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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, March 25, 2019 Page 12 the Fire Department eight months of value of a part-time staff. This was a busi- ness model the Fire Department didn't think was working for the community and the Fire Department and was one of the foundations of why his department came to the Council and said it was time to change the business model and move away from part time. Chief O'Neill stated everything he brings to the Council is with the idea of how he can do this for the community at the cheapest cost. He stated he could have brought the Council a model that had seven on duty full-time and the eighth posi- tion would be staffed on a part-time level, which would have worked as well but would be more expensive than what he would bring to the Council with eight full- time staff. That is why he hesitates to do that, because he did not want to be in the position of sitting before the Council and have someone on the Council ask him if it would be much cheaper to go to eight full-time staff. If this is a direction of Council or the City Manager, that is exactly what his staff will do. Councilmember Etten stated in the last presentation, Chief O'Neill indicated it would cost seventy to eighty thousand dollars to train and get personal equipment for a part-timer. One of the concerns with turnover is that people were being hired out to full-time places. He wondered if the Fire Department had a full-time backbone, the opportunity for career advancement for those people who are start- ing as paid on-call are then able to move into full-time ranks. Chief O'Neill stated it would certainly be an incentive but if there is nowhere for them to go, those employees would then leave the Fire Department as well. Most of the full-time fire fighters the Department just hired are very young and have not had any turn over in them for five years. The opportunities for a full-time turn over have been limited, so his belief is that with limited opportunity for them the City would be in the same position. Mayor Roe asked in regard to the table, are there a number of the departments that list quantity of part-time staff that are actually in the process of doing a transition towards full-time that might show up as still having part-time staff. Chief O'Neill stated some of it is data that changes almost daily and most of it is data that the City started building back in September 2018, getting ready for this presentation. Other cities are changing continuously so it is hard to keep up with the data. Mayor Roe asked if the job pool or part-time fire fighters is not expanding and would be a reason to hire full-time fire fighters. Assistant Chief Brosnahan indicated that was true. Right now, there is a Ramsey County Fire Fighter One Program that has its lowest enrollment in ten years, • Hennepin Technical College closed their program to train fire fighters, and Centu-