departments. And then the fire maintenance division, which is funded out the water department. It's not it's not reflected in this total budget of the 24681. That's a separate budget. But and but total, we, we managed 260 budgeted positions. Any questions on the county budget? Same thing. If you notice the difference on between this, one of the biggest difference is on the fire, the fire suppression side, we combine all stations into one, which is 2303. On the county side, we do some of the individual budget for each station that's in the county. And you can see the difference here.  And then if you look here, you have each in each individual position at each station, and their total budget for this year of 21302 221, which is a total of 248 positions, budget positions that we that's budgeted for. Chief, oh, yes, sir. Can you go ahead and explain to them about why you showing station one HQ with the 39 positions? Yeah, yes, that's that's some about other writing positions.  Any questions on that part of it or anything that you'd like us to break down any further? Total total city county budget positions 260 plus the 248 five hundred five five five six five six. And what one difference have you seen out the county has their own fire prevention, fire marshals office. So that's the difference as well. How large is that office? And on the city side, on the city side, it's approximately, we just round it up to 1.5 million. That's goods and services and salaries. I can't speak for the city is 1.5 million, 2302 and provide prevention. That's what you 1212 of it. Okay, got to. So you have the break breakdown of their budget at one file. Okay, just the city. Yes, perfect. Yeah, we don't we don't have any idea what the what it calls on the county side, but they're fire marshes code enforcement. Chief Jenkins, can you repeat that about the the county side? It's far far marshes. Yes, I'll just say that we're not sure what it costs to fund the fire marshes on the county side, because they are separate. They're not a part of the department. Okay, so it's separately. I would think it would be important for us to have some transparency around exactly what those numbers are. So I would let if our staff could get clarity on that. Yes, ma'am. So the idea of budget presentations were that the city would go through their part. And then the county would give a general overview in at a high level. So some of that information will be covered during our process. So yes, man, we have a we know how much we spend. Okay. Thank you. And with that, we would like to see a continued partnership, be more transparent. And with us coming together, you know, our mindset, we can achieve more effective effectiveness and efficiency by coming together, each of us knowing what we need to do and how can we address those issues. So we appreciate y'all giving us the time to listen to us. And hopefully we can answer any questions after the county presents theirs and then become a game plan. But I think the one thing we need to add and not to get in the weeds is that we do several budgets on the county side, based for each station. I think if we can look at maybe calling it down, the same way we do it, and I understand why we do it because we want to see what is that what it costs is to run each station. But you know, it calls us to how many 18, 19 different budgets, each block appears it's a budget, right? Although although it's one budget, but if you look at when we submit our budget to you, we have a line item and a page for each each station. So we can call it down somewhat. It'd be a whole lot easier. Each each block that you see appear each account number is its own account. So it's like having our finance folks don't like me refer to it. It's like having a checkbook for each one. Great. Thank you. On this Wilson, Mr. Brown, I think the goal from my understanding with the committee, which we're looking for you ought to give us some added direction on what you want to accomplish. But we didn't want to wait to keep getting started with this basic baseline information. So I thought it was good. And County Administrator and I talked about let's go ahead at least give begin to give the basic information. I'm sure you all have additional questions that you want to kind of get more specific about to the point of transparency, understanding fund balances. And I'm very interested in making sure that one of the goals is to get to the point that the process is to the benefit of everyone and that we are hearing from the chief and the staff as to what would streamline processes and what would give us the right information leading up to and during both the city and the county budget process. If it is a true contract for services, then, you know, we hire the chief to give us the expertise on what is needed to provide the service. And when they when they submit budget requests, everyone understands that you don't always get everything that you are asking for. However, it is, I think in common upon all of us to work through that during the process so that when budgets are approved by state law in a timely manner, then we're approving what the chief is saying he needs. And or there are adjustments that everyone is understanding accordingly. When the budget is actually approved and not thereafter. So I would hope that by us all coming together, those are some of the some of the things that we can begin to address. Chief, can I ask you a question? She so I think a couple meetings ago, I was interested in how how we plan in the future. It sounds like from from Mickey's presentation, we go back two, three years and carve the city's budget. I'm not I'm not sure if that's the same process with the county and carve out the expectations for what we need for the upcoming year. Is there not? Are there any other metrics that you use? Looking forward, population growth, anything to give you a more solid standing on why why there needs to be more budget coming your way? Well, we we do try to get our needs first. And basic needs is what it's basic needs. And then we try to project what may be coming forward. I know sometimes it's really hard to do. But also is based on if we just for example, you know, we always put it in our budget. As far as what we think we need in certain stations or in certain areas, we think that we need a station built. We try to we try to capitalize on that. But as always, and I'll tell you, each person that has been working on a budget has done a phenomenal job of looking forward as well, not just looking backwards, but looking forward as to what we need. And sometimes we do have to look at the population growth in certain areas. I'm gonna just give you a perfect example. When we look at the Bull Street project, you know, that's gonna be a big demand on our fire prevention folks, because of the growth out there.  