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and let's call our meeting to order for the Police and Fire Commission for

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Monday April 13th, 2026. Roll call. I see that Ed is absent, but he is

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excused. All other commissioners are present. Public appearances, comments,

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correspondence. Hearing none, we can move on. Chairman's comments, I have nothing

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to report this month. So let's take a look then at the previous meeting

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minutes. That was the meeting of March 9th. Any corrections there or comments?

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Hearing none, is there a motion to accept those minutes? So moved. And is

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there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, passes. Okay, then it's my

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privilege and honor to recognize the anniversaries we have this month. And the

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first individual from the Police Department is Lieutenant James Mature with

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two years of service. Police support specialist Shelley Heathslip is with 22

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years of service. And next door at the fire department, engineer Mike Didier, 33

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years of service. And driver David Luft of with four years of service. And as

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always, the PFC thanks them for their service to our community. Okay, next item

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on the agenda is with the Police Department. And we can first take a look

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at the March invoices. And Chief, it looks like you have a new summary there for

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us. Oh, okay. Sorry, I didn't see that. But Becky, maybe you want to tell us

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about the new summary. I added this summary just to kind of give you a brief

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overview of what is all in that packet. Just to kind of give you the highlights.

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If you have any questions or comments, let me know so that I can like it.

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Yeah, thank you. Very concise. Good job on that. Okay, so is there any questions

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commissioners of the March invoices? No, hearing none. Okay, let's then move

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along to the police budget for the this is the first quarter January, February and

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March. And any questions there? No, okay. Then we can move on to municipal court

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statement. I don't believe if I have a municipal court statement in my packet.

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Do we have one? Okay. Yep, no problem there. Okay, perfect. And then calls for

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service for the month of March. Another busy month, 1238 calls for service.

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Commissioners, any questions on calls last month? Very agreeable crowd tonight.

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And last but not least is the Wisconsin information based reporting.

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Any questions with that? No. Okay, hearing none, then let's move along to the

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chief's report for this month. Oh, I apologize for stepping out, but it was important.

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Okay. Yeah, I think first up I have we received a thank you card from the food pantry.

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And I guess I'll read this to you. It says police department, thank you for your very

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generous donation of $1,450 in March to the food pantry incorporated. It is greatly appreciated

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by all. We cannot continue to help feed our clients without the wonderful support of donors

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like you, the food pantry. Very nice. And was that a an event that you had at the

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police department or? It was an event that was kind of county-wide. It had to do with

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the Adam Hartwig Memorial for the Ozaki County Sheriff. Okay, very good.

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And then the annual report and I guess what I included on here is there's a little bit more

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descriptive in this year's report about the record management, the records bureau manager

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Tammy and what she does and especially our police support specialists.

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Because I guess there is a lot of stuff that they do that really isn't

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noticed or I guess captured by all. And honestly with being short officers, we keep pushing

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more on them each year. And in fact, that's what's going to happen again this year is there's a

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few more duties coming their way. And sworn personnel, page 12, basically we had one officer

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resign and then we do have an officer currently in recruit school at WCTC. He finishes up the

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beginning of May. And so when he gets back, we've got we're going to have him go through a little

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bit more field training. And then with the field training, we're going to do some jobs,

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some shadowing. Basically, that's where he's in his own squad and goes to calls and there's

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another officer field training officer that goes there and is just kind of there if he needs him.

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And after that, then he'll be on his own. So that'll certainly help us out.

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And I guess one of the other things I wanted to point out are our citations are down.

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And for this year and what I would contribute that to is we had we lost the officer that resigned

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in May. And then also we had an officer that was injured in September and was out.

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And this was the first year that we moved Detective Lieutenant Herda off the road and he was

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just doing detective work. So we have I guess fewer officers out there issuing citations.

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Okay. And with that, I don't know if anybody has any questions, comments. There is some some

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good information too about the detective bureau and what they've all done. He's been extremely busy

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and he essentially he swamped and that's one of the things too we're taking with the records clerks

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or the police support specialists. We're going to try and push some of the work

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that he has to do, especially with search warrants and whatnot onto them

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until we can get some more people. Sure. Commissioner, is any questions on the report?

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Who did you say is swamped? Is it Lieutenant Herda? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

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It's a very completely report and it's it's always fun to look back at all the things that

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have happened in the past year. It's amazing. Yeah. And to me that I guess sorry to interrupt,

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but I guess the two biggest things to for us this year, I think were

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reaccreditation, which is always a big deal in getting through that and we passed that with

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flying colors and then national night out. And I think that was a tremendous success and

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this coming summer, it will be up in Belgium and the sheriff's department will be hosting.

