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City, firefighters union reach tentative deal
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Las Vegas and the city firefighters union have reached a tentative agreement on a labor contract that would eliminate or reduce some pay increases and is expected to keep the department from reducing units in service.
The agreement was reached late Tuesday afternoon.
Firefighters, who have been negotiating a new contract, had declared an impasse in talks, meaning arbitration would have been necessary.
The tentative deal is scheduled for consideration by the City Council on July 7. Members of International Association of Firefighters Local 1285 are scheduled to vote on it Friday and July 6.
As proposed, the agreement would reduce projected costs by $6.5 million over the next two years. The city's original savings target was $8.8 million.
"We have been negotiating in good faith from the beginning," Dean Fletcher, president of the firefighters union, said in a statement. "We are proud that we fought with everything that we had to reach this agreement with the city to avoid brownouts that would have endangered public safety and increased response times."
Las Vegas has laid off more than 200 workers as part of cost-saving measures to meet an $80 million shortfall, and more layoffs are planned. City officials have to bridge an expected $50 million deficit in the next budget year. No firefighters were on the layoff list.
"The ability to work with our bargaining units is the way we'll be able to preserve services and jobs," City Manager Betsy Fretwell said.
The proposed firefighter contract would do the following:
■ Eliminate a cost-of-living raise. The previous contract called for a cost-of-living raise of 3.5 percent.
■ Reduce step increases by half in the next two budget years and cut the starting salary of new employees by 5 percent. Step raises average about 5.6 percent. A city firefighter's base pay now is $44,947 to $77,602 a year.
■ Eliminate the uniform allowance of $1,500 a year for 2011, an expected savings of $900,000.
■ Reduce the city's medical contribution to $360 per pay period, down from $450 per pay period. The contribution will be in only 24 pay periods instead of 26.
■ Reduce a paperwork payment to paramedics by 50 percent in 2011 and eliminate it in 2012.
■ Increase the number of "roving" responders, which is expected to reduce overtime.
Also, the city would agree not to pursue the privatization of ambulance services during the two-year contract. No proposal for such a move was presented to the City Council.
The plan should eliminate the need for expected "brownouts," in which units from a few fire stations would not be staffed for a day, city officials said.
City officials started seeking pay reductions from all employees late last year, proposing wage rollbacks of 8 percent in each of the next two budget years.
That idea was met with resistance, and officials prepared a 2011 budget with more than 200 layoffs.
Ten of those were avoided when the city marshals unit agreed to give up cost-of-living and step increases in the new budget year while also accepting a 4 percent pay cut.
Las Vegas and two other bargaining units -- the Las Vegas City Employees Association, the largest, and the Las Vegas Peace Officers Association, which represents corrections workers -- have not reached concession agreements.
The firefighters union has 601 members.
Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.
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VegasCitizen, "Taking the trucks with them is a dumb idea too, a much better idea would be to take their own car and then drive back to the fire station and get the truck if they get a call." When you are in cardiac arrest or in a traffic accident, you let me know how your asinine quote works for you.
USCitizenLas Vegas - I don't know if you are the same person, but I thought we were past all these BASIC Issues.
FOR THE LAST TIME---
1. City fire has a response time of between 4 to 6 minutes- Private 12min. before fines are imposed. As well as the city has a 44% rate of recovery for cardiac arrest patients compared to 5% for the rest of the country due to the fact we have cutting edge equipment and training that NO ONE else in the valley has.
2. We have to eat within a 24 hour period, don't you? And with the switching stations during the morning we never know who will be at our station, since we pay for that days food in the morning, we have no way of knowing who will be at our station for chow. So we have to do all this in the beginning of our days shift.
"BTW-they bring their official trucks." That ones so stupid I won't even respond to it.
3. Everyone responds because you don't know what you are going to get. Much goes into every EMS call, the more serious the more labor intensive. I'm not going to go into detail because I don't think you'll get it anyway.
4. You obviously read the paper, they have portrayed the "leave - overtime games" into a huge conspiracy. A word of advice that I have learned throughout this whole thing. 75% of what the newspaper prints is either embellished or a flat lie. Remember, it's a business for them too, their in it to sell papers. More politics.
1. How about a source and some statistics to back up your statement on response times (and compare them to the private ambulance). 2 I agree about seeing the firefighter at Costco and SAMS Club, that's pretty arrogant of them to think they deserve to eat, they should of thought of that before going to work. Taking the trucks with them is a dumb idea too, a much better idea would be to take their own car and then drive back to the fire station and get the truck if they get a call. 3 90% of the calls are EMS but not all of those are handled by just 2 paramedics. A significant amount of calls require more personnel such as cardiac arrests and traffic accidents. 4. Not all fire departments in the valley have the leave - overtime games being played, if the city or county and fire department administration can identify a problem they can fix it, that is why there is discipline procedures in place.
1.The Las Vegas Fire has bad response times compared to those in other parts of the country-- why not improve them?
2.These firefighters are always seen in costco and sams club in their office hours and are arrogant..BTW they bring their official trucks.
3.I believe with just handful of paramedics if they are able to respond their 90% of calls, why need 600+ firefighters?
4.They play a drama of leave-overtime games for which they really get highly compensated.
Are we tax payers fool? Do we not have a voice? Are our councilmen dumb? May be?
Read very carefully: Fighterfighters biggest concern was that ambulance servcie was not privatized!!!! That is 90% of their calls...
"We have been negotiating in good faith from the beginning," Dean Fletcher, president of the firefighters union, said in a statement. "We are proud that we fought with everything that we had to reach this agreement with the city to avoid brownouts that would have endangered public safety and increased response times."
Is this the same dean fletcher that took $238,821 from the tax bucket for pay an benefits in 2009 according to transparent nevada ? Endangered public safety ???? Oh, I forgot, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
@vegascitizen
prizatization (???} will never happen so five it up.....???????? lmao, seems like that hits a nerve, must be true that ff's would loose 90% of their calls, at least if you meant privatization. Is five it up a secret ff code for something ? lol
I agree with Dan in vegas. It seems like the county is pushing their responsibilities on the city. We as city residents need to call our councilman and councilwomen and complain. The county has plenty of money to cover their own responsibilities.
So, does this mean our precious firefighters can only afford a Chevy Tahoe instead of an Caddy Escalade, and what about the ski boats, will those be down graded to a Bass boat, how will they survive ??
Prizatization will never happen so five it up. Too many times it has been tried and they get a great deal for a year or 2 and then the private company all of a sudden needs more money and when they don't get they pack up and leave and now the municipality has to scramble. Again tell your politicians to solve the OT problem and salaries will be in the normal range