Fire deal will save city $324,000

Fewer days of work and fewer options to work extra days for Kalispell firefighters are expected to save the city $324,000 over the next two fiscal years.

Those were the key elements of a revised contract deal reached last week by the firefighters’ union and the city. The firefighters came up with the proposal to avert layoffs of seven firefighters because of the costs to the city from a new three-year contract.

City Manager Jane Howington said the concessions by the union will cost each of 27 firefighters $6,000 per year they would have made by working more days, or a total of $162,000 per year.

Howington did not compute the cost for the third year of the contract since it contains a 2.4-percent pay raise.

Those figures do not include salaries for the three most-junior firefighters who are paid by a three-year grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The revised contract— which has yet to be ratified by the City Council or the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 547 — would require firefighters to work 2,600 hours a year, or 50 hours per week.

It allows them to keep their hourly raises and longevity pay increases, but requires each firefighter to take one unpaid Kelly Day every 28-day pay period. This represents 13 Kelly Days per firefighter per year.

The pay deal also does not allow them Kelly Work Back Days (when a firefighter would work on another firefighter’s Kelly Day), thus eliminating a lot of uncertainty in the budgeting process.

In essence, the city accepted the union’s proposal, City Attorney Charlie Harball said. The union made the offer to cut back work hours in the face of the planned May 15 layoffs of seven firefighters.

In its current budget, the city of Kalispell was projecting that each firefighter would work a maximum of 2,834 hours a year, or 54.5 hours a week. The firefighters’ union maintained they worked fewer hours than that. The firefighters’ most recent projection was 2,742 hours a year.

In fiscal year 2010, Howington said, the firefighters worked an average of 2,810 hours, or 54 hours a week.

That year, 10 firefighters worked more than 2,810 hours and six worked more than 3,000 hours.

Under the previous contract, “you could kind of set out what you were making,” Harball said. “Some were working straight time. Some were working extra hours.”

That won’t be possible under the proposed new contract unless the city asks firefighters to work extra. “They can’t get overtime or extra hours unless management approves it,” Harball said.

Harball said that the firefighters’ union will receive the revised contract this week and would then have to ratify it through a vote of the 30-member union.

He anticipates the contract will be brought to the City Council on May 2 for council approval. 

The city agreed to pay firefighters some $90,000 to $100,000 in back pay based on the current contract, which includes pay raises and extra hours for Kelly Work Back Days.

If the revised contract is ratified, it would go into effect in mid-May, Howington said.

Reporter Caleb Soptelean may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at csoptelean@dailyinterlake.com.