MINUTES FROM THE REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING OF THE NORTH FORK AMBULANCE HEALTH SERVICE DISTRICT

The Regular Monthly meeting of the Board of Directors of the North Fork Ambulance Health Service District located in the Counties of Delta, Montrose and Gunnison, Colorado, was held at 110 E. Hotchkiss Ave, Hotchkiss, Colorado, on Thursday, July 13, 2023 at 11:00 a.m.
CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 11:02 am.
ADDITIONS TO THE AGENDA: Dan would like to add an item under unfinished business – PTO and Leave Policies, it was omitted from the agenda in error.
ROLL CALL: Board members present – Dan Miller, Marcus Roeder, Dave Kreutz, Bonnie Eisenberg and Peter Pruett.
Others present include: Kathy Steckel, Diane Perry, Steve Simpson, and Marie Stucker.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURE: No conflict of interest.
PUBLIC COMMENT: No Public Comment.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes from the June 8, 2023 Regular Monthly Meeting were reviewed. Marcus Roeder made a motion that the minutes be approved as written. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
REPORTS:
FINANCE REPORT: Financials for June were presented and reviewed. Dave Kreutz made a motion to approve the financials for June. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
APPROVAL OF APPROPRIATIONS: Marcus Roeder made a motion to approve the appropriations for June as presented. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
DISTRICT CHIEF REPORT: Kathy Steckel gave an overview of her report (see attached).
Administration: Kathy and Diane are starting to work on the CMS Data Collection requirements. We will report 2023 data next year between the months of January and May. Might require adding a couple of categories to our budget, but it seems like the data that they require is available in our current system.
Kathy attended a SDA Compliance Meeting and came away with a few suggestions for us to change how we are doing things.
Finance: Completed mid-year budget review. Everything looks good.
HR: Meet with HR Committee to review PTO policy and the Chief contract. During that meeting the committee members expressed interest in health insurance for part-time employees. There is no actual health insurance available for our kind of part-time employees. AFLAC supplemental insurance is available, but there are so many choices of policies, what would we cover? How would we pay for it? Are the crews interested? No one is asking at the moment. Could this be done like the Wellness Benefit where we reimburse a set amount each month once the employee proves they have a policy. Kathy will survey the crew.
Operations: Community Paramedicine. The program is running smoothly. Just finished the Annual Report and renewed our license. We are expecting a site review this year.
A VIN number has been assigned for the new ambulance!
UNFINISHED BUSINESS: PTO and Leave Policies – The HR Committee recommends that we allow unpaid leave to be taken before all earned PTO is used. This requires minor changes to the HR manual. Peter Pruett made a motion that Policy 150.1 on page 41 is amended by striking the first sentence of the last paragraph – “All earned PTO, vacation and sick leave must be used at the beginning of the leave of absence.” The motion was seconded. All were in favor
Marcus Roeder made a motion to add the word “not” into the first paragraph of Use and scheduling of PTO under Policy 140.4. “Employees are not required to use available PTO when taking time off from work.” Thus making the two policies agree. The motion was seconded. All were in favor.
The second issue that the HR Committee reviewed was paying for unused PTO. Peter pointed out that our CEGR attorney recommended against it. There was a very lengthy discussion about the many different options for a program like this. Kathy will try to find policies from other agencies for the HR Committee to review and they will report back again at the next meeting. Kathy will ask the full-time employees how they feel about this issue.
Revised District Chief Contract. The contract revisions were emailed out to the board members by Kathy. There was much discussion about the wording of current the contract and what the board members felt the contract should actually contain. Bonnie Eisenberg made a motion to accept the contract revisions as presented by our attorney. There was no second. The motion died.
After more discussion about the contract and its purpose, Kathy stated that she would feel more comfortable tabling the discussion until the next meeting when it could be discussed in Executive Session.
NEW BUSINESS: No new business
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Next Regular Meeting is Thursday, August 10, 2023 at 11 am.
ADJOURNMENT: There being no further matters before the board, Dan Miller made a motion to adjourn. All were in favor. Meeting was adjourned at 12:53 pm.