By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
The Cheney City Council and a sizeable audience heard budget presentations from the police and fire departments Tuesday, Nov. 10.
Both departments had miniscule if any changes to their budget in terms of numbers, but they did announce several goals and changes for 2010.
Cmdr. Rick Campbell presented the budget proposal for the Cheney Police Department.
He said the department plans to fully deploy its bloodhound unit next year, continue and grow the WIN program risk and safety assessments and work with Spokane County to improve and upgrade 911 call systems.
The Police Department adopted the information technology department this year, and Campbell said IT will work to virtualize city servers as well as implement a technology replacement schedule for the city, hopefully avoiding the problem of outdated equipment the city faced earlier this fall.
Fire Chief Mike Winters said the $23,000 increase in his department's budget only included union-imposed salary and benefit increases, and maintenance and operations costs would remain the same in 2010.
Winters said the department has seen a steady increase in calls in 2009, but staff members are working to reduce overtime.
“Our calls just keep going up,” he said. “Five months so far this year we broke the record for monthly number of calls.”
Winters said they maintained a four minute or less response time to more than 90 percent of calls in 2009, and he plans to continue that trend in 2010. They will also seek grant funding, with the help of firefighter Ken Johnson, who was recognized at the meeting for his work writing grants for the department. Johnson secured a long list of equipment for the department in his seven years on staff.
“He does a lot of this stuff in his off-duty time,” Winters said. “He puts in a whole lot of time off the clock as well as on the clock to get this and we certainly appreciate it.”
The department will look to expand space for residential staff.
“It's getting really, really tight back there,” Winters said of the current quarters. “I think that's one of the reasons that we may not be able to recruit people to stay as long as they normally would because it is cramped space back there.”
Winters said they would also seek independent funding to replace hoses next year.
The council approved a construction bid award to Quality Steel Buildings, Inc. of Spokane to build a new pole building to store chemical de-icer for city maintenance. The business submitted the lowest quote on the project at just under $18,000.
Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].
Reader Comments(0)