Recessed at 10:45 a.m.; reconvened at 1:32 p.m. as an employee evaluation of Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan.
EMPLOYEE EVALUATION: AMBULANCE DIRECTOR MIKE SULLIVAN
Stutsman: The purpose of the meeting is to evaluate the performance of Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan. Good to see you Mike. Thanks for coming.
Ambulance Director Mike Sullivan: Good to see you too.
Stutsman: I wanted to start by saying, I think I'm correct in saying, the Board approaches this whole process as a positive experience and a learning experience and a give and take. We want to hear from you as much as you will hear from us. As far as performance and things.
Sullivan: Good. I appreciate that.
Stutsman: So, we'll have it very open and in a real dialog.
Sullivan: I appreciate the opportunity to have an interview. I'm glad you folks are doing that. I think it's important.
Stutsman: OK. Good. What we've done before is just kind of taken each one of these sections and just kind of gone through it.
Sullivan: OK.
Stutsman: Then, asked for your input and what the Board has to say. Is that OK with the Board, as far as a process, just starting with job knowledge and going from there?
Sullivan: Thank you.
Stutsman: OK. Job knowledge. Anybody from the Board have comments?
Bolkcom: I think that's an area that Mike has very good job knowledge and has worked to maintain that job knowledge in his field and encourages his employees to do the same.
Stutsman: I guess I felt pretty much the same. Not only my personal experience, but I hear from peers too, any number of times I've heard, that Mike is a good paramedic. He knows his stuff and we're fortunate to have you in that position. I guess as far as working on new developments I really appreciated your organizing the hospital rotation.
Sullivan: Uh-huh.
Stutsman: I don't know what the proper word is for it. The ambulance crews. I think that showed some real leadership. I think it had some pretty positive result. It's a little tough to begin with, as far as change and things like that.
Sullivan: Sure.
Stutsman: I think everybody's pretty positive about how that experience has worked out.
Sullivan: I agree. The structure is there and in the day and they're utilized better. When I looked on the utilization, how we set this whole thing up in the past, the volume of calls we have, the clinical side of this has always been an issue for myself and the Medical Directors. Not having a structure like this set up before, the work, really the stuff that was done behind the scenes, and it certainly wasn't all my doing. That took a long time to get it set up before we even started moving the crews into the hospitals. I think it's going very well right now. We report with the hospitals. I meet with them quarterly and we talk about it. Or if there is any situations that come up in between time. Haven't had any issues come up that were problematic. Just concerns about time. We're looking right now, I'll probably in July, now that there's been some changes in the contract and financial adjustments in the contract to go along with this. There's a good likelihood that I'll do some adjusting of their hours and put some of the crews, based on their schedule in the ER's in the evening hours too. This is an opportunity for them to see more clinical things or more pathology and learn more about that other side of what they do that makes them better paramedics. It won't be late. There won't be any sleep deprivation or any adjustments, no additional staffing or scheduling involved. It will just be utilizing the crews in the evenings, rather than in the daytime, to do clinical stuff.
Bolkcom: Great.
Sullivan: That will just be limited each month. I'm happy with it.
Stutsman: OK. Good. Carol, do you have anything from the evaluations that were sent out?
Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: Yes. As in the past, 3 people were contacted to give their evaluation. On job knowledge one person noted that, Mike has routinely demonstrated clinical and administrative expertise. Another comment was, Experienced paramedic and good job knowledge. Those were the comments, at 4 and 3.
Lacina: I also had comments from the public, in terms of, Reverend Welsh and other individuals, commenting on your presentations, how professional they were and comments to us as well.
Sullivan: That's good to know.
Lacina: Your management style and professionalism shows to the public very well. Which is good for all of us too.
Sullivan: That's good to know. I like to hear that.
Stutsman: OK. Planning and organizing. I guess I gave Mike a 4 on that. It seems like you had the ability to set goals and then the procedures to achieve them. I feel you do look to the future needs and future problems. An example was the Medicaid Reimbursement Rates, changing that, in order to get additional revenues. You're anticipating those kinds of things.
Sullivan: I had looked at this. One of the questions I had, does anybody have any, from your point, questions to me about any other future needs or problems? Generally, most of the time we talk about this seems to be around budget time, when we look for dollars and the equipment we're talking about. But, if you have any questions about the Medicare side of things.
Stutsman: I guess what I put down on one of my goal things was to continue to look for more revenue sources.
Sullivan: OK.
Stutsman: I think that anyway we can be creative in that area.
Bolkcom: Good one.
Sullivan: Absolutely.
Stutsman: I think you probably, well, there again I'm speaking for the Board. But, the Board's support to try some things and to see if we can't change. I guess we'd have to see the proposals, but I think we're interested in considering some other ideas.
Sullivan: Absolutely.
Jordahl: What are you, from you own perspective, you're asking if we have questions, but do you have answers we don't know how to ask for? What are you doing to anticipate future needs and problems that we may not be aware of?
Sullivan: Well, I know that the 2 main issues that come up in most of the journals and this business overall is what is managed care going to do to EMS or this ambulance service and what's Medicare going to do to it?
