The Globe Fire Department and Gila Community College entered into an educational services agreement, after receiving the Globe City Council’s unanimous approval during its Feb. 12 meeting.

The agreement will permit teaching core classes in house to department personnel for an associate’s degree in fire science, according to Globe Fire Chief Gary Robinson.

The courses will be taught by “our qualified personnel as part of the regular, on-duty training program,” he said.

The fire department’s current pay structure requires specific educational requirements for advancement. The new agreement allows fire personnel to complete a portion of the requirements, giving the City of Globe a mechanism to support them in their efforts, at no cost to the fire personnel.

The Gila College agreement was the latest of three agreements the city fire department entered into the past couple of months.

At its Jan. 22 meeting, council approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for fire protection services at the Pinto Valley Mine, located west of Miami.

The city fire department, the Tri-City Fire District and the Pinto Valley Mining Corporation are the three parties in the MOU.

Pinto Valley recognized that its mine site does not fall within the boundaries of either fire department. In keeping with the philosophy that both Robinson and Tri-City Fire Chief Nick Renon have, the three-way agreement is modeled after the one used for responses to the Town of Miami, Robinson said.

“This model has proven effective,” he said. “Our main goal is to ensure that we, as chiefs, have the ability to establish standard responses to incidents in an effort to ensure adequate resources.”

The agreement also establishes a shared fee schedule as well as billing procedures for fire responses to the mine, he said.

At its Jan. 8 meeting, council approved another IGA between Globe Fire and Tri-City FD for procurement and cost sharing for regional mobile data terminal service (MDT).

Robinson described his department as “very progressive” in working to ensure that personnel have the best information possible when responding to calls.

A major component in working towards the goal is a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, which makes the information that dispatch enters into the system readily available to responders.

It also gives responders access to mapping and the location of hydrants, he said.

While functional, the Spillman system his department has been using has its limitations, Robinson said.

The project’s goal was to address the issues by increasing functionality and regionalization and consolidating systems to increase effectiveness, he said.

Robinson said he understands that the project would need to remain as “budget neutral” as possible.

Both Robinson and Renon researched options, and Rennon proposed using the vendor “Streetwise CAD.”

Robinson said that Streetwise provides the functionality his department is looking for “in terms of MDT, station alerting and secondary alerting systems.”

Reviewing the quotes provided by Streetwise, Robinson noted that the ongoing costs associated with using its product ($3,200) would have less of an impact on the city’s budget than the products his department was currently using ($4,450).

The one-time set-up fees for Streetwise were estimated not to exceed $3,500, with the total cost to the city not to exceed $7,000, he said.

The amount Robinson requested was $6,700, which was already budgeted in fiscal year 2018.

Robinson reminded the council that the costs were based on establishing a regional system.

“This system would make all the features of the Streetwise MDT available to both agencies at a reduced cost,” which would be realized through cost sharing portions of both the setup and ongoing costs, he said.

Robinson proposed using the funds for Spillman maintenance and eDispatches that remained in the current budget, along with contingency funds, to make up the balance.