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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, March 25, 2019 Page 10 Chief O'Neill stated lift assist is approximately 250 a year and right now, the Fire Department is not doing anything to recoup those costs as they do not have the time to do billing. Councilmember Willmus thought the Fire Department was at the point where it will need to start finding the time. Chief O'Neill stated there is not a lot of free time for his administrative staff to do that and medical billing is an `animal' by itself and one of the pieces that makes it very complicated. Councilmember Willmus stated he was more concerned with facilities charging people upwards of ten thousand dollars a month to provide services for them and perhaps there is a gap in some of those services that are provided and can be re- covered. Assistant Chief Brosnahan thought there can be a balance between providing a lift assist at private residence versus a skilled nursing facility. Chief O'Neill stated the Fire Department staff can look into that. He stated re- garding the regional concept, it is one of the things that he and Assistant Chief Bresnahan feel very passionate about and have been working towards for quite a while. He thought that at the end of the day, if he were to fast forward and look at fire service by 2035, will be a regional Ramsey Fire Department. He thought it made sense but it has to come together with all of the cities wanting it and not just one city wanting it. There are also a lot of obstacles in that but there has been huge progress made in the last five years between County fire department's work- ing together and doing closest unit dispatch, auto aid, so he thought there has been a huge amount of progress in what he considers a very short period of time. He also thought the City is going to work towards that because Roseville is not the only one struggling with the concept of why doesn't part-time work anymore. Assistant Chief Brosnahan stated the different fire departments around Roseville and Roseville itself have been looking at cost sharing for equipment and other things to save everyone money and looking at joint purchasing along with joint response is an effective way to look at regional services. Mayor Roe thought it seemed pretty clear with the information presented tonight and some past presentations that the eight on duty model seems to make sense. One of the issues the City deals with in the type of services provided is that you have to be prepared to provide that high level of service to the people in the com- munity in that very small percentage of time when it is needed. Unfortunately, there is a cost associated with that and one of the challenges the City needs to fig- ure out. He did not want to be in the position of doing this on the cheap. As a leader in the community, he did not think that was a legacy or reputation he wants