So we look at stuff like that. We look at the growth in the county as well, in predicting how many firefighters we need to put out there, based on that. I think we did submit a plan a few years ago. And when Mr. Sears are here, talking about some needs there in the county, in particular, the lower risk area, based on the growth down there, and the future growth down there. So we would what departments do you work with to get that that growth projection? You work with our GIS folks? Now, we have not worked with other departments without what I would tell you, though, we do have a person within our department, who is very spy on it. And that's Marcus Houchens. And he, he pulled maps for us. You look at all that stuff and and projects, just like when we gave you all the first meeting that map of where we feel like we need stations. And he put all that stuff together for us. So wait, and you know, I'd you look at just the growth in our major corridors, Garner's Ferry 378, for example, towards lower Richland. Just to see what's come through our planning department on our agendas, the two to five year snapshot of growth in that area. I think we need to be planning for it now. And, you know, for the future snapshot, because it takes time to find the funding to build the new fire stations to to get the programming up in those fire stations. So that's I'm that's what I'm trying to stress is let's let's get the good metrics, you know, and really push this this this conversation to get ahead of the growth basically. There is a plans exam fire plans exam fire plans examiner in the planning department that reports to the chief as well. And that person does the snapshot of that's within the city side. Right. The county obviously they county does their own plans examining. So okay. Yes. So this is just the process for city stations in city growth. Gotcha. You know, the good thing about it, even as it grows, even in the county, the relationship between the city and the county, you know, we may have to put more people out there. But we still kind of, you know, we can cover it, but we still need more people out there. Sure. Mr.  Also, what we have done, matter of fact, this past year, we have put in for a grant to for more for more staffing to cover exactly what you're saying. So like on station four, we look at we want to put another engineer because engineer because of growth. We already have a point there, which is hopefully we can get a ladder. So we have a ladder engine there. So we can have a ladder and engine on the on Blackwood area, Wilson Road. You go down there now, it's like night and day. So we put in for a grant proposal for that as well, to fully staff one of those stations. So we are also looking at that. Sometimes it may not be reflected in those budget, but I can assure you and we can show you where chief already has a plan of different stations within the city and the county that address those needs. And we do have what we do sometimes we put in a separate put in a separate need, you know, we got our budget, and then we also put in a capital need or to say, okay, this is where we need we need stations, we need different areas or we need funding. And you've got the data to back that up. We use the data. That's how we get there. We have NFPA 1710. And that all those combined help us to to find those numbers, response times, because all that counts when it start when we start talking about ISO ratings, all that plays a part in that because we got to have those to reach the reach the public. So we do have some of that. Are we there yet? I'm not gonna say we're 100% there. But I'm gonna give us 80% that we can answer most of those questions. I say that to the ISO ratings is also what what drops what the ISO rating in the process for that is also what drops their needs based on those areas. But of course, the city's growth is going to be the vertical growth. But as the chief mentioned, the plans examiners, those kind of growths that be able to view the inspections and things like that obviously drop some of those things. And there for them also to an annexation and annexation, right. And that's important.  So we have a we have a capital improvement process for station driving stations. Again, that's on the city side, the county side of the fire department addresses all capital, whether it's the rolling stock capital or capital needs for new stations. Great. Now, we were not successful in obtaining that that grant that's a for grant. But that's something that we're going to continue to be asking for. Same thing we did for the station on Lawyers and Boulevard Station 22. We saw the need out there. And we applied for a safer grant to get those firefighters in that station. Same. And what chief folks mentioned about us applying for the Blyford Station, as well as which is a county station is and also the city which station for because of the growth that's going on out in both those areas. So it is solely needed both on the city and the county side. And I completely understand that. But I also don't want us as a city county partnership to rely on grants to keep up with projected growth. Yes, budget. So that's that that needs to be, you know, committed to by both city and county. Yes. I think that completes what we had, Mr. Wilms. So I guess I have a question before we kind of wrap up the this part of the budget conversation is that so we've heard from city staff about the process on the county side. Would it be you, Mr. Bird, who kind of has these conversations with folks like how can you can we get some information from the county exactly about how it does work on our side like who we're consulting with in terms of our projected growth. I know that we just did a lot of our redistricting primary conversations and so much of our growth has been in the northern part of the county. And so I just love to hear a little bit from the county side as far as that's concerned and whoever's most appropriate. Sure. And I can start that conversation. It takes us a little bit away from the budget overview. But