Fire deal averts layoffs

By JIM MANNThe Daily Inter Lake

After months of disagreement, the city of Kalispell and its firefighters’ union came to an agreement Friday that will reduce firefighter furlough days and prevent seven layoffs that were planned to balance the city’s fire budget.

Mayor Tammi Fisher, City Manager Jane Howington and Kirk Pederson, president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 547, held a joint press conference Friday morning at City Hall to announce the agreement.

Fisher and Howington praised the firefighters’ flexibility in negotiations.

“I don’t think we can understate or not expound upon the significant concessions the union has made,” Fisher said, adding that those concessions “speak volumes” for the dedication of firefighters to their work and the city.

Fisher said she is relieved that an agreement was reached because city officials had no desire to lay off seven people.

“I think when we can keep people employed, that’s seven families not just seven guys,” she said.

Pederson said the union aimed to keep services fully intact.

“That’s exactly why we sat down, to come to an agreement to keep the city staffed with 30 guys,” Pederson said.

City officials had maintained that pay increases associated with a recently adopted three-year union contract presented a $690,000 shortfall.

Firefighters challenged those numbers, saying the city was basically overbudgeting, largely to compensate for a complicated work scheduling system that involves scheduled days off called Kelly Days.

“The local needed to keep seven firefighters from being laid off, and the city needed a better ability to forecast its costs,” said Ricky Walsh, vice president of the IAFF’s seventh district, which represents 200 bargaining units in the region.

The firefighters’ concession amounts to each firefighter giving up three paid furlough days per year, Walsh said.

“And that was enough to bring the budget in line,” said Walsh, who sat down with city officials earlier in the morning to discuss the agreement.

During that discussion, Walsh said the union insists on maintaining an additional pay raise of 2.4 percent that is scheduled for 2013 as part of the new contract.

However, he said the union would be willing to revisit that matter if necessary in the future.

“We might need to if this economy doesn’t turn around,” he said.

Howington said documents for the agreement will be finalized over the next week and will be presented to the City Council for approval.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.