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Sullivan: We obviously don't have a lot of volume and we don't have a heavy side of Medicare for patients. So most of our reimbursements are done on a private pay or third party situation and not as much Medicare. But, Medicare changes coming this July are going to effect all ambulance services and probably the private ones that do the basic transfer kind of work, or the non-emergency kind of work completely, will be effected the most by it. What they're going to do is they're doing to make the reimbursement guidelines much stricter in Iowa. Probably, what I'm hearing now is they'll be stricter than the Federal Standards. What that will mean is those agencies, including us to a small percentage right now, based on how we're structured and what we operate off of, those reimbursements will be tougher to come by, from Medicare. They're going to set the guidelines for medical necessity. Such as, what is necessary for this person to take an ambulance? If we don't feel it is as Medicare, we won't pay for it. Then it becomes the burden of the patient to pay the bill. If they have third party insurance in addition to Medicare, which most do, that'll take care of some of it. But, the ambulance services that bill a certain method, which is what we do. I structured in a certain method that we bill, we'll be OK there. The other part of it is we have a pretty wide base of emergency work that we do. That won't be affected because, in an emergency it's a given through Medicare and third party payers, that reimbursement would be a necessity because it's an emergency. It's necessary to have the ambulance and transport them. So that part, I think I've laid the ground work out for that very well and we'll be able to make the adjustments that way. This again is part of what this van was, I was talking about, if there's an alternate method of transportation, that they don't have to go by ambulance and we can take them another way, then the cost will be less for the consumer. But, we'll still get reimbursed for something, right now, we have no option to address. So we'll start doing that. I have no idea how much it's going to generate until we start doing it. But, I would say that with what's coming down the road, I have a meeting on the 18th of this month with other Service Directors in Des Moines. We're going to be talking to Medicare about this issue. We'll have a better idea of what the picture is going to look like July 1st. The other half of it was the reimbursement part. We should be fine on that as well. I don't see any concerns with that. Managed care probably is not going to have any impact on this service because it hasn't had a big impact on Iowa yet. But, when you look at the demographics surrounding this State, they're all getting saturated with HMOs and PPOs. It's just a matter of time for Iowa. Right now that State is less than 24% overall. But, when it does happen the key for this ambulance service will be to be flexible. I think that will just take negotiations. That's all. We'll be ready to do that too.
Jordahl: I don't speak PPO. What's that style?
Sullivan: PPO is a Preferred Provider Organization. It's similar to the physicians group that's been put together in Cedar Rapids right now.
Jordahl: It's not necessary to (inaudible).
Sullivan: It's something like an HMO more or less. It operated under the same pretense and under the same guidelines.
Jordahl: Thank you.
Stutsman: Carol, do you have anything to add to that?
Peters: Yes. Mike appears to have structured administrative game plan, incorporating trends and issues facing the service. Sometimes does get bogged down on completion of projects, but that's do to so many activities going on at once.
Stutsman: OK. Decision making and problem solving. I gave Mike a 4 on that. I have the sense that Mike's decisions are well thought out. He seeks input from other sources in working out problems. I think you're creative in achieving solutions.
Sullivan: Thank you. I do have an advantage working here in Iowa City with that because of the medical community. So, it does help and I've been in this for 20 years, so I can still call my peers from across the State and across the Country and ask them questions. What would you do?
Stutsman: But not everybody is comfortable doing that, you know, you can have the resources, but you've got to access them too.
Sullivan: Right. Absolutely.
Stutsman: I think that's real great that you're able to do that. Willing to do it.
Sullivan: They're a big help. They are a big help to me.
Bolkcom: On the problem solving area, I think Mike has done a really good job in working through a rather difficult situation this last year, where concerns were brought to the Board's attention by some of the employees at the service. Through a process, sitting down and talking about those things, he's worked very hard to resolve those issues and continues to build a good working rapport with his Field Supervisors and Assistant Director.
Sullivan: I think everything is going much better.
Bolkcom: It was a tough period for him and for the service, I think. It kind of stretched out to all the employees and people hung in there. Other people worked hard, too, but Mike certainly did.
Sullivan: I appreciate that. I appreciate everybody's help throughout that process too. It happens from time to time and I don't know why it does over there more so, but this seemed to be one thing that was taken care rather quickly, I thought, and addressed. So, I'm happy with the outcome.
Stutsman: Charlie or Steve? Anything? OK. Implementation skills. Anybody want to start out with that.
Lacina: Well, obviously the service is running quite well. I think, again, going back to the previous example of the hospital project, there were concerns but you pulled it off really well. I think now everyone is really happy with that. So, I see your implementation skills as being very high.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Lacina: Good planner. Good execution.
Bolkcom: I agree.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Duffy: I got down a 4 for that. I think you have improved a lot over the last year or so. The position you hold includes very important decisions and from time to time some of these skills might change.
Sullivan: Uh-huh.
Duffy: So, I think you do a good job.
Sullivan: Yes, you have to wear different hats. Probably much like you guys do too. You have to be a paramedic, and respected by your peers to do that. An administrator, a facilitator, as you well know.
Stutsman: One thing I wanted to add with that is that I guess I'm so glad you're feeling better.
Sullivan: I am too. That was a bad year last year.
Stutsman: Yes. That was pretty rough and I think that had a lot to do with it.
Sullivan: It did. It did. I wasn't feeling well before the surgeries. Then, afterwards, it just took a long time to recover.
Stutsman: That was a pretty rough procedure.
Sullivan: There were 2 long surgeries, but I feel much better and I'm glad I'm back.
Stutsman: OK. Quality of work. I put Mike down for a 5 on this. Mike, I feel, does an excellent job as an Ambulance Director. Any work I've scene has been accurate, thorough, and dependable. I think you have a genuine interest in the Ambulance Service in Johnson County. There's been staff with problems in the past year, but I think you've honestly tried to listen to their concerns and make the necessary changes. You put forth a good effort to deal with those problems.
Sullivan: Thank you. It's just part of the job.
Stutsman: I had a sense that you took ownership of it too. So many times you get in a situation like that and you're always saying it's somebody else's fault. But, I think you just stepped up to the plate and everybody worked together to try and resolve some issues.
Sullivan: Yes. I was gone a good period of time last year, so a lot of things went unattended so to speak, or partially attended. I just think that this whole thing started with they felt like there was a lack of direction when the boss wasn't around. Albeit, the Assistant and the Supervisors did a fine job of keeping everything together. They still needed that, as well, from me. So I'm glad I'm back. They are too. I can tell.
Stutsman: Carol, did you have anything for the last one too?
Peters: For number 4 you mean?
Stutsman: Yes.
Peters: Just score of 3, no comment. Then for number 5 a score of 4 with a comment as, observed by an outside person, very good. They emphasized very good.
Bolkcom: Great.
Stutsman: OK. Moving on to productivity and output.
Lacina: Looking at the ratios as far as equipment utilization, looking at the down time problem that we've been experiencing for years and years, and those types of things, assisting that productivity, as well as, it all kind of ties together again back with the hospital project, enthusiasm and that. I ranked you very high on this one. So I think you have looked at ways of getting more product from the existing resources.