in terms of the county side, the county has a couple of times now went out and looked at projected needs for the county and much like the city has announced, director bird presented to the county a plan for a careful improvement for fire stations out in the county. And not too long ago, the county actually approved some capital funding for some of those stations out there will be recognized that there is growth. Additionally, the county did also, as I understand it, maybe a year or so ago before I got on board also looked at fire services as a whole in terms of the growth and looking at how it should proceed forward. That as I understand it has not been presented to the council. There was some delay in all of that because that that view or that particular program, I believe was looking at not a joint effort. It wasn't it was focused on the county as a provider of fire service. So to to what we've been doing as a part of this conversation that we're having, we've continued to try to look at working within the scope of our agreement that we have now and providing those services to those growing areas, which I've been identified using the same type of information utilizing our planning department, GIS mapping up in those projections to where we see the growth happening in the county. But much like the city, we are not ahead of that. We are we are trying to get in a good spot and then hopefully get into a position where we can be proactive. But I think it's only fair to say that many of us are reacting to the needs that have not been able to be addressed for whatever number of reasons. So Mr. Rishio, I wish I had better news for you. But we do we do watch the growth. We have plans for the growth. But our money has not kept up with the plans that have been presented for the growth. Not only that director bird clarify anything that I may not have given enough detail for director you have anything, sir? No, sir, I believe you covered it. Mr. Rishio, we did do a study that address some of the areas that needed some some additional resources that was programmed into the capital improvement budget. And we're trying to address those going forward. Because and I'll let Mr. Brown or some of our finance people discuss the actual funding of our fire service. But it is very limited because of the fire millage that we use in the service. The county in about 1990 created a countywide fire district. And the city opted out and Erma opted out. So the amount of money that's collected inside those municipalities goes straight to those municipalities. The city gets theirs. Erma gets theirs. And what is left is what we use to fund not only fire suppression, but other fire related services that we provide in accordance with our ordinance. So the large chunk of that of that budget does go to the city. And in addition to that, a lot of the costs that are on the county side also go to support fire suppression, such as insurance and radio and communications costs and vehicle maintenance that we've talked about, and all those other things. So it's, it's like a puzzle we have to put together every year to come up with the funding and those amounts go up and down. And I'll let Mr. Brown address the specifics of the of the fun. Yes, ma'am, Mr. Rachel, that that response assist you in any manner? I think so. I think it would be it could be helpful, you know, if they're we could have some kind of like, at this point, I feel like I almost need like some kind of side by side. Almost comparison with numbers, you know, to say, this is the overall number that comes in, this is what gets spent for this, and just see them. I don't know if that would be helpful for other members of this committee, but something like that, I think would be probably the next next step down the line in terms of us really being able to understand exactly how this works and provide some guidance on on how, you know, we feel it should go. This is maybe too far off topic, but I can't help thinking about like when we're talking about expenditures and larger expenditures. We are probably expect expecting some federal dollars, hopefully to come to whether it's infrastructure dollars or whatever.  So I'm wondering if that's happening in terms of like a fire. I don't even know if that's possible. Like, are we looking towards electric fire trucks? They're making them now. Okay. The technology is wild. Yeah. So anyway, that that's just a kind of an off topic. But I'd be very interested to know what we plan to do for those vehicles, especially as we look towards fuel costs and things. Well, as a member of this committee, I would I would love to sit down side by side because see I mean, to be blunt. I don't know what the county is looking at. And I'm the fire chief. And I'm not privy to a lot of those conversations. And I would love to be I would love to sit down and be a part of those conversations. I know when you first did a study, I was actually evaluating the person that's doing the study. But that is as far as my involvement went. Haven't seen the study. Although I evaluated the people that this during the study.  If the county is doing something, because he might have time to be for lack of better words to be a spend doing something something else, instead of us doing, you know, duplicating efforts. We take a look at everything we really do. And we try to forecast not only for the city portion, but the county as well. But we forecast we doing that for the betterment of the service. And that that is our goal. So I would love to be a part of those conversations. Well, I think we have to be clear, Chief. Also, if I understood Mr Brown correctly, and of course, this predated him that this study, the you know, what is the intent of the study? I mean, that's what we have to also start just for the understanding of all of us. If the intent is to still have a contract for services that the city provides under direction of the fire chief for the city and the county, that's one thing. If the study's intent was to provide Richland County, which is certainly up to Richland County to do at that time, a study to see what it would look like for a not, you know, having a joint service or a contract for services for the county to embark upon that themselves as something different. And while I appreciate the fact that you were asked to look at whatever you're asked to look at at the time, you ought to be looking at something as you described, if the intent