Elgin fire union opposes proposal to cut overtime
Elgin Fire Department union officials "vehemently" oppose a cut in overtime in 2018 but stopped short of saying they'd file a complaint.
The city's proposed budget includes cutting department staffing from 34 to 32 firefighters per shift, a savings of $700,000. No one would be laid off, City Manager Rick Kozal said.
Edward Hanson, vice president of International Association of Firefighters Local 439, said the issue is not the loss of overtime pay, but having fewer people on shift. "There definitely will not be enough people to do our job to the level we have done it," he said.
The department operates on a high overtime model, meaning the city chooses to pay overtime rather than hire more firefighters - whose starting pay is $67,181.
Mayor David Kaptain said "it's appropriate" to cut overtime to balance the $116.4 million general fund. The plan is to also use $876,000 from reserves, create a new gasoline tax, and increase sales and hotel/motel taxes.
The department would create two more "jump companies," meaning either a fire engine or ambulance would respond based on the nature of a call, Kaptain said. About 80 percent of calls are for ambulance service, he said.
"We've done the experiment with the jump company in my neighborhood, and the service stayed the same," Kaptain said.
Hanson said firefighters have been overworked since the city decreased shift staffing from 36 to 34 people a few years ago, a decision supported by an arbitrator in 2015. He claimed that, as a result, there have been more injuries on the job, but he couldn't immediately produce data to that effect.
Kaptain said he'd want to see numbers going back at least a decade. The fire union "would have to prove that," he said.
Councilman Rich Dunne said he's concerned about the proposed cut. "The city manager says safety will not be compromised," he said. "But any time you reduce the amount of people and create a longer time to assemble the firefighting force, that is a reduction of safety."
Dunne said he fears the union will file an unfair labor practice complaint if staffing is reduced.
"Nobody hopes it goes that far," Hanson said. "We believe it's imperative that the city finds some other way to balance the budget as opposed to what we may or may not do."
Dunne said the department should consider taking on alarm monitoring for businesses, which one expert estimated at up to $450,000 in revenues. The city also could draw more money from reserves next year, he said. The proposed budget has $43.6 million in reserves at the end of 2018, or 38 percent of operations, above the city's policy of 30 percent or more.