Sullivan: Uh-huh. Well, and the staff knows that too. That's what is so nice about it. Coming together at the beginning and starting a project like this, the biggest concern that the paramedics had was not that they could or couldn't do their job, not that they could or couldn't perform in the clinical setting. It was how are they going to be perceived in the hospitals? This is a whole new thing here. It's never been done.
Bolkcom: Sure.
Sullivan: It's a first. I just tried to encourage them all the time that there will be rough days. There will be easy days and there will be rough days again. They're always going to be there. But, you will see, in 6 months there will be fewer than there were when we started and in a year there will be fewer than there were when we started. They believe that now and we talk openly about these things in our staff meetings. I guess now it's not discussed as much. It's an expectation. It's part of their job now. They've finally developed that and worked with it. I'm real happy with that. They do an outstanding job.
Bolkcom: Do you think that part of that apprehension was about how they'd fit in initially.
Sullivan: In the hospital?
Bolkcom: Yes.
Sullivan: Yes.
Bolkcom: I know there was the concern about you're making us do something that we haven't done before and there's the question of more money being involved. But, how much do you put, in terms of just apprehension about skills and that kind of stuff?
Sullivan: Most of it was apprehension of skills. That's what I think it was from the staff.
Bolkcom: Uh-huh.
Sullivan: Then, the timing wasn't all so good at the University as well because right at that period they were doing all the nursing lay offs. Then, there was a lot of rumors over there that maybe these people are coming in here to replace. We made it very clear when we laid this out, in the beginning, that was not the situation. It's an open ended situation right now. If it doesn't work for any of the hospitals or us. My point and my goal, and their goal, is to keep it together. But if something does happen where Administration would say we can't do this anymore, than we can't do it anymore. But, I don't think that will be a situation.
Stutsman: One thing I wanted to add on this one is that I as a Board member have never received a complaint about the Ambulance Service, the only complaint I have gotten has been with bills.
Sullivan: Oh, yes.
Stutsman: That people didn't like what they were getting charged.
Sullivan: I think we took care of that. I hope.
Stutsman: Other than that I've never had a complaint of saying somebody was rude or didn't get there in a timely manner, acted unprofessional. That, from a Board's perspective is nice.
Sullivan: That is refreshing and I tell that staff that, as well. Obviously, if I'd ever heard from any of the Board Members about an issue I would share it with the staff member. In the service now, I rarely get calls about the behavior of a staff paramedic. It's a very rare situation. Keeping that in mind with the type of stress that they have to deal with day in and day out, you could see where, in a lot of situations, it would be very easy to be short or curt with people. Especially in a crisis situation. But, these paramedics are just so good. I call them smooth. They operate that way. They face a lot of different things. They're seeing different things now. They're seeing things in the ‘90s that they didn't see 10 years ago. It's not getting better. It's getting worse from that standpoint, but they're still doing a fine job of keeping their cool. They know who they represent. They represent the County, and probably more important, they represent themselves.
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Sullivan: So I'm very proud of them. They do a good job.
Lacina: As opposed to years ago, when we actually had a fight between 2 responders over an individual that went down in the basketball arena and someone died and our paddles had no charge in the batteries.
Stutsman: Oh dear.
Sullivan: They still talk about that.
Lacina: There are a few stories like that where it's very clear that direction and focus has changed and we're providing much better service now.
Sullivan: I agree.
Stutsman: Carol did you have any?
Peters: No.
Stutsman: OK. Creative skills?
Jordahl: We've already talked a lot about it, but this is the one area in which I felt more qualified to comment than in the others. Having had a briefer exposure to Mike and his work. But I commented specifically on the creative use of down time to help keep staff up to date on techniques and procedures and so forth. I said, and I think it's worth repeating, this shows high initiative, creativity, and perseverance. That's exactly the things that are being looked for here. I'm certain that the changes that you've made have given the County a higher level of preparedness and a better quality of service overall.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Stutsman: Anybody have anything else to add? OK. How about teamwork?
Duffy: I think that teamwork is another one of these areas that he's improved an awful lot in during the last couple of years.
Sullivan: I agree. Probably even more so this past year. Not this past year, but this year. We seemed to have come together a lot better. We were there and then we weren't and now we are again. So to speak.
Stutsman: I guess I feel you have a good working relationship with the other department heads in the County too.
Sullivan: Yes. I think I do. I don't get an opportunity to work with all of them. But I deal with most of them on a routine basis.
Stutsman: There again, I've had positive feedback.
Sullivan: Good.
Stutsman: It's been good.
Bolkcom: I think this department, through Mike and others, has developed a good working relationship with other professionals in the community that share these kinds of services. Mike regularly attends and participates in County department head Meetings, which I think is really important.
Sullivan: I do too.
Bolkcom: It's good venue to share ideas and you haven't been shy about making points or raising questions in those meetings. I appreciate that.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Peters: A couple of comments on teamwork, seeks community input and a willing participant in collaborative efforts throughout the community. Going back to creative skills, I didn't realize you had done that. Some of the comments were, they feel that he is very successful in Johnson County Ambulance Service in the leadership position and feel that he has demonstrated creativity on many occasions.
Sullivan: That's nice.
Stutsman: Communication skills.
Sullivan: I think they're getting better.
Stutsman: Pretty positive, but there is a negative here.
Sullivan: OK.
Stutsman: Sometimes it's hard to get a word in edgewise Mike because you do talk.
Sullivan: Oh yes I talk a lot.
Stutsman: I've noticed it with Scott and I'm just pointing it out to be conscious of that. It's because we've had those meetings together and sometimes Scott has a hard time getting a word in. It's just something to be aware of.
Sullivan: My wife tells me that too from time to time.
Stutsman: Oh does she?
Sullivan: Yes. Yes. She does.
Duffy: It's true, huh?
Sullivan: It's true. But I appreciate the comment and you are right. You are right.
Stutsman: Well, I don't know. It's my observation.