is for it to be a contract for services that we're providing. So I think again, during this process with the advisory committee, I am certainly happy that the committee is meeting so that we can all have clear direction on what the intent is. And then once we know that, that is how we budget accordingly together. But you know, that that's what I would say about that and any studies, you know, if we're doing a study and we're we're providing the service, I would imagine you would be we got initiating a year left until January 23. The magic day. I mean, I would tell you, I think the intent of where we're headed and should be headed is to get everything on the table to make sure that we're accomplishing what the mission is of this contract between the city and the county, which is to make sure that we're providing since we're all citizens of the county, the best service and that protects both our first responders, our firefighters, along with protecting the community. And so I think, you know, having an opportunity really to dig in to an overall discussion and just putting on the table of understanding all the collections, all the the funding sources and how we can leverage that because with what's possibly coming down from Washington, the grant processes that I spoke with with the legislative team in Washington the other day, we need to be ready. And if there's ever a time for us to leverage our resources together to really provide the best service all the way across for our constituents and our firefighters, it's now. So I think we ought, you know, let's do everything we can to continue to get everything on the table open. And if there's a future discussion of some other type, then you know, let's have that let's focus now what's the most important part to it, which is let's understand exactly what all the resources and how we leverage those to maximize the best service. I mean that affects insurance, that affects quality of life, that affects growth, that affects everything that is is part of our mission. And so, you know, that's the way I look at it. Thank you for that, sir. That kind of leads into well, the overview that the county was prepared to provide. And one of the things I wanted to do was just remind everyone, and you almost just did it, is that the fire advisory committee, it was designed according to, as I understand it, to make recommendations into the fire services, policies, procedures, budget requests and planning activities. And so I know a lot of times we focus on the budget, but to me part of all of that goes into the policies and procedures and the planning because all that impacts the budget. So all of those components are what I believe I need, and not to speak for my next door neighbor here, Ms. Wilson needs to better understand, you know, what the committee is recommending in terms of how we move forward in supporting the fire service, which could mean additional funding, it could mean policy changes, it could mean planning changes. It is not restricted to if I would achieve, be giving you a budget and you saying yay or nay. It's a little bit more comprehensive than that. And so I was hoping what we would do is go on this general overview, is talk about the revenue collections that the county receives, talk about that funding mechanism, and talk about the expenditures associated with in general, to give you an idea of the things that you will be looking at as you help to make recommendations in these areas. And then that the next step in addition to entering your questions would be for the staffs of the city and the county to get together our financial personnel and our administrative personnel to help work and massage those nuances to understand what the fire service committee is asking from the perspective of the committee and the related council, right, in association with the fire service. So that's why I was hoping we'd get into too many details because I didn't think that we were all ready for that just because the apples to apples conversation may not be available before that happened. So with that being said, I know Director Burr gave in a general overview. Director Burr was, was that kind of where you were going to go? Do you, did you want to add anything else or should I turn it now over to our final team? No sir, just to clarify two things. In the current contract your corrects are, it's five years from January 1st of 2018, so that's correct. But I believe Chief, you did meet one time with the consultants and provided some input. It may not have been enough, but didn't you meet with them one time? I did, but if I, if I sit and tell you the questions that he asked me, which I'm not going to get into it, but I thought that they were kind of inappropriate. He was more or less talking about a split that does, does for the line of question he was asking me. Yes sir. He wasn't asking me my opinion on stuff. He wasn't telling me stuff. The study wasn't very data driven and the consultants collected a lot of data, which can be used going forward as well. Yeah, but again, I thought that what he, what he taught me about was, was, was really inappropriate. Okay. And I, and I think, so again to kind of get to the committee's perspective today, we really want to give the overview of the, the fiscal nature of the conversation. And certainly there may be a future point in time, Ms. Wilson, where we have to do a job where we're having those discussions, but my understanding is the purpose of this committee and this particular item is we're talking about the Columbus Richmond Fire Department conversation. So, and that's kind of where I'm sitting at the table today talking about. So, if we, if that's where we're going, we can be ready to continue to move forward and we can certainly talk separate about any other future opportunities that that may not even be relevant. I do want to add that it was all of a 15 to 20 minute conversation. So, thank you, Chief. Thank you, Director Burke. Uh, we also have some people from our financial side of our arm as well as our risk management side here that deals with part of our fire service. So, I'm going to ask them to come forward now to the podium. I'm talking about the overview and I actually believe we do have some a document we can provide to you today. It might not be an alfos to alfos, but it will be an opportunity for you to take away and look at some specifics as it relates to the county's financial picture. Again, it