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That's typically August, as I recall. Correct. Yes.

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Chairman. Yes. Just comment. Yes.

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Chief, thank you. Very nice report. Any comments, any additional comments on the CIT training?

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I know you called that out in the report this year. I'm a big fan of it. Everybody is getting

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trained in it, right? Every one of them. We try and get everybody through. They only do it one

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time a year now. Yeah. And so it all depends on on staffing. And but every year we when they

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have it, we send at least one person. Okay. Good. Okay. Any other questions or comments?

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And I guess with that too, I just like to thank Becky, who did a fantastic job. I guess probably

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her biggest thing is staying on top of everybody to get the information she needs for all the

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statistics and everything that's in the report. So thank you. Another fine job? Becky. Thanks, Becky.

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And anything else to report there, Chief? Nope. That is it. Okay. Good.

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Okay. Then I think we can move along to the fire department. And let's first look at EMS

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invoices for the month of March. Oh, can I interrupt? I'm sorry. I do have one more thing. Okay.

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I guess I just wanted to let you know that it had come up. I think it was last meeting or meeting

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before about the fines and municipal court looking at the fines and getting the cities

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and villages that participate a little bit more of the revenue from those.

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Traffic citations are going up by $10 a citation. And then later this year, I believe

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it looks like probably fall. Municipal citations will go up $10, but that has to go through

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counsel. Okay. And the traffic citations, when does that take effect? Or has it?

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Technically now already. Oh, it has. Yeah.

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Anything else, Chief? That's it. Sorry. Okay. No problem. Okay.

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Okay. Let's go back then to the fire department. And this is the EMS invoices

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for the month of March. And Chief, anything that jumps out at you there?

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Not really. I simulate trainer update. This is actually some funding that we'll be able to

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utilize some of our fat money for. But essentially we have a exact kind of replica of our cardiac

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monitor that we can use for training. But with the new one, we had to update it to the new software.

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So it matches the life pack 35 from the 15 that we have. So it's a really useful tool for our guys,

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especially with so many new paramedics that we can pull this thing out. It's got a rhythm generator

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in it. I mean, you can darn near make it wash your car for you if you want. So it's a really cool

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tool that we have access to.

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Commissioners, any questions? Okay.

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Then let's take a look at fire invoices for the month of March.

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Just one small correction here after talking with a finance director. Under operations equipment,

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we did buy new particulate hoods, which are kind of the protective hoods that we were

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during a structure fire that both provides some thermal protection to the areas not covered by

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the mask. And also the new ones prevent some carcinogen exposure with all the potential

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cancer causing agents that we're seeing in structure fires. We were able to get a grant from our

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municipal insurance provider to cover the cost of half of these. Typically that would occur

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within an operations budget. But because we were allocated funding for some turnout gear through

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capital that money was moved to a capital project. So it doesn't come out of the operations fund.

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Just a question for your chief. The turnout gear. How many people is that

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outfit? Oh, so that is just the particulate hoods that got us 40 hoods. 40 of them.

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Yep. So that is enough for all of our staff that are trained fire personnel to have one.

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We kept the old ones as spares. So once if we go to a fire, we'll collect those from everybody,

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we'll launder them to get anything out of them. So debris, particulate, whatever we need.

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And then in the interim, we'll use the old ones that we had. So. Okay. Any other questions for the chief?

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Okay. Then let's move right along to EMS calls for the month of March. A bunch of them.

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Yes, 141 calls. About 12% for the month prior. We've already hit 420 calls for the year

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through March. And we continue at a kind of gang neck pace already. You'll see that we are still

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going to the town of Belgium, quite frequently. We've reached out to the town of Belgium and the

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respective agencies to figure out what the status of that transition is. And we're not getting any

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calls back. So at this point, we're just going to continue to operate in the best interest of

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the patients until we're told otherwise. And your average response time this month? Yeah,

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six minutes and seven seconds. So we're doing really well from that perspective, even when we're

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going outside of the area. Right. Any questions, commissioners?

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Okay, then let's take a look at. We've got mutual aid here also. Just two mutual

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aids for EMS for this month, it looks like. Yeah, those are days that we are short staffed.

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We're not able to provide a second ambulance at that time. So we did have two mutual aid

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requests. But again, considering where we came from, we'll take it.

