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Trustees, firefighters union strike a deal
Township trustees unanimously voted Monday to accept a new contract with the firefighters union.
The contract with the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1176 includes an additional three years of wage freezes and changes in health-care language, said Trustee Chairman Thomas Costello.
“A firefighter used to get maximum, or senior status, in six years and now it will take 22 years. The new starting wage is $24,000 [annually],” Costello said.
All current firefighters already are at senior status and make $20.79 per hour, or $57,302.39 annually.
Firefighters will pay 10 percent of the base amount of their health care, and then 40 percent of any increases to their premiums, which works out to about 18 percent of the total cost, Costello said.
Also at Monday’s meeting, Fiscal Officer William D. Leicht and Police Chief Jack Nichols announced the township has a new agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service for confiscated funds.
“The vast majority of confiscated funds come from drug dealers. ... Let’s say there’s an arrest made, and we’ll seize $100,000. That $100,000 has to sit someplace until [the case] gets through the court system. It’s parked in Boardman now in a trust fund,” Nichols said.
For that service, the township will receive 20 percent of the confiscated funds, with 10 percent going to the police department’s confiscated funds allotment, which can be used only for equipment and special projects inside of the police department, Leicht said.
The other 10 percent is going into the general fund for the township, and the trustees decide how those funds will get distributed, he added.
“When the case is done in court, and it’s mostly federal court, the court determines how [the remaining 80 percent] will get split up with whoever’s involved,” Nichols said, referring to the fact that multiple jurisdictions participate in the U.S. Marshals Service.
One example of how confiscated funds are used by the police department is the purchase of new dispatch radio equipment in a joint partnership with Austintown, Nichols said.
The trustees did briefly discuss future levy possibilities at the meeting.
“We’re looking very strongly at possibly putting a levy on in August or in November. What we are attempting to decide is the form or format of that levy,” Costello said.
He said the options under consideration are a police levy, a general-fund levy or placing a police and general-fund levy on at the same time.
The trustees are looking for residents’ input at their next meeting scheduled for 5:30 p.m. March 28 at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, 7782 Glenwood Ave.