02 Council Min 08-23-04 Spec. - Laserfiche WebLink

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Special Meeting of the City Council August 23, 2004 Page 9 Several Council members questioned if the sick and injury leave in the Fire Department was more than in other City departments and asked for statistics on that to be brought back to the Council. Councilwoman Wilkerson asked Chief Grooms if he felt the wellness program would lessen sick and injury leave. He agreed it would. On questions from Council, Chief Grooms explained the procedure when his employee called in sick. Chief Grooms called the Council’s attention to the current Mutual Aid Policy he had included in his handout. He said the Department’s goal was to help with other cities and entities whenever possible. Councilman Wilson said h e felt that, eventually, the department would have to depend on some volunteers. Chief Grooms said the problem with that was that not all volunteers are certified. Councilman Bell asked if other Fire Departments were invited to our training. Chief Grooms said that they were invited to some of the training, but that would not certify them. Councilman Wilson said the City could not continue to raise taxes because they were already so high and needed to look to other avenues for keeping the level of service. There was a discussion of the area of service for the City of Paris Fire Department. Chief Grooms explained the general rule was that the City of Paris Fire Department took care of anything in the City limits, except the rescue trucks also went into the County. Councilman Wilson said there needs to be a spirit if cooperation between the City of Paris and other Fire Departments and Chief Grooms needed to look into using some volunteers. On a request from Council, Chief Grooms said his department did some research regarding billing for some Fire Department services. He said some departments are charging for some of their services and there are two companies that handling billing for these services. He said the Council would