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And then we can move along to the fire calls for month of March. Fire calls, we continue to be at

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a breakneck pace. I just looked before I came here. I finished report 109 today and looked back

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last year. We were at, I think, 80 at the same time. So we are moving right along from a call

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volume standpoint. But yeah, response time still looked good. About five minutes and 33 seconds

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to first arriving unit on scene for those calls. And I did see we had one call for burnt toast,

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but we responded in one minute. Yes. Excellent. Excellent.

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I'm not going to shame them on. We're not going to name names.

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Tons and tons of people watching this at home.

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Hey, purview.

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Okay. I had to go there to get the good stuff. Any other questions?

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On page.

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Okay, Chief, then let's hear your report for the month.

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Okay. So bringing this up for consideration and possible action this evening,

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I did send a memo in advance to hopefully provide some context as to what we're

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talking about again. And just to refresh everybody's memory, we did talk about this

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late in 2025. But at that time, we decided to kind of table things just to see if we got any

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input from the general public, both either to the commission or to myself. And I have not

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received anything and to my knowledge, you have not received anything. So at the request of the

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city administration, they had asked that we'd bring back the fire inspection fees to be added

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to the city fee schedule. Although the fire inspections would begin a little bit sooner,

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actually within the next month or two, the fees will not be implemented until the December

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property tax bill would be distributed. Again, this is a way to offset some of the costs of a

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service that were legally required to provide by the state. These inspections are state mandated

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at least once a year without a change to your municipal ordinances, which we were able to do.

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And that means we're doing more than 620 inspections throughout the course of the year. In fact,

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last year, we did closer to 670 with reinspections. Currently, the full cost of doing fire inspections

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is absorbed within the fire department's general budget. So residential taxpayers are effectively

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subsidizing the commercial inspection requirement. This proposal at least shifts towards more of a

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user-based cost recovery model, placing at least some of the responsibility on those who directly

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benefit or are required to receive the service. I know one of the talking points last time that

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we discussed were the 2% do fundings and how that partially does cover some of the fire inspection

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costs. But just to remind everybody, 2% do's cover a lot of things. From training, fire equipment,

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we just talked about the costs of just hoods alone. We just paid an invoice for turnout gear for

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a new firefighter, which was like $4,200 just for one set of gear. It also is supposed to cover

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public education on top of everything else. So we'll talk about our 2% do audit in just a second.

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Part of that was accounting for the 2% do's funding, and it didn't take long to exceed that

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threshold. So just to be clear that this fee does not fully offset the cost of the fire inspections

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that we're doing. When we're doing fire inspections, we're sending typically two people A to be a

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little bit more thorough. B, it is a safety thing for our people. And thirdly, there's another set of

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eyes there. When we're out doing inspections, that's typically taking an emergency response

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crew off or an ambulance crew off of the streets. Our call volume is at the pace now where there's

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days where they can plow through inspections and not get interrupted. But it wasn't very

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respectful to the business owners when we would come or set up an appointment and then have to

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leave, come back, leave, come back, leave and come back. So we try to at least take them out of the

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rotation if we can. Now that's not always a reality with our staffing, but we try to do our

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best when it comes to that. When we're looking at these fees, they're generally ranging from

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$25 to a few hundred dollars based on the square footage. And I just want to be clear that these

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are billed to the property owner or the landlord, not to the individual businesses or the tenants

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operating within those areas. I also think the most important thing here is it helps us serve as

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a compliance tool. When we're out doing reinspections, sometimes we have to do multiple

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reinspections. And this gives us a mechanism to both recuperate some of the costs, but also have

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some sort of incentive for the property owner to not or to fix the violations that we found.

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So this also included in this proposal has a some level of structure for plan reviews and those

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type of things, something that we're not currently compensated for, but again matches other

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municipalities. And just finally, this is not something that's new, it might be new to Port

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Washington, but is not new to the area. All of our neighboring communities have these structures

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in place. I've included their fee schedules associated with their fire inspections in the

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packet for you to review. So with that quick summary, I'll take any questions that you have.

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So Chief, with the fees, your fees I see are right in line with what Cedarburg or

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Grafton-Sockville is charging or Southern Ozaki, it looks like, right? They're pretty much the same

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fees that anyone would encounter in the county. Yes. And they're not excessive fees, but it is one

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way of trying to recoup some of the time that your department's spending there. Yeah, and I think

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is, you know, we see a significant amount of development in this city, particularly on the

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north side, that this helps us recuperate a lot of the time that we are going to be spending out

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at those sites doing fire inspections and other fire department related acceptance testing and

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those type of things. Commissioner, do I have any questions?