Jordahl: On the positive side, I want to use one of my favorite words here and say that Mike is lucid. When you talk, I understand what you're talking about, acronyms to the contrary, and helpful. You've been very forthcoming outside of meetings. You've been coming and saying what can I do to help you understand things? That's a very nice trait. I've found your written communication, in announcement of public events and so forth, timely, clear , and inviting. You communicate well.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Bolkcom: I think over the last 6 months has been probably real good learning time for recognizing how important the communication piece is. I think that's had an impact on you. I think you've got good communication skills. The written stuff in particular. We see probably more written correspondence about what's going on with your Department than most. With the exception of those we deal with, like zoning and the like, where we get a lot of written stuff.
Sullivan: Right.
Bolkcom: But that's always been of really good quality I think. It's helpful to us.
Jordahl: Exhibit A.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: A letter we received during the budget process.
Sullivan: Yes. Well, I'm always hoping for suggestions with that area too. I think that's a tough thing for everybody, and from time to time it gets tough for me. I know that the communication break down was very extensive when we were going through things last year. Trying to work things out and I just appreciate that everybody here had talked to me once, if not more than once, about it with support, willingness to get together and help and facilitate. I really appreciate that. It made a big difference. It certainly did.
Stutsman: Carol do you have any comments?
Duffy: It wasn't brought out I guess.
Stutsman: Oh, OK.
Peters: Carol, did you have any? On the communications, very good oral and written communications and very articulate and has a very good command of the English language.
Stutsman: Professionalism.
Bolkcom: I think that Mike is one of the people in County Government that if we had a choice of sending somebody forward to tell people what County Government is about, Mike would be one of those people that we'd want to do that for us. He's a good representative of the things that I think we stand for here.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Bolkcom: He does a good job of representing us through the work of his department.
Sullivan: Thank you. I try hard.
Stutsman: Yes. I think you portray a positive image for the County. I guess there was something in here about rapport with customers. You don't have a lot of direct contact with... Do you go out on the ambulance?
Sullivan: Uh-huh. From time to time.
Stutsman: Oh. OK. All right.
Sullivan: I've had a few nice cards and letters, but not as many as the staff. But I've had a few.
Stutsman: OK. OK. So I didn't know if that was applicable or not.
Sullivan: Most of my contact with the customers is usually addressing a cost issue, a billing issue, things of that nature. Right now, a lot of the extensive or significant public relations things, since it's nice to have one person as a contact person, kind of like a public information provider out of there. I'm that person, so setting things up this past 6 months for the service to be more involved in public education. I'm dealing a lot with other agencies that are not EMS or medically related to kind of coordinate things such as (inaudible). We did a one day EMS event at Hy-Vee. That was interesting for me to sit through some of their meetings because I would go to their planning meetings for the store and how they were going to set everything up outside. So my contact right now, most of my contact, isn't exactly patient care, it's more setting things like this up. Dealing with concerns or complaints.
Bolkcom: That's good.
Stutsman: There again, I've never heard any complaints, even dealing with people with bills or whatever. They're dealing with the issue of the bill, not with the people.
Sullivan: Generally, that's what they are with me as well.
Stutsman: I know, during the budget process, or I don't know, it was some Board Meeting where you were presenting. Somebody in the audience came up to me afterwards and commented about how professional you were.
Sullivan: That's nice.
Jordahl: That's certainly been my impression in you appearances before the Board. You set a very good personal presence and it really does project confidence and competence and it's undergirded by actual statistics and narrative and so forth. It really does give a good account of you service.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Peters: Mike consistently displays a professional image. He is articulate. A good listener and displays an unassuming manner. He handles manners in a very professional way.
Sullivan: OK. Supervisory skills and personnel development.
Bolkcom: This is one of those goals that one continues to work on constantly and I think, as I've said earlier, I think Mike's made some improvements in both his supervisory skills and in the example of people working in the hospital is probably one of the most significant things we've done for personnel development. I think he does a good job of managing his employees and seeks their input. In terms of the goals, this would be one area where I'd say that probably all of our managers we need to continue to encourage professional development in things like communication skills, supervisory skills. All those kinds of things I thing they're aware of that we all need to continue to pursue.
Sullivan: I agree.
Jordahl: This is an area where your use of an unfilled salary line to reward staff as you saw appropriate, with pay increases, probably should be mentioned. That seems to be a good creative use of your resources and your responsiveness to your staff, and probably encouraging personnel development. As opposed to moving on to other greater fields.
Sullivan: That certainly helped.
Stutsman: Charlie? Steve? Do you have anything to add?
Duffy: Do you have something?
Lacina: No.
Duffy: I gave you a high score for this, a 5. That it shows how your job is a very complicated one, and it might be easier in other Departments, than being the Ambulance Director. So I had to keep that in mind. So I had to give you a 5 on that one.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Stutsman: Did you have any comments about this area?
Sullivan: Just in this area, I think the communication with the staff is very good. I think it's been very good for a long time. With some of the management things that we went through, that's improved quite a bit. It's difficult, in this profession, it's very difficult to find quality education, other than maybe a business degree or something. If you know what I mean. You can get a business degree and if you don't feed on that, or nurture that, or grow with it in education, it's like anything else as a paramedic, you tend to lose some of that if you don't use it. In this area specifically, for management in EMS, it's such a new area. Most managers in this profession, there isn't a formal education or undergraduate program for this. It's addressing it. One thing I wanted to point, just so you folks know, is I've been sitting on a Curriculum Committee with Kirkwood Community College, and have completed the curriculum for the beginning of a 2 year program for paramedics that will articulate into some of the 4 year programs. Hopefully, the University of Iowa will be one of those 4. So now we may have an option for people to go back to school and get an undergraduate degree specializing in this area.
Bolkcom: Wow.
Sullivan: Right now, the closest place we can go, or I can go, is Kansas City. There's some education programs down there. But I just wanted you all to know that. Working through Kirkwood College, with other professionals, and most of them are in the Cedar Rapids area, we have devised and approved the curriculum. The College approved it and the program has started.
Bolkcom: Great.
Sullivan: So the 2 year program is up and running and we're trying to get it to articulate into Coe and Mount Mercy and some of the other, maybe Augustana, and see if that can give people in this profession an opportunity to get management and supervisory experience and a management degree with this.
Jordahl: So is that an Associate's Degree?
