Committee of the Whole - Township of Strathroy-Caradoc

6at the Strathroy Station. The Fire Chief is asking that $12,000of the reserve fund be allocated for the air pack upgrades andthe balance to be maintained to fund other non-operatingbudget projects.Regarding an update from the County about fire and policedispatch services, the Fire Chief reported that he was asked byCouncil to investigate possible cost savings by utilizing theCounty Fire Dispatch system for fire dispatch in Strathroy-Caradoc. The Fire Chief’s research involves the area of FireDispatch only and not Police Dispatch as Police have their ownsystem, needs and 911 responsibilities. The Fire Chief has hadnumerous conversations with the County Emergency ServiceDirector over the past few months and extensive research hasbeen conducted in the review of how our existingcommunication system could be incorporated into the Countysystem. The only outstanding issue that has to be finalized isthe costs and impact of the proposal on the London FireDepartment Operations. Although the County owns thecommunication system infrastructure utilized by the County,the London Fire Department provides the dispatch centre andthe personnel needed for the delivery of the service. Numerousrequests have been made to the London Fire Department fortheir input into the feasibility and costs associated with theinitiative; London Fire has been slow to respond to ourinquiries. Additional call volume information was forwarded toLondon Fire on November 17, 2011 for their review andanother inquiry was made on December 5 th for an update butno response has been received yet. The Fire Chief will continueto attempt to gather more information for council review assoon as possible.Regarding the feasibility for fire volunteers to meet bi-weeklyrather than weekly and if there is a savings to be realized withthis type of change, the Fire Chief reported that each Station ofthe Fire Department is obligated to conduct 20 regular trainingsessions per year with additional voluntary special trainingsessions conducted as required as opportunities becomeavailable. Additionally each station is made up of four squadsconsisting of an officer and a complement of firefighters. Eachsquad is responsible to be on-call for one weekend per monthto ensure that a minimum compliment of firefighters isavailable to respond on any given weekend. This Duty Squad isresponsible to conduct a maintenance review of apparatus andequipment during their on-call week. The purpose of this is toensure that all equipment and trucks have been properlyCommittee of the Whole Finance Minutes Dec 12 11