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Well, I guess my biggest question was that the last time we brought this up, it was brought to

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our attention that there's the 2% fee that is paid for by our businesses for the fire prevention,

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things like that. And that does not directly go to the fire department itself, but is brought to

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the city as a whole. I guess my issue is that we're bringing forth another fee that businesses

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are having to pay. And we want, I guess as the PFC, we want to see that it's actually allocated

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to the fire department for their time that they're putting forth and not just going to a slush fund

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for the city that they can use with whatever they want to. How do we guarantee like, how do we

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show that these people are actually paying for something that's specific? Is there a way to be

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billed that goes directly to the fire department itself and not to a city slush fund that can be

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allocated to whatever the city actually needs it for? I feel like you're bringing in more revenue

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for the city and you're not necessarily seeing that revenue being allocated for the fire department.

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Is there a way to manipulate the way it gets funded to the fire department? Can it be

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invoiced from the fire department? So that would be a better question for the finance director.

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And you know, through GGF, I think it's important that that recommendation be carried through with

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any action that you guys take. This evening, just to be clear, when we do get our 2% dues,

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like we don't get the check directly to the fire department, but we are able to account for some

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of that, all of that funding out of the budget we have. So that 2% dues, I just want to make sure

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we're not getting ourselves in trouble from that standpoint, like that money is being utilized

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by the fire department. But it's not like we're just getting that check over to us if that makes.

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That's saying like 2% checked on the thing. I get that, but I feel like you're bringing in more money

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for the city. And I would like to see it go to the fire department for what the fire department

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is actually doing, not just a general fund for the city that they may or may not give you even more

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budget. I mean, I just, that's my biggest concern. Is the police is bringing the fires bringing in

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more? They're asking something of our community. And yet we can't say that it's being designated

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for what we're paying it for. So I'm not sure. I have to tread lightly here. I understand

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your concern with that. And I think, you know, I share similar concerns. I think the best action

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for that is, you know, if this is something that we want to proceed with, I know that, you know,

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from a finance standpoint, there's concerns with earmarking and those type of things for accounts.

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But I do think it's something that, you know, needs to be flushed out a little bit with the GGF

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and council. And if we make a motion on this, I think that's something that potentially could

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be included in that motion. And Chief, the 2% fee that has very narrow boundaries on what that

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can be used for, correct? Yes, yes. The 2% fees, although it's, I mean, it's not narrow, but it's

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fire protection equipment apparatus, fire inspections, fire prevention. And then it can go towards

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either wages or sorry, like retirement, like WRS or LOSA program. So it's, yeah, it has to be kind

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of in those accounts. Okay. And as the chief mentioned, we did talk about this, I believe,

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at the December meeting and tabled it at that point, just to see if there were any comments

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from the community. And I've not received any comments. And chief, how did we put it out to

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the community to bring up comments? This meeting, this meeting, knowing that it was going to be on

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the on our minutes, our agenda in the paper, right? And I know, I don't believe it made it in the

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paper because there were other things going on at that meeting that were more exciting.

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And I know I had somebody today who asked me, like, what our meeting was looking like. And I

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mentioned we were readressing this and they're like, I have heard nothing about this. And they

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were just kind of like, tell me what's going on. Okay. For our agenda would have been

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some correct for them to have looked at to have gone come here to come or, or the

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YouTube are our viewers. Yeah. And this scene in back and the member was included in the

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agenda packet that was published both for the meeting that we had last year, as well as this

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meeting. It was published in both. Yep. Okay. All right. I just want to be very clear how it was

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was brought out to the community. Okay. Any other questions, commissioners?

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So would someone like to make a motion to advance this fee structure and plan

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to the common council for approval? So it has to go from us approving or giving our guests to

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common council to finance. So it will go the next step from here. I have already discussed a lot

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of this with the city attorney to ensure that there's no potential legal issues related to this.

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It would go to GGF and then it would be added to the city's fee schedule, which would have to

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be approved by the council. Got it. Correct. Dan, is my chain of events correct there? Yes.

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Okay. Well, I don't know how to make the, I mean, I am in agreement that this is something that is not,

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it is being done everywhere around us. And I feel like you did the due diligence of researching

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and finding all that information and putting it in our packet. I feel like it's legitimate

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thing to do. My only concern is I would like to see that it actually goes for something that

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is in the fire department, either an increase in your budget for next year. I just, I feel like

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you're doing, you're doing things that I feel like you should be getting reimbursed for.

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And if they're not able to guarantee that, it seems kind of silly that we're bringing in more

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money and making a cost for something that you guys are providing service for, and it's not going

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to you. But I don't know how to make a motion. Joe, that's where I need you.