won't be every single line by line detail, but it will give you an opportunity to follow along with us and talk about general overviews of revenues and associated resources provided for fire service. Stacey Ham, the finance director at Richland County. The sheet that was given out at the top, we kind of have the revenue sources that we have. There's the millage. We have the millage rate. It's pretty steady. It was 21.8 five years ago and it's 22.7 and we've kept it the same the last couple years with everything going on. And it shows the amount of money that's been brought in. So, the first part is the all the money that's brought in by the fire district that Mr. Berg was talking about, the ones that had not that opted all into the fire district. So, we bring in anywhere from the last couple years, 26 million, 25 million, 24 million. So, it goes up a little bit. The millage hasn't changed, but due to the increased assessments, we get a little bit extra money each time with the taxes. And then the city taxes are the is the millage in the CC districts, all of the city of Columbia districts. And so, they bring in about 50% of amount of taxes of what the full the rest of the fire district brings in. So, it's showing the 12 million, the 13 million, 13 million over the last couple years. So, the overall for running the county side of our fire service department, we have it as a special revenue fund. Similar to what y'all have at the city. So, we have a special revenue fund. The taxes that we collect in the fire district go into that and then we also have the the hydrant fee, the water assessment that's on the revenue that we have to operate on our side. We do a transfer out. You can see there's under the transfers under the revenue that goes to the 9-1-1 center to cover the expenses for the 9-1-1. That part of that is in there. And then under the expenditures, the lump sum is the amount that we're paying the city. So, that's the contract amount that gets paid to the city every two months. And then what the county part is paying, the county fire service expenditures run anywhere from four to four and a half million dollars. And as Mr. Byrd said, that covers our vehicle repairs, building maintenance, the radio communication equipment, medical supplies, insurance, the purchase of the new radios. We had to purchase new radios with some of the changes that have happened. And so that's what makes up that four and a half million that we spent last year in fire on on our side for the port we have. And we have about 24 employees in our fire department, fire department that that we're covering for the services that we provide. And then it shows the fund balance. It's little bits, went up a little bit and then it went down a little bit. So, it's just right around that eight to nine million dollars that is set aside. A lot of it's committed and restricted for uses in the future. Any questions? Ken, would there be a time when you can let us know what's what's committed and what's restricted? What does it include? Yeah, we'll find out exactly. Most of it, since it's a special revenue, it's committed for the purpose of the fire district. Some of the restricted is for we have some set aside for emergencies that in case something really bad happens, that we have some funds to fall back on to provide a little bit with the pandemic, different things like that that might pop up or a really situation. So, we have that restricted for emergency disaster recovery. I guess what we call disaster recovery is what we have that to a little over two million dollars set the restricted for. And yes, sir, in future settings we could look at the the details that are associated with that, but we want to provide you with the numbers. I know there was a conversation that we had continue to have. Next we have our director of risk management, Ms. Terry, and she's going to talk to you a little bit about her perspective in terms of how the fire services attaches to her side of the business, which all goes into looking at this as a whole picture when we're looking at the revenue streams and then associated funding and resources provided. So, go right ahead ma'am. Good morning. I just want to do and a little bit of a high level overview, kind of a dig into some of those risk and insurance expenses that the county does cover separately. I will just mention a couple of them to start. So, first the county does cover the volunteers workers compensation policy, so that's premium and then also claims. And we do carry an AD&D accidental death and dismemberment policy as well for the volunteers which goes above and beyond the basic workers compensation coverage to reimburse those employees in the event of an accident. In addition to that, we cover the liability insurance policy and that does include the vehicles. This is the largest insurance expense and the biggest concern here with this policy. In addition to just the increased premiums year-over-year is the fact that we are very close to being in a situation where we're considered uninsurable. In fact, we have been threatened if not really, you know, down to the wire of a non-renewal for the last few years. That is driven heavily by our loss ratios. A couple notable accidents that are driving those loss ratios. If you recall in 2018, we had a pumper and a ladder that were totaled within just over a week of each other. And our loss ratio that year was 319% to explain that the payout was 319% of the premium we paid in that year. And then also in March of 2020, we had another totaled engine in that instance. That claim was $431,000 and our loss ratio that year was 228%. So we are not very marketable to most of the insurers out of everyone in the market that we approached for our renewal this past year. You know, five to eight vendors depending on the portion of the policy. We really only had one who was willing to to write it and most of them outright declined to even quote it. So that is kind of the situation that we were in with the insurance. We also in addition to just the premiums and the non-renewal, we had a deductible of $5,000 imposed which now prevents us from making some of these claims in the first place because they're not they're not even to that level that they're hitting the deductible. So we have claims in addition to this that we're not even able to file now. That deductible was much lower. It's actually been zero in the past up to $1,000. So that is a