Sullivan: Right now it's an Associate's Degree. The articulation looks like it's going to take place in 2 colleges for a Bachelor's Degree with an emphasis in Management. It will be a Business Degree with an emphasis in Management.
Bolkcom: Wow. Cool.
Jordahl: So what's the degree called?
Sullivan: It's the Associate of Applied Science Paramedic.
Jordahl: This has an emphasis here on the management side of...
Sullivan: Yes, supervisory management in the 2 year program and the 4 year program will be a Bachelor's of Business Administration. A BBA.
Bolkcom: Good work.
Sullivan: Just articulate trying to get the paramedic curriculum because it's medically related into acceptance so we're heading that direction.
Jordahl: Excellent.
Stutsman: Carol, did you have any comments written down on that? Charlie or Steve, anything additional to say? OK, attendance and punctuality. I thought this was an area that has improved a great deal. This was a problem area, a concern to the staff and I think it's been addressed so it's gone well.
Sullivan: Yes, when I was gone for my surgeries, yes.
Stutsman: I really got the feeling from the staff that they like you there. They want you physically there. They look for you to provide that leadership in person. I think that was a real issue for them.
Sullivan: Yes, I agree. I agree.
Stutsman: OK, relationship with Board of Supervisors.
Duffy: I have this one a 3 or a 4. I think from my part there could be just a little more improvement, it's awfully hard to work closely with each member of the Board or updates all Board members on issues. (Inaudible) getting their attention in a timely manor, I know that isn't easy to do, for myself I think I could use just a little more (inaudible).
Sullivan: Sure.
Jordahl: I had one particular occasion to call Mike about, a personal matter that had been brought to my attention and he was very very thorough in calling me and following up, I believe it was on a weekend you called back.
Sullivan: Uh-huh.
Jordahl: It's been a lot time dealing with it so I felt very well served. He's been very positive in inviting me and I assume other members of the Board as well to come and visit the Ambulance Department including to the extent of going along on ambulance runs, something I haven't taken you up on yet, but I intend to.
Sullivan: Uh-huh.
Jordahl: From my part I see this as very positive and I gave him a 5.
Sullivan: Thank you.
Stutsman: Steve, do you have any?
Lacina: No, I think you've done a great job of talking to us about problems of looking at the future and crafting solutions so (inaudible) in terms of being there in light of what was going on I thought you did the best you could given the circumstances.
Stutsman: Do you have any comments that you would like to address to the Board as far as things we could improve on?
Sullivan: This is a start for me, doing these. I appreciate it. I think, I know how difficult it is when we meet if you have to meet with more than 2 or 3 than you have to have a meeting, I'm still trying to get used to that. I'm not a politician, it's just difficult for me because I come up here if you're all sitting back there, it's kind of like gather around and I know that's not the right thing to do but I'm just not used to that. I'm trying really hard so if from time to time if I come through and I'm sitting down with one person, I hope the others don't take it that I'm not talking behind anybody or to anybody about a certain issue or anything of that nature. I do like to put things in writing so usually when I have a concern about an issue or issues, I'll bring it to your attention by drafting a letting or memo or something and sending it up and see if you want to talk. I talk a lot to Carol. We talk a lot. So, she teaches me a lot of the proper procedure and how to follow things when I come through up here so that's still kind of new for me even though I've been here. I haven't been the director the whole time I've been here but, in that area, this is still fairly new. Again, I just say I appreciate and respect all of you for helping me. Each one of you have sat and listened to me from time to time, some of the Board members that are no longer here have done the same. I haven't had anybody up here tell me to just go away, fix it, it's always been we'll do what we can do to help, sat and talked to me, given me advice and suggestions and sometimes that can be dangerous to do when you're my boss and it goes back. I'm happy, I'm unique because I have 5 bosses. Most people have one, I have 5.
Duffy: That's right.
Sullivan: That's new for me too obviously, I've never had to do this before so if anything, if something comes up, you have a concern about what's going on in what I'm doing or what the Ambulance Service, feel free to call me anytime. I wear this thing 24 hours a day, they can page me and I'll call you back anytime. That's it. I think my relationship is good with all you, as far as I know.
Stutsman: I would agree with that. I think it is a good relationship. You have always worked well with the Board, tried to keep up to date on things and bring things to our attention and I think you've listened to the Board too.
Sullivan: Oh yes. Things change so fast in this business over there and I'm not sure exactly, you have financial reports, you have access to those by other means, but it's probably just easier for me to just put it together and send it over that way instead of having a lot of redundancy, things that come out of the Auditor's Office, the same reports I can get you can get, that kind of thing. It looks nicer to me anyway, when I put it together, and Steve Spenler helps me with the graphics and we put those packages up and we send up to for you folks to look at. I hope I get things up to you in a timely manner to let you know what kind of events we have. I know your schedules are really busy and I'll do my best when I have an event that I think it's important for some of you to be there, I'll flag it somehow and see if you can send somebody to be a representative to come out because I know you're spread thin the way things are now. I will make an extra effort to do that when I send things up here about public relations, things that we have some (inaudible) event to come out there, it'd be nice.
Stutsman: Yes, we would like that. That'd be great.
Sullivan: I would too. So would the staff.
Stutsman: OK, moving on to goals. Anybody have, Mike did you have some goals that you outlined?
Sullivan: Yes. I guess for the short-term kind of thing, for me, that's the next year, 2 years, like 2 year for me, I would like to, I want to get the situation settled, not the Managecare but the Medicare reimbursement issue this summer and into the fall. Make the purchase of this other vehicle and start looking at utilizing that in ways that would generate revenues and try to help offset our subsidy and then still but even as important anyway to me, offer service to the public that they're not getting in Johnson County right now. This is different than SEATS and we're talking about issues where ambulances would not be medically necessary to transport somebody we can take them by other means. We can still provide EMTs, I probably wouldn't staff it with paramedics because of the cost and it wouldn't be necessary medically to do that. Get that set up and running, I'd like to have that done by the end of this year, this calendar year, it's going to take some time. Also what I plan on doing is the protocols will be done this, well I have them done now I'm working on them at home this week, that will be another complete revision that I will send up to you folks when the original comes out of the print shop and have you draft it through by resolution as we have in the past. I'll get that to Carol within another month, month and a half I'll have that up here. Another goal that I have is I want to go back to school, I would like to finish my education. It's difficult to do so I'm trying to get this stuff done in the evening because my days are just too consumed with things I do at work right now. I do want to do that as a personal goal and a professional goal. I also...