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I've talked to the chief about this and a little bit to the city. I think it's kind of deep water

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in terms of the way that the budgets are done. I think the best we're going to be able to do

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is motion to approve it as that the chief tracked this revenue so that it can be part of the conversation

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at budget time. I think that's about as far as we can get. And I'll make that motion.

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Okay. Motion to approve.

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The chief will be tracking the increase revenue and we ask that that we'll ensure that that's part

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of the budget discussion each year. Priest revenue and part of budget discussion.

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Okay. So we have a motion. Is there a second to that motion?

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I'll second it. Okay. Second. And all in favor of the motion?

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Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? For the record opposed. Okay. Okay. Motion passes.

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Okay. And you have more to report tonight? Yeah, a couple of things here. I'm moving

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into the fire chief's report. Fresh off of our two percent dues audit didn't know that was going

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to be such a popular topic tonight. This is something that's done every few years.

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It was my first time going through the two percent dues audit process.

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We went through with flying colors. Luckily, they were very happy to see some improvements

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in our reporting, especially on the training side of things, including lesson plans, those

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hours, all of that kind of stuff is important part of that process, ensuring that our folks

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are working towards appropriate certifications. You know, some other parts of that, making sure

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our fire reports are all done. They're uploaded directly. There's a lot of steps that go through

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this process. But everything went well. So yeah, we should be good for the next couple of years

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and free to receive those funds when they come from the state. How often does that happen then?

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It's kind of a moving target. They send every three to four years. Sometimes it's two.

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Sometimes I think it has a lot to do with how your audit went. If that makes sense, I think if

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you're on the naughty list, you get audited a little bit more frequently than the other direction.

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You just have to provide them a lot of data. Yeah, there was a lot of data that we needed to

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provide a lot of different reports that we needed to provide to them. So we went through all of that.

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It was a couple hours meeting with DSPS to go through all of that stuff. So but things went

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relatively well. Okay, great. All right, next. So I just wanted to outline a process

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coming up here for reviewing and approving the updated departmental policies and procedures.

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You all know that we've been working on this for a while.

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Be draft of at least we're going to build this out into sections. It'll be an administrative

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section, work rules section, an operational section. So the administrative section is

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largely ready to go, or at least ready for you guys to review. I will be sending that to Jim by

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the end of the week to distribute to you all to have some time to digest and read through them.

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I didn't think it was fair to drop them in your lap in the packet here and then be like, hey,

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on Monday, I'm sure you all had better things to do this weekend than read through probably 50

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pages of administrative policy. So hopefully over the next month, you guys can take some time

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to digest some of those, and then we can bring them up for approval next month. And then we'll

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give you a couple months off, and then we'll bring back the next set and so on and so forth

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till we're through the entire book. But I would like to have everything wrapped up before quarter

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four of this year, so we have everything in place.

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And Chief, these updates, how old is the old manual that you're working off of?

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2013. So it's time. Yeah, it's been time. Okay, good.

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Yes, I look forward to receiving that. No, you don't, but that's okay.

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Last thing on my list is just a quick update on the Public Safety Building project. It is now

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at the pace where every time you go there, something is new and different. It's fun to see,

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they have finally poured the concrete in the apparatus floor on the fire side, which was a

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major milestone for us. You know, they're starting to get to the point where flooring is going in,

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tiles going up, drop ceilings are going in, so it really looks like a building on the inside.

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We continue to be on track for a June occupancy, probably a PD side a little bit before us,

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but everything remains on schedule with hopefully our move in to be scheduled around the end of

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July, or at least to be operating out of there by the end of July, because it'll take some time.

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We'll get occupancy in June, and then we have to install the furniture and the owner furnished

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equipment and all that kind of stuff. So it's going to take some time to do that.

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And we can't really be operating out of two places, so we want to make sure everything's up

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and operational and functioning before we make the move. So one more fish day at the current.

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House. And this could be for either chief, any plans for a public open house?

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Yes, we had talked about this. I think we had planned to do that during our open house in October,

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where we typically do our combined public safety open house during fire prevention week. So that

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was the working plan as of now to do it then. Good. And then everybody should be pretty settled

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in everything in there. So. Okay, is there any other business we need to discuss tonight?

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Looks like our next meeting will be Monday, May 11th, and that will be Sarah's last meeting,

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I believe. Yes, sir. And if I hear there's no other comments, is there a motion to adjourn our meeting?

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I'll make that motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. We're adjourned. Thank you.