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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 11 - Fire DepartmentMEMOTO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL FROM: BRUNO RUMBELOW, CITY MANAGER MEETING DATE: DECEMBER 17, 2019 SUBJECT: APPROVAL OF FIRE DEPARTMENT RESOURCE ALLOCATION STUDY CONTRACT RECOMMENDATION: City Council to consider a contract to review current Fire Department operations with Fitch and Associates. FUNDING SOURCE: Funding for this contract is available in account 100-44540-120-001 (Professional Services / Non -Departmental) in the amount of $49,995. BACKGROUND: Fitch and Associates will conduct a review of current fire department operations to determine effectiveness, efficiency and long-term sustainability in order to insure that we continue providing quality fire and emergency medical services to our residents and visitors. Tasks to be completed include: Comprehensive quantitative data analysis report Comprehensive geographic Information Systems Analysis report High level community risk assessment Fire department staffing/deployment strategies Fire department scheduling strategies Apparatus and reserve replacement strategies Final report The project is expected to take approximately four months to complete and will cost $49,995 which includes travel expenses. Staff looked at several different firms that do similar work and determined that Fitch and Associates best meets our needs at this time because of their broad experience in providing these services to Fire and EMS providers including current studies for the cities of Dallas and Houston. The consultant team has extensive public sector experience, including as firefighters, paramedics, various command roles and as a Fire Chief. Staff recommends approval 19/11/22 5:09 PM 20 October 2019 Via email: dbrown@erapevinetexas.eov Darrell Brown Fire Chief City of Grapevine 1007 Ira E. Woods Avenue Grapevine, TX 76051 Dear Chief Brown: Thank you for your inquiry and considering Fitch & Associates to work with the City of Grapevine's Fire Department and to chart a future course. We are pleased to be able to provide information to allow you to better understand our consulting approach and value. Per our conversation, your goal is to objectively review current operations and provide future oriented considerations for greater effectiveness, efficiency, and long-term sustainability. The evaluation will include identifying opportunities for improvement that may include alternatives to current structures, operations, and deployment. As an objective third -party expert, one of the specific questions to be answered is the validity and efficacy of internal plans related to the redistribution of human and capital resources towards emergency medical services. The key deliverable for the project is to be a clearly written executive summary report outlining our conclusions and actionable recommendations. In addition, a professional presentation will be developed and presented. Fitch & Associates is the leading system review and system design consulting firm in North America. For over 35 years, we have worked with clients ranging from large urban fire systems to smaIlervolunteer and combination services. We have extensive experience in fire -based programs and within the State of Texas. The approach we use blends your team's intimate knowledge of the area with our broad experience working with diverse Fire and EMS models. 19/11/22 5:09 PM City of Grapevine, TX Page 2 Per our brief discussion, we offer the following scope of work for your project: • Meet with key leaders to frame the objectives of the review and desired outcomes. ■ Review the representative fire agency to understand the current operations, existing efficiencies and best practices. • Onsite data collection and interactions with key stakeholders. ■ Complete a review of operational, deployment, and associated administrative policies. ■ Identify strategies for long-term sustainability, improved response capacity, effectiveness, and efficiency. • Develop an implementation strategy, including the identification of potential issues and high-level strategies to mitigate those issues. ■ Prepare a summary report outlining current state and key improvement recommendations. We will conduct an executive briefing on site. ■ Deliver a formal presentation of the findings. From a high level, the project will include the delivery of the following: • Comprehensive Quantitative Data Analysis Report • Comprehensive GIS Analysis Report • High level community risk assessment • Fire department staffing strategies • Fire department scheduling strategies • Fire Department deployment strategies • Apparatus, capital, and reserve for replacement strategies • Executive summary style report with PPT presentation slide deck Figure 1--- Project Approach, Timeframes, Activities and Deliverables 19/11/22 ` 5:09 PM City of Grapevine, TX Page 3 TIMIEFRAME Month 1 Teleconference Month 1-2 On -site Visit Month 2-3 Formation of Month 3-4 Assimilation of all ACTIVITIES Kickoff Stakeholder Potential information into Data Request Tool Interviews Alternatives formal presentation Provided of findings. Delivery of DELIVERABLES Scope Confirmation Site Visit Scheduled Initial Findings Presentation to Briefing Council/Stakeholder Group One of the Firm's partners is involved in every project. I will serve as the partner on