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Fire Service Committee July 15, 1999 Page 7 they would not be allowed the 7K exemption. Another issue is the housing of the two services together. If you look at a typical twenty -eight days, picking a cycle in December of this past year, there were three hundred and twenty -three hours of EMS overtime during that twenty -eight days. If those same hours were worked and you used a seven day, forty hour week pay period, there would have been one thousand and thirty -seven overtime hours for the EMS personnel. Mr. Anderson indicated that this would have increased the overtime cost to $14,200.00 for that twenty -eight days. If that was a typical twenty -eight day period, then, over the course of a year, the cost of having the EMS personnel would go up $170,400.00. This illustration shows why it is so very crucial that we be able to maintain the 7K exemption for EMS personnel. In most cases, all EMS personnel are firemen, housed and identically trained. Our EMS personnel are not trained firemen and don't go through that same training. Costs can go up dramatically. Chief Burgin pointed out that more personnel would be required if you went to a forty hour week. Under that scenario, we would have to add extra people and that cost was not figured in to Mr. Anderson's calculations. The City Manager pointed out that we have two hospitals and that conditions are rapidly changing in medical field. We are currently enjoying the benefits of two hospitals providing living quarters and stations for our EMS at no cost to the city. The electricity bill, laundry and cleaning, and many other benefits help our EMS bottom line in this mutually beneficial relationship. We work closely with the hospitals and we have a very fine EMS service, one of the best in the state. We employ people and enjoy an continuity of experience because of job stability. With the knowledgeable people we have employed, we set a standard to be envied around the entire state. We are able to promote our city through the Think Child Safety and Think Senior Safety programs, promoting the Circle of Protection. The Manager pointed out that we should not want to jeopardize the very existence of this service which depends upon contributions from our county government as well as the city government to operate the ambulance service which comes very close to paying for itself. The Manager stated that, in looking at a floor plan, we wanted to consider that we might suddenly have to relocate the EMS stations for whatever reason, FLSA regulations or circumstances where one or both hospitals withdrew their support. Also, we might get into a situation where we had some new service area requirements, and if this occurred, it would be much cheaper to add this one thousand square feet now. We recently looked at expansion of the west side station to accommodate the larger size trucks and found that it would take over $100,000.00 to enlarge that station. The City Manager recommended that this standard floor plan should be adopted and used until such time as it becomes outdated. If the Fire Service Committee July 15, 1999 Page 7