Fire department revamping proposed
By Jeff Gallatin
North Olmsted
Published March 3, 2010

A proposal eliminating four captain’s positions in the fire department and allowing the hiring of up to 15 part-time firefighters, was scheduled to be brought to City Council last night by Mayor Kevin Kennedy’s administration.

Kennedy said he planned to bring the matter up in a special Safety Committee meeting prior to the regular Tuesday council session and then try to get it passed on suspension by council. If approved, the move would reduce four captains in rank, with three being reduced to lieutenants and another going to firefighter. The proposed reorganization allows for seven lieutenants instead of the current four and maintains the number of positions ranked full-time firefighter as 44.

Kennedy said the move gives the city added flexibility during another tight budget year in which the budget revenue projections have been short of anticipated expenses by several hundred thousand dollars. However, Fire Union President Dave Boatman criticized the proposal Monday, saying it would cause major problems in the fire department.

Monday, Kennedy said the move was for budgetary reasons and not because the city and fire union have been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract. The union rejected a fact-finder’s report in late February, which both administration and union officials said favored the administration. As a result, the union voted to seek binding conciliation, meaning the results would have to be accepted, unless the firefighters sought court action.

Kennedy said his proposal was not a reaction to the firefighters’ rejecting the fact-finders report.

“We’ve got to present a balanced budget to the state by the end of the month,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got to move ahead with balancing the budget and getting all our departments’ finances ready.”

City Council is set to begin budget meetings Thursday, with additional sessions scheduled for Saturday and next Tuesday. State law requires a city to present a balanced budget to the state by the end of March.

City Council Finance Committee Chairman Paul Barker, who will run the council budget meetings, said he believes Kennedy’s proposal will pass city council.

“We’ve got to do something at this point,” Barker said. “We do have to move ahead and get a working budget. The administration has tried to work with everybody and come up with a solution.”

Both Kennedy when he was city council president last year and Barker, called for city employees to help the city fight the revenue shortfalls by giving concessions. The duo also were leaders in council passing pay cuts for the mayor, law and finance director and ward council members taking pay cuts for this four year term.

“We’ve been asking everybody to do their part in this,” Barker said. “We haven’t singled any group out to bear the brunt of these problems. Council and the administration are trying to put together a good budget in some very difficult economic times for everybody.”

Boatman said the proposal will hurt the fire department.

“It’s going to do irreparable harm to the command structure in the fire department and cause major problems in how it is handled,” he said. “It will cause problems in the ranks, command and how we handle different issues.”

Boatman also questioned the need for 15 part-time firefighters.

“You won’t get the same quality that you do from full-time firefighters,” Boatman said. “Do you want someone who has no investment in the city or lacks the knowledge that some fulltime firefighter who has 10, 20 or even 30 years and a large amount of time and interest invested in the city. The people who have been here for years know this city. We have a lot of residents who have regular needs who call us and we know what they are and what we have to do to make it good for them. You don’t get that with part-time people.”

Kennedy said having the ability to hire additional part-time firefighters gives the city options.

“It’s another tool in the box and gives us the means to help deal with the budget and our needs,” he said.

Boatman said the first he heard of the proposal was Monday.

“I wasn’t aware of it before this,” he said. “It’s another example of an administration not communicating with us or treating us fairly.”

Last year, the previous administration under Mayor Thomas O’Grady laid off 15 city workers at the beginning of the year — five each in fire, police and service — to cope with another shortfall in revenue from the tight economy. One firefighter was recalled later in the year to cover a retirement.

Boatman said he thinks those might not be the last layoffs in the fire department.

“ I think we’ll see layoffs,” he said. “It’s headed that way.”

Kennedy said the administration is not planning layoffs at this point.

“We’re not headed down that road yet,” he said. “But, there aren’t many avenues left.”

Boatman also said the administration is not being fair.

“People haven’t really asked why we turned down the fact-finders report,” he said. “We are aware that the city is having financial difficulties and we have offered to do our share.”

Boatman contended the city is asking more of the firefighters than it is of the other unions.

“We have offered to give up money,” he said. “We offered 5 percent when that’s what we were told was what they wanted. When we offered it, they turned us down and said it’s not enough, we need more. We made other offers, they turned us down.

“We just want to be treated like other employees, all the other unions, clerical, police, dispatch, service, they got options on their furlough days and got an agreement,” he said. “We can’t get that kind of offer. They tell us we’re different. We hear about weekend pay. That came about more than a decade ago under the old law director (Michael Sr.) Gareau and other administrations. We were told they couldn’t do pay a certain way so we got that weekend pay.”

Boatman said the union just wants consistency.

“We want to be negotiated with in good faith,” he said. “We’ve asked Mayor Kennedy, who said last year as a candidate he would be involved, to get involved with the negotiations and he’s saying ‘it’s too late for that.’ We just want to sit down and get this done in a fair way.”

Kennedy said the city has been fair with the firefighters.

“Talks and negotiations have been going on for more than a year and it’s a very tough time for the city and the people who live in it,” he said. “We have gone over a lot of options and possibilities with the firefighters in an effort to reach some kind of agreement that’s fair to everybody and it hasn’t worked. We couldn’t reach agreement with the negotiations, so we went to fact-finding and that report goes over a lot of areas, they turned it down too. At this point, we’ve got to do something. It’s time for action.”

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