this project. The other key staff members supporting your project will be Chief Ian Womack and Chief Bruce Moeller. I have provided a brief synopsis of our backgrounds. More information on the staff and the Firm is available at our website http://www.fitchassoc.com. Our clients, in their own words, best describe our commitment to your success. Several brief video clips are available at http://www.fitchassoc.com/our---customers.html. Additional client references are available upon request. Thetotal professional servicefeeswill be $49,995. This is a fixed price proposal inclusive of travel and expenses. The completiontime is three to four months. I hope this information is helpful to you in considering Fitch & Associates for your important project. Additional information, including copies of public reports, articles, and research we routinely conduct for the Journal of Emergency Medical5ervices is available on our website. Please contact me if we can answer any questions or offer additional information about scheduling next steps. Thank you again for allowing us to present this proposal for your consideration. Sincerely, Steven Knight, PhD Partner 19/11/22 5:09 PM Proposed Project Staff Three key team members will be working on the project. They include: Chief Steven Knight (Ret.), PhD, Partner Project Oversight. Dr. Knight has nearly 25 years of experience and recently retired as the Assistant Fire/EMS Chief for the City of St. Petersburg, Florida. He is a subject matter expert for both the National Fire Academy and the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE). He has also served as a team leader and peer assessor for the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) and has held multiple faculty appointments in Fire Science and EMS. Dr. Knight previously served the International City and County Management Association (ICMA), as the Senior Manager for Fire and EMS. Dr. Knight holds a PhD from the University of South Florida in Curriculum and Instruction and a Minor in Research and Measurement, a Master's degree in Public Administration from Troy University and a Bachelor's in Fire & Safety Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. Chief Knight is also a graduate of and faculty for the Executive Fire Officer Program (EFO) through the U.S. Fire Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency. Knight is an accredited Chief Fire Officer (CFO) through the Center for Professional Credentialing. Knight also served as an adjunct professor at St. Petersburg College and the State College of Florida in their Fire Science and Public Safety Administration Programs, is the former program director for Emergency Medical Services at the Manatee Technical Institute and is an affiliate faculty with the University of Central Florida's College of Medicine. Bruce J. Moeller, PhD —Senior Consultant. Dr. Moeller joined the firm last year. He most recently served as Executive Director for Safety & Emergency Services in Pinellas County, Florida and as Interim Chief of Staff for the County. Pinellas County is a community of almost 1 million residents; his areas of responsibility include 9-1-1, EMS &Fire Administration, Justice & Consumer Services, Radio & Technology, Emergency Management and Animal Services. Prior to his current role, Dr. Moeller served as city manager in Sunrise, Florida. Moeller's background includes 30+ years of public safety service, culminating as Chief of Department for several fire -rescue agencies, including Broward County, Florida. Dr. Moeller is active in fire service and public management organizations, having served in committee and leadership roles for the International City County Management Association (ICMA), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). He is also an active member of the International Chiefs of Police (IACP). Ian Womack —Senior Consultant Chief Womack has over 16 years of experience in fire and emergency services and is currently serving as a Division Chief for St. Petersburg Fire & Rescue, an ISO Class 1 and internationally accredited department. SPF&R serves more than 260,000 residents and responds to over 60,000 emergency incidents annually from thirteen fire stations. Chief Womack currently oversees the department's Rescue Division, which delivers EMS services to the community with 22 ALS Units. Chief Womack has cutting edge experience with fire - based EMS system design, resource allocation/utilization and service delivery contracts. Ian has also helped multiple urban agencies develop standards of cover, strategic plans, and deployment strategies that employed cutting edge best practice. Ian earned a degree with honors in Fire Science and a BAS summa cum laude in Public Safety Administration FITCH 19/11/22 ' 5:09 PM from St. Petersburg College. He is also a graduate of the Eckerd College Management Development Institute's Leadership Development program and the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce Leadership St. Pete program. Teresa Johnson, PhD — Senior Consultant — Quantitative Analytics and Clinical Research. Dr. Teresa R. Johnson served as the Director of the Office of Assessment and Evaluation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM). In this role, she is responsible for designing and launching initiatives related to the assessment of students and the evaluation of programs