LARGO – City commissioners, saying they want to be fair to other employees, sided with city officials in an impasse hearing Aug. 31 on a labor agreement with the city’s firefighters’ union.
Among the issues are whether a step pay plan in effect for fire-rescue workers should be replaced with a pay range plan.
Largo Assistant City Manager Henry Schubert said that firefighters traditionally receive two increases annually through a step pay plan that’s in effect. The step pay plan, he said, is “no longer fiscally sound or fair compared to other city employees, including our police officers.”
“We cannot do business as usual because it worked in the past,” Schubert said. “Economic realities dictate otherwise.”
The average firefighter-paramedic within the city makes $57,300 annually. His or her total cash pay including overtime and special pay is nearly $62,000 per year, Schubert said. The total cost to the city of the average firefighter-paramedic is slightly more than $103,000 annually.
Raises are frozen for city employees under the proposed city budget for next year.
Commissioner Curtis Holmes didn’t mince words on his position on union negotiations.
“You did not give a convincing argument on why the firefighters union should be exempted from the freeze we have put on everybody in the city,” Holmes said. “No rationale whatsoever. It’s just we have a contract, we want it. Why should you be the exception? It wasn’t presented.”
Mayor Pat Gerard said she doesn’t begrudge the firefighters the salaries the city is paying them or the benefit package.
“But I do have to be fair to all the employees,” she said.
Commissioner Harriet Crozier said she realized that the step plan will be frozen for two years under the union’s proposal.
“But what’s the difference?” she said. “The same conversation will happen two years down the road.”
Walter Dix, International Association of Firefighters district field service representative, said a special magistrate who made recommendations on negotiations looked at the hazards of the firefighters’ jobs, the physical qualifications, the educational qualifications and other factors in weighing the issues.
The union sided with the magistrate, who did not recommend a change in the step plan, Dix said.
“Not once have we heard that the city did not have the ability to pay,” he said.
He said for 2011 the firefighters recommended no step increase.
“Our recommendation was to put the step plan on the shelf; don’t put it in the trash,” he said.
City commissioners also didn’t see eye to eye with the union over vacation issues.
Dix said the city fire-rescue employees have 46 percent less in vacation time than other cities that are comparable to Largo and Dix didn’t feel it was fair to further reduce the time.
Commissioners voted 6-1, with Commissioner Robert Murray dissenting, to accept city management’s recommendations on the wage issues. They voted 5-2, with Commissioners Gigi Arntzen and Murray dissenting, to side with management on vacation issues.
City Attorney Alan Zimmet said the union will present the proposed collective bargaining agreement with the changes the commission adopted that night. If the contract is ratified, it will be in effect for three years.
If it is not ratified, the issues the commission took action on would only be imposed until the end of September. The parties then would have to start negotiations again.
After the meeting, Dix said the union would have to evaluate the action taken by commissioners.
“I think the commission was a bit confused and didn’t understand all the issues,” Dix said.
