captions Language: en e e e but we also can send it out where it looks like something that that people in 2020 21 22 23 24 will actually read um so I took a little Liberties on this that's a long-winded answer Jenny to is it a local company um but it it really it couldn't have worked out better and I know prior to you being on the board there was a lot of uh workshops and things like that in 20 leading up to October and then the first contract um in 21 and uh Patty I think you and John were on the board at that time and uh I was just saying to um Bruce and his printer uh Harry Levenstein uh the other day how how far we've come that really we had to do two or three workshops at the end of 2020 and really uh convinced the community and the board of why we should get into this contract for 2021 because this was new and like anything else change is difficult and I said to them look at how far we've come that now we've done 17 additions one in October of 20 and four straight and 21 22 23 and 24 it is a known commodity now and one of the things I'm proud of and I think Bridget I'm speaking over what you said is that we're not resting on our Laurels you have to constantly be changing and and reading the the the community as far as what they want to see and I feel very good about the team that we've put together that we do that um and all you got to do is look at the screen that's up there right now and I'll get off my Soap Box we've done it in a f uh responsible way and I've said this many times from this from this de I could make the argument that the most important job of a Town Council person is the fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers so in 2019 there was 40 some odd thousand spent on three town times in 2025 there's going to be four Webster today and we're a few thousand dollars more after five years Paul you're the finance director how we doing makes sense it's working out all right I'll shut up basically the same cost Local Company well it's nice to hear yeah you know because we we are actually we're using you know the uh taxpayer money to give them the education and to communicate and you know to be in touch with our community and I'm glad that you know Bruce I saw your magazine this is and everybody prays about it and you know a lot of my friends advertise on your um things too on your magazine and that's how it's like balanced out so the cost will be lower for us to pay you and there are you know um information in there I I'm I'm glad that it's local use and you know you are local and that's important to me agreed and that was one of the biggest selling points and like I said uh Jenny it's somewhat uh well it did it it was prior to you being on the board in 22 this battle if you want to call it of proving to the board and the community this is worth us venturing into occurred in late 2020 when Patty and John I'm sure I'm bringing back memories I'm sure you remember it so um but uh anything else on this we do have a resolu solution at the 7:30 board meeting to uh I think authorize the supervisor to sign the 2025 contract uh and a bit of leap of faith on the part of Bruce and his uh production team and whatever because I would say that uh we are probably 90% done with the uh development of the January um 2025 Webster today um and I appreciate Bruce that uh you know you and Harry and the crew Scott and um you know we have a relationship uh that we built up over the last five years on this that's a leap of faith on your part because this board could say no we're not doing a uh a contract in 2025 with you and you just basically did 25% uh of the year in the January 2025 Edition so uh thank you thank you all right all right um hey we're on time 6:45 our next item up tonight is an update uh on EMS uh Russ zisin is going to take the podium Russ uh for people who watch these uh and attend these board meetings and um workshops uh you probably have heard by now because I think Russ this is your third or fourth time up there this year um Russ co-chairs a EMS committee with councilman John Cahill uh John Cahill is the board liaison to EMS in Webster and Russ uh I'm getting there's a broken record on this one Russ but Russ you've lived here what 15 years entrepreneur uh high tech uh Industries but the man's been an EMS the in the EMS industry for 30 plus years and is the uh president CEO I think of North onandaga volunteer ambulance out of clay New York about 80 miles from here um and that's because when he moved here 15 years ago from Clay New York they were like we can't get anybody better than you to run it will you still run it even from 80 miles away is that the story yep all right that is the story all right so we're very lucky in Webster to have somebody with that kind of um you want to talk about a uh subject matter expert that is teamed up with John kale as our our aison to really navigate um us through this process as we try to figure out what to do longterm with the MS so Russ I'll hand it to you all right well let's recap what what we've done so far right we had a formal RFP that we put together a request for proposal we sent out to uh several agencies back in November and they um uh they had to respond respond let's see responded by November 18th deadline was that right yeah yeah they had to respond by November 18th it's it's we're already in December um only two agencies responded to the RFP and expressed interest which was um Penfield which is currently doing the short-term contract and Monroe ambulance excuse me Russ Russ could you speak into the microphone a little bit more I'm not sure that people in the audience no talk a little louder um I'm worried that people at home can't hear you sure so once we got the RFP responses we reviewed those responses and formed a recommendation and then here we are tonight um to report to the town what our findings and our recommendations are what we did is we put together sort of a rubric if you remember from the you know the your kids' days going to school they had to answer thing or you know figure out how they score things by rubri or 14 key points that we considered which they were on the next slide there so I don't know if I need to read them out because they're posted online they're right there on the slides but um so these are the these are the metrics that we judged each of the rfps by and for the most part the two ambulances are both very qualified to do what they do and and what they proposed to do and what we needed them to do but they were um two two points that were sort of the Tipping points that leaned in favor of one agency um and that would have been and that's Penfield so that that is our final recommendation is uh that you accept the Penfield RFP which really just is a um is an acceptance for you all to negotiate a contract with them doesn't award anything but those two points