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Firefighters' raises won't break bank after all, Boardman trustees say
BOARDMAN
Township trustees are more optimistic about the township’s financial situation going into the new year than they were previously, they say.
After a conciliator ruled in November that the township must give pay raises to firefighters, trustees initially expressed concern about the township’s ability to afford that.
“We need to find out where we’re going to come up with those dollars,” Trustee Tom Costello said at the time. “We’re hoping it doesn’t cost people, but that’s what we’re going to have to take a look at.”
Trustees and the township administration are not considering layoffs, however, Trustee Larry Moliterno said Wednesday.
“I don’t think we’re as far off as we thought we were going to be. I think we’re going to be fine with it,” he said. “We’re certainly not going to panic about it.”
The three-year contract adopted after the conciliator’s report, retroactive to March 2014, requires the township to give firefighters a wage increase of $1,250 per year for each of the contract years.
The township and the International Association of Firefighters Local 1176 went to binding conciliation after they failed to reach an agreement through collective bargaining or fact-finding.
Before the new contract, the fire department had operated under pay freezes since 2008 and a restructured pay scale with lower wage rate for firefighters hired since 2011.
The wage increase amounts to a raise of about 5 percent for entry-level firefighters; about 2 percent for senior firefighters, lieutenants and captains of three years; and about 1.8 percent for an assistant chief of three years.
Fiscal Officer William Leicht is in the process of calculating the total cost to the township of the new contract. The calculated cost will include all of the miscellaneous costs associated with payroll besides salaries.
Conciliator Gregory Lavelle calculated in his report that the first year of the contract would not result in an additional cost to the township, since the township proposed to give firefighters a $1,250 bonus in the first year. Lavelle calculated that the second year of the contract will cost the township an additional $62,437 beyond what it proposed, and that the third year will cost an additional $150,923, costs which he argued can be made up for through workers compensation refunds and attrition.
One way trustees plan to compensate for the additional cost of paying firefighters, Calhoun and Moliterno said, is by leaving open a firefighter position that recently became vacant, at least until the next round of civil-service tests are administered.
Calculations of the total cost of the new contract will be done within the next week or two, Township Administrator Jason Loree said.