2025-07-02 GFPID meeting – part 5

A motion had been suggested in the agenda to address coverage during the Corporate Officer’s leave by assigning administrative and financial work to a board member temporarily; the Chair was concerned that there would be a need for dealing quickly with the levy if it came in during that period. During discussions it became clear that the absences in question amounted to very few working days and most, including the Corporate Officer, did not consider this an issue. There were some testy exchanges about the appropriateness of making public the dates when someone was on leave. After fairly extensive discussion a motion to strike the motion from the agenda.

2. BYLAW 66

A suggested motion dealt with administrative housekeeping issues and updated content that was no longer applicable. After discussion an amended version of the motion was proposed. Motion carried:

THAT the board direct staff to compose a new Officer Positions Establishment Bylaw which accurately reflects the current Local Government Act, and present that by elections board for consideration at the September general meeting.

3. ACCESS TO GFPID RECORDS

To be discussed in camera

4. LEGAL AUTHORIZATION

To be discussed in camera

5. DISCRETIONARY SPENDING

The agenda included a suggested motion to suspend discretionary spending until the board had reviewed and ratified financial statements for the first quarter of the fiscal year and reviewed and assessed the findings of the current year’s audit. After some discussion the motion was defeated.

6. TAX LEVY AND BACK PAY FOR FIREFIGHTERS

The Chair explains that the intent of the motion is to affirm the Board’s commitment to carry out actions that have not been taken yet because of delays with receiving the levy.

Some discussion about the context and amounts owed followed.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So the previous rate with paying everyone was like a sort of a stipend for this by the hour, it was determined that we're a paid on call department, not a volunteer department. The name we can debate later, but the reality is, if you're a paid on call department, you have to pay minimum wage. $15 an hour is not minimum wage. So we have to pay an additional $2 and whatever, 80 cents, or whatever minimum wage is now, but because of the time—

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Is this duty officer pay or the lowest—

TRUSTEE MOELLER: That's the lowest rate. I'm not sure exactly what everybody’s pay scale is but it translated to everybody getting a little raise. I'm not entirely sure on that.

CHIEF: The new firefighters and candidates coming in were getting $15 an hour. Once it was recognized that it was below minimum standards that was raised up. That's how some people have already got bumped up. But it wasn't in the budget to pay everyone the suggested, I think it was a $2 an hour, raise, everyone was getting a $2 raise all the way up. And so that’s the retroactive payment.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I need to stipulate it was budgeted. It's just we don't have the money until the levy comes in, because it wasn't budgeting 2024 having this back pay thing.

[Trustee Chorneyko asks about exact amounts.]

CHAIR: I can tell you that after the increase, candidate pay goes from 15 to $18 an hour. Firefighter pay goes from 15 to $18 an hour. Full service. Firefighter goes from 17 to $20 an hour. Lieutenant from 20 to 23 Captain from 22 to 25 so it's basically a $3 an hour raise across the board.

[Trustee Appel asks a question about intended purpose of affirmation]

CHAIR: In November, the raise, when the budget was passe, the raise was decided on, but the fiscal year is a calendar year, so that wouldn’t kick into effect till January 1. But given the timing of the levy and how that's offset, like six months from the start of the year, the operational decision was made to hold payment of that raise in abeyance. So it's just accumulated, yeah, and now this just affirms that this was done by the board, the raise was decided. This sort of brings the issue up again and communicates, because I don't know, because I'm very new to this job, how much communication has happened between the board and firefighters and where their understanding of where things are at. So I wanted the board to affirm.

Motion carried:

THAT the Board of Trustees affirms its intention to implement the approved firefighter pay increase retroactively, and authorizes the payment of back pay covering the period from January 1, 2025, to the date the new rates are implemented, calculated in accordance with the rates approved in the 2025 budget;

And further

THAT the Corporate Officer be directed to calculate and disburse the back pay as part of the next regular payroll cycle following processing of the 2025 tax levy revenues.

7. POLICY REVIEW

The Chair stated that there is a lack of clarity with regard to some policies and their status, and also possible conflicts in their content. Interest was expressed in bringing in local subject matter experts to help with this.

Motion carried:

THAT the Board of Trustees commissions a select committee consisting of Trustees Moher and Bussler and Johnson, to engage in a review and audit of current GFPID policies. That committee to report to the board at the September general meeting, the report to address

1. 1. Policies correctly adopted which should be continued
   2. Policies which require revision and formal adoption
   3. Policies which should be done away with or revised entirely
   4. Policy gaps

8. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT REVIEW

Motion carried:

THAT the board commission the Finance Committee to undertake a comprehensive review and analysis of the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District current financial management practices, including, but not limited to, procurement, invoice processing, expense approvals, emergency expenditures, reimbursements, petty cash, signing authority, and account access procedures.

10. RENAMING THE FIRE DEPARTMENT

Stricken from the agenda. (There was no item 9, the list was mis-numbered.)

11. FIRE DEPARTMENT PAINTING PROJECT

Motion arising from the Chief's report. Discussion of motion wording and whether or not the timing is critical. The Chief states that it is time sensitive in that if it is to be done this year the process needs to be started soon because the process will include acquiring the paint and pressure washing before painting can start. Labour will be done by day firefighters. The price given includes the cost of renting machines for spray painting.

Trustee Bussler indicates that he will vote against the motion because he does not think the expenditure is critically time sensitive.

Trustee Chorneyko asks going forward that requests such as this are made in a short “one-pager” document that gives more details on the costing breakdown. Trustee Moher indicates that it was helpful for her to have that kind of information provided verbally to her at an open house.

Trustee Moeller notes that normally unbudgeted expenses are not acceptable, but that the GFPID also has unbudgeted revenue to cover it, making the ask more reasonable.

Motion carried: 

THAT $6,000 be allocated to the painting of the burn buildings/Fire Center and Hall number 2, as requested in the Chiefs report.

As videos of the meetings are generally posted online within a week of the meeting on the gabriolafire.ca Upcoming Meetings page, GFPIDchronicles does not attempt to transcribe all details of meetings.

Notes on the transcription: repetitions and redundant words have been removed. Other excised sections are noted with […] and any text which could not be made out is indicated with [unintelligible] or [?]. Any added comments on or descriptions of the proceedings are italicized, or if made inline are indicated by [ED:]. When interjections are made by audience members they are quoted but no attempt has been made to identify particular people speaking.