The Owen-Withee-Curtiss Fire District held their regular meeting on Thursday, July 23. All members were represented except the Village of Withee.
After approving the minutes, they moved on to a building update. The board was informed that they were not chosen for congressionally directed spending through Tammy Baldwin’s office. The reason given was the number of requests received. They have been told they cannot apply for USDA funding because of the USDA’s belief that the District can’t levy taxes or borrow money without the consent of the individual municipalities. The District’s attorney believes the USDA is interpreting things incorrectly and that it only takes a 2/3 vote of the board members at a meeting to approve borrowing. It was agreed to have the attorney for USDA and the District’s attorney speak and try to iron out the issues so they can apply for funding through USDA. Mark Nosko said they are going to have to do something eventually. Dan Goessl said they were told everything looked good to get funding but now it doesn’t. Art Petke suggested that they look at borrowing from the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. This would mean the members of the District would have to pay for the entire cost of the building, but they could get a low interest loan.
The District approved an agreement to rent the Curtiss Fire Station for 2027 for $26,000 plus utilities, snow removal, some maintenance, supplies, etc.
The meeting then moved on to financials. Money was transferred from vehicle savings to be used toward the new ambulance purchase. There were some issues with repairs on an ambulance. It had to be taken out of service for a time. Courtesy Ford wants to make it right so will be doing some of the additional work needed at no charge. The board felt there really isn’t anywhere else close that can handle that size of vehicle.
They have had 23 fire calls so far with no major incidents and the majority being accidents. The DNR grant paperwork has been submitted for reimbursement. Hose testing takes two training nights so Fire Chief Travis Serocki asked if they could hire someone to do it. He said the most it would cost is $5,000. It would be a three-year contract and he was asking to put it in the budget. Serocki brought a sample annual report from Amherst. This provided the types of information that could be included a report for the municipalities. Jason Thornton said for the county he does budget, expenses, and left over funds. He said you also would want runs and personnel info included. Serocki said they could include the things that Owen-Withee-Curtiss Fire & EMS can do.
They have had 152 EMS calls so far. License renewals are done and they have 36 credentialed members. Serocki passed out a new fee schedule for next year that they can look at during budget time. The new ambulance is here and they are working on getting it ready for service.
They went on to discuss the possibility of having James Small, a WI Dept of Rural Health representative provide information to them. He can help with recruitments. Small told Serocki that they are one of the few ambulance services in the state surviving on the revenue they bring in. Serocki sent out a questionnaire to other departments to see what they pay their staff. He talked about volunteer vs. paid and issues with on-call pay. They need to call it a stipend rather than pay. He couldn’t find another department exactly comparable to O-W-C. He also did a survey asking fire and EMS personnel questions about the fire district. One of the questions was whether new people should be able to do fire or EMS only. Currently they are required to do both. The response was 18 yes, 10 no. Questions were also asked about on-call shifts and pay schedules based on licensure levels. Thornton felt they should continue to do both. He said they are forgetting the meaning of being on the department and giving back to the community. In addition to having trouble finding people, Serocki has trouble filling on-call shifts and said some people will attend the training, but don’t want to be on-call. Others never show up for training but are the first out the door when a fire call comes in. More discussion will take place in the future.
The District doesn’t have a policy committee as their previous system was dropped due to cost and time involved on going through the policies, so they might have to do something to update policies.
The board went into closed session to evaluate Travis Serocki and Bob Wilczek. They were in closed session for about 45 minutes and no action will be taken until the budget meeting. The next meeting is planned for September 17