were um the cost for subsidy was was um penfield's was significantly less of our request for subsidy and so that certainly has a um a big weight in the when there's only two points that one of them um if all other things are equal and the other the other more minor point that was a differentiator was that Penfield has contracts and and a formal method for staging their ambulances right they've already got they have agreements in place right now and while Monroe certainly committed to being able to do that um and I'm sure they would have been able to but they didn't have it in place so that was a that was more of a minor point it was um the subsidy was significantly different and so everything else being equal that winds up being our formal recommendation is that you accept that proposal and go forward and and negotiate a contract with Penfield Russ just once again I just want to thank you for all the work and the amount of hours and dedication that you've put into um this process and the process as a whole for the last one plus years yeah no I greatly appreciate it no problem any any questions I don't have any questions I I don't have any questions I I understand the um the way things were scored and Penfield has been serving the town with the short-term contract this year and is doing a great job the metrics when they last presented to us were were um outstanding and um I had to use the service once for my father oh well so um the well to be fair to the process I mean you know we that wasn't something that we took into account right it was a was a request for proposal and we looked at the responses right because if we if we were just going to say hey they you know they've been serving us so well what there would have really been no need for a process if we weren't serious about looking at it and and you know quite frankly I think you know it it was it was a a hard decision because they out of the other 12 points everything was very equal so I think we actually you know as much as emotionally we we'd think of you know what they done for us but I think um the committee especially U most of the committee other than John and I don't live in Webster right we're we're emotionally detached from that particular piece so I feel good that we were pretty fair in our evaluation and it was that that was an All-Star committee uh yes it was it really um you had operational EMS people uh from Central to New York you had Paul Adams our finance chair who I'd put him up against anybody on that end and he's been dealing with billing issues and things because of us being a municipal ambulance for several years now um one of the billing companies um owner of it uh he was on this committee yep and it's funny because he I couldn't understand why uh penfield's um subsidy quote in their RFP was so much lower than Rose and he explained it to the out of network and all that stuff that I don't think any Layman would have understood that yeah so having somebody that you know like that on the committee and then you had a couple of Chiefs from uh from Monroe County uh and we yeah I mean and and again you know with like Shihan from the billing company he didn't have a dog in this fight no you know so again it was we we tried to be you know really detached from what was going on the last year or so and be fair to the the process yeah so I feel pretty comfortable um you know wish we could have you know had everybody play in the in our in the Webster sandbox but well that's to you know it's funny um what I said at our last Workshop presentation we've come a long way on the Webster today uh in the five years from when we first proposed doing that periodical just in the last year I thought to myself today that we were in this boardroom almost a year to the day a year ago and there was a proposal uh a a resolution on the on the agenda um to have an emergency funding to our uh at that time our our EMS agency yeah um the town board decided not to do that emergency funding um and then what has happened the last year since then um is uh it's pretty amazing it really is and I mean I think we're on the cusp of uh uh we have a resolution on the regular board meeting agenda tonight that if the board says uh hey that's the recommendation of the committee that uh John kale one of our uh board members was on um if the board does that resolution basically we we are starting the negotiation process on the long-term contract with Penfield volunteer ambulance um which I think is pretty impressive and you know it's funny at the the short-term deal which I agree your committee did not really look at that which I thought was really impressive um that ended up being $128,000 in 2024 and when the town board was doing our town budget uh for 25 and we're like we don't know what we're going to have um for EMS we settled on a number of $100,000 for Ems for the 2025 budget um but we knew uh Paul we talked about it like that's kind of that's the budget but we'll see what ends up happening with you know what direction we go um I don't know how coincidental it is but the uh the RFP for penfield's uh subsidy uh from the town taxpayers from our general fund uh for 2025 is $100,000 oh I mean EMS is going to remain uh a tumultuous place and uh and business you know so unfortunately it's going to take up time it's going to continue to take time you know um January 1 we as as some of you know you know the direct bill pay will be enforced and so hopefully that will have a positive impact on on the cost of EMS to the town previously the insurance companies would send checks to the patients you've heard me all say this amount my organization that that's about you know4 million a year checks that people don't turn into us um so on January 1st the theory is those checks are coming to us yeah so that should help offset cost so you know I don't think Penfield had quite that um you know bad a a payer uh or receipt problem but um hopefully they they'll benefit from it and that'll benit the town as well yeah but I there's a lot of other things going on in EMS that we'll see the word on the street is the the the federal grants that are given out every year 98% go to fire departments and fire service things that they are going to have some um significant consideration for EMS this year I don't know what that means if we go from two to percent to 4% you know I guess that's significant but right so it it'll it'll be interesting to see anything else for Russ or John since he was the co-chair of that committee so thank you so much thanks Russ thank you Russ all right well that concludes uh the town board workshop for December 5th 2024 looks like we're going to have about a half an hour uh break here and then we'll be back with the regular Town board meeting for uh December 5th 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
so thank you