Stutsman: When you say finish your education Mike, is that for BA degree?
Sullivan: BA degree, yes, finish that, I want to finish that. I'm not far from it but I want to get it done.
Stutsman: In what?
Sullivan: It will be in business.
Stutsman: Oh, OK.
Sullivan: Another goal I have is always looking at ways to help offset our subsidy in operations, maintain everything we have right now as far as the clinical sights and settings, work harder, right now I have developed and started what's called a PIER program, it's a public information and education program that focuses on child safety and child education injury prevention. We've had materials given from the state of Iowa that are given to the ambulance services at no cost. I sent one employee to the training, she's done. I have another employee that is coordinating all of our CPR and our First Aid stuff which is all revenue generating and that's continuing to grow. We're giving and doing more and more programs and I want to focus a lot on... I feel I have the clinical aspect of this service in line to where it needs to be as an ambulance service and a paramedic service, I want to get the public education side of it up and running now that it hasn't focused on for 20 years that we need to focus on now. Doing it without additional expense to the County and so far I've had a lot of positive feedback from the staff about doing this. They are very excited about it. In fact, I have so many people that want to do it I'm going to have to trim it down a little bit so we don't have so many people going out and instructing. We set down some guidelines for that but it's just to kind of have some more control over it but that's the other goal I have. Getting this program put together. The last thing would be data collection. There's going to be new requirements from the state of Iowa for all EMS agencies within 7 years to do that. I did get the program to do the data collection at no cost from the state department of EMS, the director of the bureau sent this software to me at no cost. So we'll be putting that up and getting that running and we'll be able to give the data that the State's going to require from all transporting ambulance services in Iowa and also be able to give you folks much clearer data on the specifics of what we do, the demographics and so forth.
Bolkcom: Good goals.
Stutsman: Yes. Anybody from the Board have any other goals that they'd like Mike to work on?
Duffy: I think that's probably your high point of all the questions. (Inaudible).
Stutsman: I guess I would agree too, I think those are real good goals.
Duffy: Absolutely.
Stutsman: I had continue to work on communication with the staff, I'd like to make sure you listen to their concerns and seek their input and then look for ways to improve revenues and I think you've addressed that in some of the goals you've set out.
Bolkcom: In terms of other professional development, don't be shy to speak up about things you see going on in terms of workshops and the like that you think might be of benefit to you or other managers of the County.
Sullivan: OK.
Bolkcom: I hope with this Human Resource development that's going to happen that we're going to see a little bit more of that because I think that's an area that a number of department heads have interest in is kind of continuing education about how to supervise and manage.
Sullivan: I know we get a lot of these one day deals that come in the mail and pick through those and I give those to the Supervisors and encourage them to use the allotted moneys that we have for education and set some of this aside for these conferences and if I see it isn't done then what I'll do is I'll send them to one or 2 of these things and just tell them that you have the EMS part of it here but we need to do this too. So I encourage the Supervisors to take that side of it because they have a little bit of a job too, they're working with the paramedics on the same schedule so it's very easy for them to concentrate on their clinical skills and not on their managerial skills because of the way they are staffed and the way we use them.
Bolkcom: Have you taken much advantage of the tapes, the GSTN tapes?
Sullivan: I do, I like them, I think they're nice.
Bolkcom: From your standpoint. How about your other supervisors?
Sullivan: Nobody's looked at them over there yet.
Bolkcom: That might be something to encourage too.
Sullivan: Yes, Carol sent me a big list.
Peters: Kim.
Sullivan: Of all the tapes and stuff so I posted that up for the guys to look at. I think they're very informative.
Jordahl: I think the public communication, so there's 2 types of education outreach that you've been doing, the Hy-Vee open house that you had going inviting the public in and by the same token sending your own staff out to interact are things that can be conceived as directions rather than as fixates. I think I see you growing in that direction and I want to encourage that further experimentation and development and that kind of thing.
Sullivan: I think it's important for the service because it gives the public a different perspective about what EMS providers are really about and it's nice for the paramedics to be out there interacting with the public in a non-medical way, so to speak. We had teddy bear clinic where our paramedics took care of the teddy bears for the little kids, that was just a smash.
Stutsman: Was it? I never heard.
Sullivan: It was just a smash, it was wonderful. We had one home health care agency there that they did face paintings and blood pressure checks and the Police Departments were there and they did finger printing for kids and ID's which is good and it became a family thing. The parents brought their children and it was really nice. We had well over 100 families there because we had 100 animals that were donated to the ambulance service from Rockwell and we gave them to the kids that didn't have something when they came, they didn't bring a doll or a bear, we gave them something to wrap up or take care of.
Stutsman: Oh, so you went through all those 100?
Sullivan: Yes.
Stutsman: So there were an excess of 100 people there that day?
Sullivan: Excess of 100 people there that day. We had a blood drive and that was pretty successful too. I think my plan with that is, as a goal, is probably not going to have the public open house that we've had over there in the past because we've just not had a positive reception with that and this is much better. We brought all the first responders from around the area in and it was, for me it was my way of saying thanks to all of them.
Bolkcom: Good idea.
Sullivan: For everything that they do.
Stutsman: I was out of town that weekend so I wasn't able to go so I never heard.
Sullivan: It was fun, it was fun. It was one of the best things I've ever done over there I will say that. I had a blast, it was a lot of fun.
Stutsman: That's great.
Bolkcom: It'd be interesting sometime to do a County wide open house.
Duffy: (Inaudible).
Bolkcom: Where everybody was on the alert, you know open and promoted it. Go the Health Department, go to the Ambulance, come here.
Stutsman: Oh.
Sullivan: Yes, it takes a lot of planning but...
Stutsman: I was going to say, who is going to do that.
