The River Falls City Council held its organizational meeting online last Tuesday evening.

Mayor Dan Toland oversaw the meeting, as the city council will continue to hold its meetings via the online platform during the COVID-19 shutdown.

“I’d like to welcome everybody to the organizational meeting and business meeting of the Common Council of the City of River Falls. This is the annual business meeting and is not a regular meeting,” said Toland. “The public is welcome to observe, but there’s no public comment at this meeting.”

The meeting did have a few technical glitches. Some speakers were difficult to hear as everybody worked from homes or offices with their own communication devices.

City administrator Scot Simpson said the kinks are being worked out on the virtual meetings.

“There are some challenges here, but we’ll make some changes by the next meeting,” he said.

In all, the meeting took less than 20 minutes with Toland setting the ground rules.

“When it comes time for comment, I’ll call on each one individually so we aren’t all talking over each other,” he said.

Toland reported that the Oath of Office had been given to himself, District 4 Alderperson Todd Bjerstedt, Alderperson at Large Schott Morrissette and Alderperson at Large Ben Plunkett.

He opened up nominations for a common council president and comptroller to the full council. Morrissette was the unanimous choice for president, who fills in at meetings and events in the absence of the mayor. Diane Odeen was unanimously chosen as comptroller.

Simpson was called upon to give a report on the organizational structure of the city.

“We’ve done some realignment,” he said. “We’ve had to adjust some resources with fighting the COVID.”

The organizational update is provided to the mayor and council each year.

“Over the last few years, the city has seen numerous changes to its organizational structure as staffing levels. As a city we are deliberate in our hiring practices and staff continually evaluates the long-term staffing plan established by the administrator, “ the report put together by Simpson and Brandt Johnson, assistant to the city administrator, states.

As part of the report, the transition of the EMS to Allina Health System was presented, with that transition taking place Jan. 1, 2021.

The city is expected to net $19,895 to its EMS Reserve Fund as a result of the Allina contract. The city’s EMS Agreement Fee is projected at $241,350 under the Allina plan with an additional contract administration expense of $17,631. On the other side of the equation, the city will bring in $38,400 in rental income from the deal. Neighboring towns will pay $100,826, and the Prescott Association revenue is projected at $139,650.

“This project did not include the one-time benefits expected to be received from the sale of some of the equipment to Allina. It is likely that revenue from the sale of vehicles and equipment will be required to satisfy existing EMS fund deficit,” the report states.

Since April, two positions were added to the organization in the last year: non-certified water/wastewater operator Tim Rixmann and senior accountant Sam Hosszu.

Simpson was questioned about those additions at the meeting.

“We were looking to improve our succession plan in the area of wastewater,” Simpson answered. “We did have a retirement planned for another employee. We wanted to get ahead of that with training.”

On the senior accountant position, Simpson said, “We offered a position to a new candidate, and they accepted prior to the hiring freeze so we wanted to honor that. That’s a position that’s helping us in the midst of COVID.”

The report states that five people were promoted by the city in the last 12 months: Crystal Raleigh was promoted to City Engineer.

Jason Stroud was promoted to Assistant City Administrator.

Kate Frey was promoted to Interim EMS Coordinator.

Amy Peterson was promoted to Community Development Director.

Keri Schreiner was promoted to Economic Development Manager.

Some positions planned to be filled are on hold because of COVID-19.

“With the COVID-19 pandemic occurring during the writing of this organizational update, the city implanted a hiring freeze with the exception of EMS personnel.”

City departments are working together during this time, and the report included a plan with city organization separated into branches.

“Some employees will receive temporary assignments to one of the branches that may differ from where the rest of their department is assigned,” the report states. “Each branch has developed a 60-day staffing and scheduling plan. As needs are identified that are not filled by current staff assignments, employees will be asked to be temporarily assigned to another branch to help out. This approach puts the whole of local government into COVID-19 community support and service mode.”

Simpson was asked about a retirement in the police department.

“Police positions are part of the hiring freeze. At this time, we’re not going forward with hiring that position,” he said.