in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education, graduate biomedical education, and post -doctoral training. She establishes strong partnerships with faculty members and program administrators to ensure that assessment and program evaluation activities align with learner needs, program goals, accreditation standards, and evidence -based best practices. Dr. Johnson is also an Assistant Professor of Health Sciences Informatics at JHUSOM and serves as a capstone advisor for the Master of Education in Health Professions program. In both the Director and Assistant Professor roles, she collaborates with other faculty members on educational research projects and provides consultation to faculty members as a managing board member of the Institute for Excellence in Education. Prior to joining JHUSOM in November of 2015, Dr. Johnson served as an Assistant Professor of Medical Education at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine (UCFCOM), where she taught statistics and research methods to first- and second -year undergraduate medical students. She also served as a mentor and advisor in the Focused Inquiry and Research Experience (FIRE) module at UCFCOM, assisting hundreds of medical students through a two-year research project required in the M.D. program. Dr. Johnson was also responsible for developing a research program as an independent researcher and in conjunction with other medical education faculty, particularly as it related to evaluating the effectiveness of alternative pedagogical approaches (e.g., game -based learning), technological innovations (e.g., mobile applications for real-time evaluation), and assessment methods in medical education (e.g., through use of virtual patients). Dr. Johnson completed her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Educational and Sport Psychology at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, FL. During her graduate studies, she worked as a Sport Psychology Consultant for the FSU NCAA Division I women's softball and men's golf teams and taught undergraduate sections of Sport Psychology and Classroom Applications of Educational Psychology. Brian McGrath — Senior Consultant — GIS and Mapping Analyst. Brian McGrath serves as President of CAD North Inc. His responsibilities include Administration, Marketing, Software Development and Business Analysis/Requirements Documentation. He brings over 18 years' experience in Information Systems management and development in the public safety industry including 10+ years Business and Systems Analysis in public safety software development. He has exceptional ability at requirements capture, analysis and documentation and is fully conversant with all aspects of the software product development and implementation lifecycle. He is an experienced software developer of public safety dispatch applications including software development using TriTech's RAPTOR API. He possesses excellent communications and interpersonal skills, is comfortable at all organizational levels and has a solid base of operational experience in public safety communications. i H 19/11/22 5:09 PM Best Practices and Relevant Project References We are pleased to provide references for any of the more than 1,000 projects the firm has conducted. For your convenience, the following are several entities that would be pleased to speak with you about their experiences with the firm. Additional references are available on our website. Best Practices Utilized by Fitch & Associates FITCH remains on the cutting edge of best practices in the fire and emergency medical services. Our consultants are intimately involved with many state and national associations and are frequent presenters at international conferences: • National Forum for Black Public Administrators Conference (NFBPA) • Fire Rescue International by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) • Firehouse World • Excellence Conference by the Center for Public Safety Excellence and the Commission on Fire Accreditation International(CPSE/CFAI) • Volunteer Chiefs Association (VCOS) • Canadian EMS Chiefs Conference • International City/County Management Association (ICMA) • Navigator - International Academies of Emergency Dispatch (IAED) • EMS World Additionally, your proposed team has presented at the following state associations in the last five years: • Texas Fire Chiefs Education Conference • California League of Cities • Florida Fire Chiefs Association • Louisiana Fire Chiefs Association • Illinois Fire Chiefs Association • Washington Fire Chiefs Association • Nevada Fire Chiefs Association (Nevada Fire Show) • Connecticut Fire Chiefs Association • Georgia EMS Conference Finally, FITCH hosts its own conference on Fire/EMS best practices titled Pinnacle Leadership. All of these efforts assist FITCH in maintaining our best practices approach to consulting and advising. For example, a proprietary process is utilized to develop a temporal and demand based geographic marginal utility model that is leading edge in designing fire and EMS systems in a manner that best articulates and describes both return on investment of resource allocation and the assumption of risk by the community. References and Demonstrated Experience In addition to the intuitive strengths derived from leadership in the emergency services field and more than three decades of consulting, FITCH also offers specific expertise gained from