Sullivan: It's a lot of planning.
Duffy: That's what the City does.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Stutsman: Do they?
Bolkcom: Yes.
Jordahl: Coralville did that when they got a new facility.
Bolkcom: You could focus it here, bring a few trucks down. Just a thought.
Stutsman: A boom truck.
Bolkcom: That's right, we could give boom trucks rides.
Sullivan: There you go.
Stutsman: You'd have to check with Bob on that. I'm sure he'd have something to say about that.
Jordahl: Oh, boy.
Stutsman: We digressed but anyhow...
Sullivan: That's all right.
Stutsman: I think you've set a good precedence in doing that at Hy-Vee because it did receive a lot of positive community press.
Jordahl: Prevention, the Health Department does a lot of prevention stuff, it just strikes me, the fire departments do a lot of prevention's to go through needs inspections and encourage smoke alarms and so forth. What do you do in that area? Is that something you'll grow into?
Sullivan: Good question. Yes we're starting now. The Safe Kids Coalition through a grant from Prudential, I believe it was Prudential Life Insurance, they put together a large amount of money to send representatives from different areas of the country to a special Safe Kids education program in Florida. I heard about that so I sent one of our paramedics who was in interested in doing this. He's recently been promoted to full-time so I sent... His name is Tim Hanson and so I sent Tim to Florida, they paid for all of this to send him down there. He came back and he is now providing special child safety seat education and information to the public so whenever we go anywhere from now on in a public relations aspect, other than a tour, an event, any type of major event... We get invited annually to at least 5 different health fair events usually around the spring of each year, usually in correlation with EMS week or the Safe Child of the Month, which is April, the month of the Child. Get all of the coordinated, and now we can offer something to the public by putting together these educational presentations about child safety seats, and providing that. Also with the State of Iowa, each state has been asked to put together what's called an EMSC or EMS for children program. We've jumped right on that at the Ambulance Service and we are now promoting and going out through this PIER program and educating the public, daycare centers, schools. We've become part of their curriculum now to go out and educate in the schools and provide presentations to any of the schools in the Iowa city Community school district that want us to come in. I've done 5 or 6 of them myself since April and we talk about child safety issues; bike safety, walking safety; crossing the streets. Those kinds of things, injury prevention in day care centers, injury prevention at home, things to look out for. That kind of thing that the State is really pushing. They facilitate a lot of the resources and materials that we need to use and hand out. We just write to the State or I call them and they send us this stuff. Since trauma is the leading cause of death in children, it's one of the things that the State of Iowa really wants to push and since this ambulance service has been considered for along time to kind of be a leader in the State for policies, procedures, protocols, I want to keep it that way. I want us to be able to participate and do these kinds of things. The State in this position, especially in our community where we're at here, this medical community, they encourage that as well. We have a good EMS coordinator at the State level that is in our region, Ray Jones. He's outstanding.
Jordahl: Again I want to encourage that direction in development.
Sullivan: Absolutely.
Jordahl: There are a variety of things that you see on a recurrent basis in your duties that you think gee did this have to happen. There are probably a number of ways you could develop into other kinds of public health prevention kinds of stuff that would in a way (inaudible).
Sullivan: We talk to Sher Hawn quite a bit. She's the individual at the Health Department. Some of it we can coordinate that can kind of come together and some of it doesn't. We do know what our programs are that will work but...
Jordahl: That's great stuff.
Stutsman: Any other comments or...
Bolkcom: Good work Mike.
Sullivan: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Bolkcom: Thanks a lot.
Stutsman: Pretty positive evaluation, keep up the good work.
Sullivan: Thank you, I will. We'll see you back in another year or so.
Bolkcom: I have a question. In terms of our evaluations and Mikes Goals, do we collect that and put that in a file so that in a year from now when we sit down again we can pull out the goals? How are we doing this?
Peters: I for my information the acronym was PEIR.
Sullivan: PIER.
Bolkcom: Are you just writing those down Carol?
Peters: Yes.
Bolkcom: Mike do you have those written up?
Sullivan: I didn't have one of these ahead of time so I kind of wrote this down.
Peters: I'll just give you mine.
Sullivan: Either that or I can type this stuff up and get it back to you folks.
Bolkcom: That would be fine. I think if we're going to try and do consistent...
Peters: Right.
Bolkcom: So you remember what the goals are and we do too.
Peters: There were two written goals suggested.
Stutsman: Yes I had written a couple down.
Peters: No, but I meant from the other people.
Bolkcom: From others.
Stutsman: Oh, OK. Where are those Carol?
Peters: Most of them you had already covered but 2 of them were publishing the final report of the ad hoc citizens committee for EMS and establishment of county-wide emergency medical dispatching support.
Sullivan: OK. EMD, I'm working on that too.
Stutsman: Are you in agreement with those 2 goals?
Sullivan: Yes absolutely. No I wasn't clear on your standpoint about the ad hoc committee thing, but I'll take care of that.
Stutsman: OK.
Sullivan: That kind of fell apart, the Chairperson of the committee left and they just left. Being a member I wasn't quite sure what to do so I need to communicate with this person if I can find them and take care of that. The EMD thing, we'll work on that.
Bolkcom: So Carol back to the... Where is the compilation of these evaluations kept, do we have a file on Mike here or other department heads?
Peters: Uh-huh.
Bolkcom: We do. Would that be the appropriate place.
Peters: Yes it is. The thing of it is, I can't put anything into the file that I don't have.
Bolkcom: That's an interesting problem. So whatever stuff we want to give you we should give you.
Peters: Yes.
Bolkcom: OK, very good.
Stutsman: OK, thanks.
Bolkcom: Mike should do the same with his goals.
Sullivan: Uh-huh.
Peters: I think I've got all of them down. I don't know if I used the correct...
Sullivan: I know what you mean.
Peters: But I think you'll know because they're your words. I abbreviated a lot of them.
Sullivan: OK, you've got them.
Stutsman: OK, Mike I guess that takes care of it so we will recess.
Recessed at 2:30 p.m.; reconvened on June 12, 1997 at 8:50 p.m.