big difference there. How many claims do you have for that? What kind of dollar amount is that? In what year? For your deductible, you said you were having to pay with $5,000. So how many claims have you had? Did you had to pay out of that? What's the dollar amount? To put it in perspective. In current losses for the 2019 to 2020 year were $559,000. Okay and that's all deductibles? That is yes. No no no I'm sorry. That would actually be the what was paid out. The deductibles I don't I can't tell you the number of claims that we have under the deductible but I can get that for you. Just curious how it compares. Sure. And then also wanted to mention just a slight breakdown. I won't get too far in the weeds on the vehicle maintenance costs. So we currently budget $700,000 for the contract maintenance expenses and we're looking at a potential $200,000 increase because we need to add technicians to the program. Originally we did not add technicians when we took over the service so we do need to add a couple technicians so you're looking at approximately $900,000 again subject to negotiating that renewal for the non-contract expenses. This year we are currently on track to spend based on what we spent year to date. $264,000 on non-contract expenses. That would cover everything. Again that's not covered under the contract. At-fault repairs, accidents that are at fault and maintenance that falls outside of the contract and that is a 55% increase from the previous year to those expenses do continue to rise. And then we're spending $7,000 to $8,000 specifically on non-contract accident costs associated with vehicles backing into a bay door, vehicle and vehicle accidents, more minor accidents. We are spending another $7,000 to $8,000 on average there. Ms. Terry could you clarify when you say contract costs you're talking about our fleet vehicle contract and not our fire contract? Correct. I apologize. Our fleet vehicle contract. That would be all expenses covered within that contract and then again you have the non-contract expenses which is anything that we have to pay for to repair whether it be from accidents whether it's you know misuse vehicle versus fire vehicle that kind of thing or just general repairs that come up that are outside of the contract. How many vehicles are included in that contract? We have right around 100 vehicles that are dedicated to fire and that includes everything from the actual trucks down to supervisors vehicles. We have SUVs, brush trucks, a variety of vehicles there so they're not all fire trucks. Any other questions? I just wanted to ask about accidents. I'm also on the comment board and so one of the things that happens when they report accidents out for those buses are they categorize them as whether they are I guess at fault or avoidable or whatever it is. I don't know exactly how to ask this but are these are these accidents our fault are we at fault when they happen? The ones that I mentioned expenses for yes not at fault accidents would be covered by theoretically unless they are uninsured by the other party so these are our expenses for accidents that are at least categorized as okay and the most recent loss the total loss in March of last year that was a one vehicle accident just our truck and then the other two in 2018 both of those totals were one vehicle accidents as well. And I guess as a follow-up you know these vehicles are responding to emergencies and I suppose that's just part of the nature of things I would be interested to know if other counties municipalities like ours have similar I mean surely you know people are getting out of the firehouses quickly as they can to respond to an emergency in these big vehicles I don't know I think it just would be interesting to know how other municipalities handle very similar kinds of situations. The only issue we've had in the past with obtaining that data is a lot of other entities don't want to share their their loss runs related to at fault but we could certainly try to you know maybe get a little bit more information even if that's anonymous based on the source just as to what their loss ratios may be as well sure thank you so thank you committee that that's our overview so hopefully this gives us a just a general idea and you know as you think about the questions that you want to to ask as we go forward or things you want to see I've certainly heard a side-by-side comparison I think that's something when our groups get together we can provide for you I've heard questions about looking at other jurisdictions as it potentially relates to losses and how they may compare I've heard questions about how does the planning look and what mechanisms we use to plan for future funding needs as it relates to growth and the areas that require fire service and maybe some others that I'm missing that you all may certainly want to have an opportunity to share with us as we go forward but hopefully that gave you a general look at a at a larger picture of of how we go into trying to address the resources that we need to provide for fire service thank you chief yes I'd like to make a comment chief I'm sorry can I make a comment yes sir I'm sorry chief jinkers and I've worked together for a very long time we discuss a lot of things we agree on a lot of things and sometimes we don't agree on some things which is I think normal but let's not overlook what we have here ISO views us as two fire departments two fire services the city operates a completely paid service we have volunteers but what we have achieved is the city has achieved the best rating that can can be achieved and that's class one the county has achieved probably the best rating that we can achieve for a rural service and that's a class two and that is a major major accomplishment so all the things that we've we've done and and put together and worked on has really paid off and the big payoff is for the citizens because those ISO ratings ultimately reduces the fire insurance so I think we've been pretty pretty successful in what we've done chief I'm glad you said it because I wanted to echo just what you said um you know we know we got growing problems we got things that we have to work on um and this problem both sides but the overall end product is a it's a real good fire service when you look at how we scored even on community risk reduction we had to hire us in the state nobody topped us when you look at the fact that we are a fire safe community