multiple projects that required similar expertise to the one proposed. FITCH has evaluated numerous communities' needs and provided leadership in a variety of projects that involved collaboration by many different agencies for the common FITCH 19/11/22 5:09 PM good. We have an ability to keep focused on the final result while keeping the planning process moving. FITCH is uniquely qualified to conduct this review. FITCH specializes in public safety consulting and has direct experience with assignments similar to yours. Below are several projects that demonstrate our experience developing community risk assessments and standards of coverage documents for public fire agencies. Snohomish Fire District #7, Washington FITCH was originally contracted only to complete a Standards of Cover process for the Fire District. FITCH was retained to facilitate the establishment and adoption of risk -based deployment strategies. Prior to completing the project, the client requested additional assistance with an organizational efficiency study. The completed study provided 13 strategic recommendations to the agency that would provide more efficiency within the administrative and operational divisions. Within two years 12 of the 13 recommendations were implemented with positive results. Additionally, the District once again retained Fitch & Associates to update and consolidate their Standards of Cover document to include a newly merged fire district. The contact for the Fire District is Battalion Chief Ryan Lundquist, project manager/accreditation manager. He can be reached at rlundouist(csnofire7.ora. [The project demonstrates the firm's experience with Standard of Response Coverage Development. City of St. Petersburg, Florida The City of St. Petersburg contracted with the firm to assist the agency with an update of their Standards of Cover as they prepare for their 4`" re -accreditation. FITCH completed comprehensive data and GIS analyses that the Department could utilize to update their existing standards of coverage document. In addition, St. Petersburg Fire & Rescue received the SAFER Grant designed to open a 14" station in the NW area of the City. FITCH assisted with recommendations for optimized station locations as well as reviewed multiple sites identified by the City. The review assisted the City while maintaining consideration for the internationally accredited status and ISO PPC of 1. This project was completed in January 2017. The contact for this project is Division Chief Ian Womack. He can be reached at 727-893-7664 or ian.womack@ppesoftware.com. The project demonstrates the firm's experience with Standard of Response Coverage Development, comprehensive quantitative data analyses, station location studies, and GIS analyses that balance local policy with NFPA, CFAI, and ISO guiding documents within the local fiscal and political environment. City of Cape Coral, FL FITCH was contracted to complete a Standards of Cover process for the City. FITCH was retained to facilitate the establishment and adoption of risk -based deployment strategies. The review identified and quantified risks and provided the operational and fiscal impacts to alternatives to the current service delivery model that best aligns risk, demand, and both human and capital resource allocations. Subsequently, the City hired FITCH to facilitate and develop a Strategic Planning process. The projects were 6 H. 19/11/22 5:09 PM completed and presented to city council in April 2019. The contact for the City of Cape Coral is Fire Chief Ryan Lamb. He can be reached at 239-574-0501 or rlamb@capecoral.net. The project demonstrates the firm's experience with Community Risk Assessment and Standards of Response Coverage Development and Staffing Optimization and Payroll considerations, as well as the facilitation of a 5-year Strategic Planning process. City of Vancouver Fire Department, Vancouver, WA FITCH was retained to complete a review of the City's EMS program and its relationship with the County and EMS District 2. The City made the decision to withdraw and not participate in the upcoming ambulance transport procurement prior to the consultation. In determining the optimal structure for the system, FITCH developed a strategy approved by both agencies to reverse roles and have the City lead the procurement process enabling the enhancements the City sought but preserving the economic advantages of procuring a single transport provider and maintaining service availability throughout the City and County. The firm subsequently analyzed coverage requirements, prepared detailed specifications and conducted a national procurement process. This project was concluded in 2014. Subsequently, FITCH was contracted to complete a Standards of Cover that focuses efforts towards outcomes and deemphasizing response time ... this will be completed in July of 2019. Additionally, the City has asked FITCH to complete a compliance evaluation for the ambulance service contract they manage and will begin in May/June 2019. The contact for this project is Chief Joe Molina. He can be reached at 360.487.7201, by cell at 360.553.5385, or Joe. Molina@cityofvancouver.us. The relevance of the Vancouver procurement project is the engagement demonstrates the breadth of our consulting practice, familiarity with a labor environment and our ability to work with multiple agencies with divergent objectives.