Stutsman: Oh, I guess discussion regarding Engineer Position. We already took care of that. Any other comments about that? All right. Reports and Inquiries from the Board of Supervisors. Charlie?
Duffy: None at this time.
Stutsman: Steve?
Lacina: No.
Stutsman: A couple things that I wanted to mention. I wanted to remind Supervisors of the meeting with the Cedar Rapids Airport Group and that's, oh brother, this calendar is a mess... The 18th at 9:00 in this room. I just wanted to make sure that all of the Supervisors were aware of that. Then, I also wanted to state that Steve and I would like to make a change on the 6th Judicial District. I would like Steve to assume those responsibilities on that, if there isn't any problem with the...
Administrative Assistant Carol Peters: Do you want that on for Thursday?
Stutsman: Right.
Peters: When is your formal meeting next week?
Lacina: Do we need action or should we just send a letter?
County Attorney Pat White: We need a schedule ourselves.
Bolkcom: Hey, we've got them. Right here.
Peters: Just to show how terrible this week is, I can't tell you how many times we redid the agenda, and guess who ended up with the wrong agenda?
Stutsman: Carol did.
White: I spent 10 minutes going through it trying to figure out what the amendment was.
Peters: Did you find it?
White: Yes. I finally did.
Lacina: Pat, do we need action for that or can we just do it administratively, have Sally send a letter out and say we're going to be..
White: No you need action because the Board...
Peters: No you need action.
Lacina: ...Oh, because it has to be done in January.
White: You've made an appointment that you need to verify.
Stutsman: So whenever our next formal meeting is Carol would you put that on for that?
Peters: OK, glad to.
Stutsman: Jonathan, any reports?
Jordahl: Well yes, Networking Committee met on Tuesday and I wanted to invite anyone who was interested. Steve raised the question about how soon could we implement e-mail and we're having the next Networking Meeting on the 24th at 2:30 at the Department of Human Services to have a look at their system by which they communicate with the State through e-mail. So it's part of looking at e-mail packages. So it will be 2:30 at the DHS Office on the 24th. Our What When Committee meets tomorrow, kind of catching up, if anybody would like to dip in to what's going on on implementation of the computerization.
Stutsman: What time is it?
Jordahl: 1:30 in the afternoon tomorrow. Also, parades coming up. North Liberty Parade 7:00 tomorrow and Gay Pride Parade on Saturday, I think it's noon, to be followed by speeches and so forth in the park, probably about 1:30. Don't miss the I-CARE pancake breakfast on Sunday morning.
Stutsman: OK. Joe?
Bolkcom: Good report Jonathan. No report.
Stutsman: OK.
REPORT (LACINA): FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD PRESENTATION
Lacina: Oh, I will not be in tomorrow morning. A Federal Reserve Board is giving a presentation at the Pappajohn building about some work they've done in the Midwest about economic development, sustainability and that. I've been invited to attend and I'm going to sit in on that.
Stutsman: OK.
Duffy: I've got a Nutrition meeting tomorrow morning.
Stutsman: Pat do you have anything?
White: Just a couple staffing things. I'll spare you my tale of woe. I never did get to the County Attorney's Conference. It's been unbelievable.
Stutsman: That's too bad.
White: We now have a firm decision that Janet Lyness is going to assume the civil responsibility that John Bulkley had. Janet's been an Assistant doing criminal prosecution with us for a little over 7 years now and she had interned with us for a year while she was a student. Her transition will be gradual because she's got a very heavy criminal caseload and she'll probably show up for her first Board coverage meeting sometime in July and probably over 2 to 4 months she'll gradually assume more and more civil work. I've hired a young attorney by the name of Mike Brennan to fill the vacancy that's actually created by John's departure. Iowa City is originally his home, he's been prosecuting in Henry County, Illinois for about a year. He was one of our finalists for a vacancy we had a year ago. I'll be advertising here fairly quickly to start hire someone for the grant funded position. I also am beginning to look like I'm pretty close to a law firm recruiting one of my people away and I may end up with yet another vacancy in the near term, but...
Stutsman: When does the individual taking John's place start?
White: Well the new attorney starts a week from Monday, but he'll start doing drunk driving, driving under suspension prosecution and we'll shift some other people around. Janet will... She's already begun... She's doing things like, she's reviewing the Court appointed attorney applications, she started to do some work on collections. Craig Mosher and his 28E agreements is her first substantive civil assignment that she's started to work on.
Lacina: You're making some major changes in technology and...
Bolkcom: Check it out.
White: Yes, we really are.
Lacina: Good for you.
Stutsman: And moving.
White: I'm also... I'll send you a memo to explain this. I've been spending a lot of time pouring over next year's budget and attorney's salaries. I've shared with some of you concerns about attorney's salaries. I think through a combination of events, the principal one being John's departure, I'm in a position to make some fairly significant salary adjustments on an existing budget. Even before we get to the salary survey, I'll lay those out for you and explain what I'm doing. But my goal now is to make some fairly significant adjustments effective July 1st and I've obviously got to finalize that in the next couple of days. Particularly, given the turnover that I'm looking at, with one attorney who's being recruited away. I need to get that starting salary up and my goal is to get it up, but take everybody along with whatever the increase is. I think I'm going to be able to do it. I don't know, by the way, how closely, you wouldn't have looked this closely at individual budgets, but even with the computer related expenditures we're still going to have 15, $20,000, maybe a little more, year end balance in the budget.
Stutsman: Wow.
White: Our revenues right now are about $30,000 above what we've budgeted. So I think we've made up for that shortfall we had in Court Services. By accelerating some of the computer spending now, and I know Bob Welsh would say you shouldn't do it this way, but that will give me flexibility to impact more significantly attorney's salaries next year. But for goodness sakes when you see it call me up if you have questions.
Jordahl: That's not going to make a difference in that person being recruited away?
White: No I think it's too late for that one.
Stutsman: A local firm recruiting them?
White: Cedar Rapids, $37,000.
Lacina: How much higher than current?
White: About 6.
Lacina: 6. OK.
Stutsman: Anything else? OK, we're adjourned.
Adjourned at 9:00 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Melinda McCleary and Casie Parkins, Recording Secretaries