we have achieved that for the last what two years uh when they start giving it so the services is good anytime if you get an opportunity just go out there and see how it doesn't matter if you pay it doesn't matter if you volunteer how those folks that have worked in jail together that's why I always say we hold it not only to our citizens but to our firefighters make sure we get the right equipment uh make sure that we provide them everything that they need because it's only going to make it better and I would tell you you know I just use this analogy you know we as stones throw away from maybe clash one in the county if we do some things so that is possible I know it'd be a it'd be a tall hill to climb but if we can maintain that one and we can maintain that two we got something in across this nation that less than two percent of firefighters I mean about two percent of fire counties got in less than one percent of the municipality got which is our ratings so I just think it's important that we that we work together and continue this relationship but Mr. Burris right we he and I have been working together for a long time um you know it is what it is I did want to say this I think that if we really want to get some good information on crashes there's a thing called close calls um that we get that we can that we can look at and we can see exactly what's happening you got some comments on that go ahead chief I want to just address a couple of conversations that we've had and make the the committee aware and to your point about the vehicle accidents anytime an alert goes off and the citizens have a need for service there's an inherent risk so so what the chief is authorized and with the new position approved by city and county management is risk reduction and so our goal to mr. Brennan's point is using data to predict where these emergencies will occur once we can predict where they occur then we go out and educate the citizens once we educate the citizens the goal is to reduce those emergencies from happening if we can do that enough then it reduces the impact of vehicle accidents insurance costs and so on and so forth and to mr. Burris point it brings the city and the county again closer to that to that partnership so chief I just want to make sure I touched on that before we we left we had that conversation is that that's what the goal is for risk reduction we're a safe community we've we've done it two years in a row we're on track to do it for the third year which is unprecedented in the state we're also moving forward with accreditation again mr. Brennan to your point it's all data collection and looking how we can get better as an agency so chief I apologize I was trying to wave at you that so we didn't get the chance to add that to the notes I thought about so I just wanted to update the committee on that where what you just heard from is the person that is responsible for making that happen and so we got a good person that's working on it um chief you know mr. Brown you made it made a great point earlier when you you broke it down you know there's there's several reasons why we're here and why we will be meeting over the next year so moving forward you know you got your budget but more importantly your point to planning in the future I think is very important and so you know we as elected officials we don't know what our fire professionals with mr. Bird and the emergency management of the county what what can be done to bring a a more efficient better fire service forward so I would I would say chief chief jingles mr. bird any any suggestions that you all have please bring it forward put everything on the table as mr. Rickman said and let's let's really let's really make the most of of the city and county being here together as we move forward thank you are there any other matters that we need to discuss the county loves the city I just want to leave it at you know what keep some levity in the room we we're working together and I really appreciate that and and I said that and all joking but and honestly we are a community and we are here together represented as a community and I know miss Wilson speaks for me on this and I speak for her on this and we want all the folks that that work I guess with us and and answer to us to have that same type of mentality that we work together and we're trying to better serve the citizens and the best that we can do to do that we that's what we really want to do so there'll be some shaky times chief you talked about it but we'll work together through those shaky times and we appreciate the opportunity to have this partnership and we're going to do our part to do what we can to strengthen our community and I have always got along with the county and always had a great relationship so I I feel your love thank you sir now we feel your love um miss Wilson you had anything to say really big on instruction and direction so what would the committee like for us to prepare for next time are we moving forward with a part two of moving forward and a budget are we moving into other topics or what would you all like for us to prepare for you what needs to be done as we move towards the end of the contract I guess is a big question whether that's the budgeting whether that's the possible different planning operations um taking that into to account would be very helpful um and chief you can probably answer some of those questions are you all going to serve truly as I know it says up here Columbia Ritual Fire Services Committee I think it's really the advisory committee and if you are advising both the chief and director bird and myself and mr. Brown on the budget which inherently any planning and I think some of the things that you all are speaking to regarding growth I mean immediate federal resources to get certain things done like our this continuous conversation which I think the city side we put um some money towards that for arp funding and the second set of gear and things like that so I mean are you I guess I'm asking how in the weeks do you want to get as far as the budget process and the planning changing every meeting yeah so I'm trying to understand as we because we are I was just speaking from the city side you know come January we're in budget and um the chief will be putting together these requests and that sort of thing so from a strategic standpoint there's two ways to to to move forward yes you do need to get in the weeds because