Warren, firefighters reach deal to avert 18 more layoffs

By Ed Runyan

Tentative deals also were reached with all city unions on health-care premiums.

WARREN — City officials and union representatives for the Warren Fire Department reached a tentative agreement Wednesday to avert the layoff of 18 more firefighters July 3. That deal must be approved by firefighters.

In a separate meeting earlier Wednesday, representatives of all six unions representing city employees tentatively agreed to begin paying a percentage of their health care for the first time.

Meanwhile, Gary Cicero, the city’s human resources director, said the layoffs of five more police officers and 11 other city employees this Sunday appear certain, as no further negotiations are scheduled on that front.

The city laid off 20 police officers, 11 firefighters and eight other city employees Jan. 1 to offset a $1.2 million budget shortfall.

Marc Titus, president of Firefighters Local 204, wouldn’t say whether he will urge the membership to approve the agreement.

“That’s up to the membership to say what they think about it,” he said.

Neither Cicero, Titus nor Safety-Service Director Doug Franklin would give any details of the agreement. The ratification vote is expected to take place this weekend.

Patrol officers with the Warren Police Department accepted a four-year wage freeze in an agreement they ratified in April. They hoped the agreement would allow the city to use federal stimulus money to bring back some of the 20 police officers laid off on Jan. 1.

Titus said the tentative firefighters’ agreement anticipates the possibility that federal stimulus money being considered in Congress will pay for some of their laid-off members to be brought back to work.

Wednesday’s agreement does not give the city enough money to rehire any firefighters but does allow the city to retain all 58 of its current firefighters through 2009, Titus said.

Franklin praised the firefighters, saying they “stepped up to the plate and addressed the issues of safety in good faith at the bargaining table. It benefits the residents of Warren and the firefighters.”

Without the agreement, 18 firefighters would have been laid off July 3, Cicero said, reducing their ranks to 40.

The notices will still go out Thursday, but if the union ratifies the agreement, the layoffs will not be implemented, Cicero said.

The agreement reached with all of the unions regarding health- care concessions will help reduce the city’s $1.5 million budget deficit for 2009, but will not avert any layoffs on its own, Cicero said.

Cicero would not say what percentage of health care employees will contribute. Warren workers are among the only government workers in Trumbull and Mahoning counties not yet paying a portion of their health-care premiums.

Also, four patrolmen and one narcotics officer will lose their jobs effective Sunday, along with two of the four employees at the Packard Music Hall and nine employees in the water and wastewater departments.

, Cicero said.

The five layoffs in the police department will reduce its staffing level to 56. Before Jan. 1, the department had 81 officers.

Auditor David Griffing said in late March the city would need to cut another $1.5 million from its 2009 general fund budget as a result of health-care cost increases for 2009 and lower revenue projections because of job losses at the Severstal steel mill and other businesses.

runyan@vindy.com