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<br />Fire Chief Kapler indicated the City of St. Anthony experimented with this for a while with <br />Public Works employees acting as paid on-call fire fighters. A big wrench in that is that the <br />issue of overtime has come up with paid on-call fire fighters who respond after their normal <br />working hours. <br /> <br />Human Resources Manager Reed advised the City currently has a couple employees that serve as <br />regular City employees and fire fighters, but it is not a requirement. If it were to be a <br />requirement, that might need to something that was bargained with the contract for the regular <br />position. <br /> <br />City Administrator Norman noted there was a time of high level emergency with flooding in the <br />City. Ramsey had four Public Works employees that were also fire fighters and it put a great <br />demand on the City's service at that time. This would be one difficulty if there are too many <br />employees under this type of structure. <br /> <br />Councilmember Jeffrey requested information in the report be separated to show the ratio of <br />administrative staff versus service staff in the Police, Fire and Public Works Departments. <br /> <br />Councilmember Cook expressed concern in the projected increase in personnel expenditures by <br />the year 2010. <br /> <br />Human Resources Manager Reed indicated page 23 of the report discusses service levels, which <br />was the impetus for the study. Springsted makes recommendations for the City to beef up in this <br />particular area. They suggest the City develop performance measuring data for each service <br />area. They also suggested a community survey to determine what residents want in terms of <br />service levels. <br /> <br />Mayor Gamec stressed the importance of communication. He stated he believes internal <br />communication with the department heads has improved, and the key is to continue this. <br /> <br />Councilmember Cook noted the report points out that the City does not have anyone in charge of <br />communication, and it is something that gets put on the back burner. This report brings out that <br />what the City is doing now might work well for the size they are, but they cannot expect that to <br />work even four years from now. They need to start solving that problem now so as the City <br />grows the communication is good and they are all on the same page. <br /> <br />Councilmember Strommen commented the Council did not make communication a priority when <br />they discussed communication position was cut from the budget. <br /> <br />Councilmember Jeffrey stressed the importance of putting a timeline to action steps, taking into <br />account the recommendations of this study. He noted there are action steps included in the <br />report, such as creating plans, which do not require additional positions. <br /> <br />Councilmember Strommen concurred. <br /> <br />City Council Work Session I July 11,2006 <br />Page 3 of5 <br />