we need to to fully understand so that as we're moving forward there are no questions anymore and and everybody can go all right here's where we are here's how we're going to leverage because that helps us with the planning part so getting over this first and then looking at I mean a lot of what we just said too about hot spots well you know we've got 911 data folks we've got so much that we know we know what the calls are and there are a lot of times that we got three resources going to a call so we ought to evaluate that and that may come in as you talk about long-term planning it may come in the long-term planning that we may should be stationing or partnering even further on into providing services that are that we're not taxing our other services so when you talk about vehicles and you talk about that you know is there a better way for us to cluster I mean I don't know the last time we as a group analyzed where our firehouses are as we talk about upgrades and investment you know it's probably time for us to reevaluate where they are that also gives us an opportunity for a long question that and I just came off the campaign trail so I can tell you it's out there people talking about why isn't EMS and fire stations working together well when you look at our call volumes and I did this because it came became part of my discussion about homelessness but when you look at the call where we have the clusters in the hot spots there's an opportunity for us to look at things definitely would you make it all efficient for all of us to provide a better service at a more effective and efficient costing so I think our our long-term projection here is let's get through this budget and then let's start talking about these long-term issues that provide the citizens with an incredible opportunity to have the best service I think we can continue you know I'd love somehow some way to work with the county and and come up with a way that it's not volunteer-based that we have everybody's full time you know I think for long term that's an incredible goal that we ought to be looking at and pulling somehow working together to make that happen but you know this is just my my personal thoughts but as we go forward understanding getting through this this first kind of budget where we really are talking about and understanding what's coming from Washington and then the planning piece has to be planned much much more advanced this is our time to be creative and really look at how we can provide the better service and you know it's interesting as I mentioned the EMS and other stuff because the public doesn't understand why it functions the way it functions so it's also very hard to explain why it functions the way it functions but it's it's been the way it's been done for so long but I think as our county is evolving and I say county because we're all in the county is evolving and the growth patterns are changing we probably we probably really need to take a look at that got anybody else I don't want to belabor this but at some point it it may be useful for us to have a meeting centered around you know the contract and maybe get legal folks in the room yeah I think I would say now that this definitely could belabor it I don't know if we want to go down that road but I hear what you're saying but I think that I'm we don't have to talk about it no no no I was going to say I think probably and Ms. Wilson this is kind of a question but I think you probably want and you probably want a recommendation from the fire advisory committee related to the contract whether or not you want to you want to pursue continuing the contract and then you probably want your administrative personnel to have a conversation before you get to the legal side simply because there are some things within the contract I think that maybe we don't even do anymore because we change ownership and role so I hear what you're saying I'm just saying I think that's probably one of the things that would be helpful kind of going forward and but I get the sentiment and I think we all get the sentiment of what you're asking got it I think Mr. Acio is cool we ought to put a time on together right that ought to be our our execution from this a timeline together it says first quarter of next year we're going to have this conversation to start of this conversation because by July you need to be starting negotiating if there are changes or or growth or whatever is in the contract we need to start by July 1 the latest and I know y'all normally take August off so we may even back that up to June 1 but I think we could have that gives us three months four months of talk time to get through a recommendation from a joint committee better good mr. word you're good okay I do want to make say this um on the other matters we got a class that's graduating on the 22nd six o'clock we're going to be sending out an invitation anybody want to participate and I'm very happy to say that that we're really doing real good on our recruiting um but also um hopefully we'll be make some conditional offers uh we made something this week we make some more and it is our expectation that if we keep the course that we're going that we could possibly and I always hold chief hands to the power of nothing that we could possibly uh pull the staff um sometime next okay so that's all right so that's all go and that's what we're striving to to make sure we get fully funded so we're 94 staff right now to me that's that's great chief let me let me ask miss Wilson just to just to summarize you asked kind of what what's the path forward and from what we just heard in the last five minutes sounds like there's three three items is the the current next the current budget coming up uh possible future planning for operations and then the uh legal um diving into legal is that is that is that kind of what everybody's understanding is as we move forward chief all right wonderful thank you and don't forget to bring you canned goods and non-perish the item to the fire station uh next next week we're doing a fire fighters feeding families again this year last year we were able to feed over 200 families now expectations do the same thing this year so bring you canned goods in here is there a time frame for when you want to meet again is there a seems like we've been monthly are you wanting to continue to do that after the first of the year yeah and we can work through the clerks to do that got it