The conflict between the city of Tallahassee and its firefighters has ratcheted up another notch with the departures of three members of the Tallahassee Fire Department in the last few weeks. Now several elected officials have joined the public in demanding answers. But Mayor John Dailey is stonewalling.
Last month Dailey appeared at a luncheon meeting of NEBA, the Network of Entrepreneurs and Business Advocates. While he was there, a member of the audience asked him a question:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: “My question is directed toward the fire department. I understand that they’re one of the lowest-paid in the state…that the surrounding five counties are making more money than a major municipality, which is here. If I’m wrong, please, I’ll stand corrected. But I’d like to know if there is anything in the works, if we’re going to bring our guys up to some standards within the state.”
DAILEY: “That’s a great question, and I will tell you point blank that that information is not accurate, or else you would have a huge exodus of members of the Tallahassee Fire department that would be going to surrounding areas.”
That was February 27th. In the last month, three firefighters have left. Two took to social media where they wrote they felt a “lack of respect” from the city.
The firefighters began bargaining with the city one year ago and have met 20 times with the city's negotiating team with no agreement. They want across-the-board raises for all firefighters, but the city offer focuses on raising starting salaries -- and they’d still be making less than most other fire departments in the state. Dailey told the NEBA audience the city had made the firefighters an “incredible offer,” but he says he thinks the union hasn’t told its members what it is.
“I have a feeling that if they took our offer to the table, it would pass," Dailey said. "They need to take the offer. They need to call for a formal vote. For them to stand up and cast the criticism on the city without actually taking our last offer to the table for a vote, I don’t know what to tell you.”
According to Joey Davis, president of the local firefighters' union, the chart with the city’s pay proposal is posted in every fire station.
“The city actually forced our battalion chiefs to put that in every station back in December," Davis said. "So, we’ve seen it, our people have seen it. ”
Davis also says when the firefighters reviewed the city’s last two proposals, roughly 75 percent of the members wanted to reject them.
Right now, the entry-level rank -- that of firefighter -- starts at just over $44,000. The city’s offers have focused on increasing the salary for that rank more than the others because recruiting is such a problem.
“So, their last offer that they gave was 4 percent to firefighter rank, and I believe it was 1.5 percent to the engineer rank -- and nothing to any of the other ranks,” she said.
That’s AnnaMarie Shealy, who is married to a firefighter with the rank of engineer. They have small children.
To put the offer to the firefighters in context, all the general employees of the city of Tallahassee got a 5 percent, across-the-board raise in this budget year.
Shealy says she and her family don’t want to move, but the numbers are catching up with them.
“We don’t want to have to move just to keep a roof over our heads or feed our kids or have it to where he’s not working two jobs," she said. "He’s currently working … he has a lawn business on the side and he works as a firefighter. And that’s because we can’t afford, on his salary, for him to not have two jobs.”
Dailey told the NEBA audience the city was doing the best it could to resolve the conflict.
“We will continue to support the department, and we do it with incredible pay, we do it with incredible opportunities to move up in the ranks, we do it with incredible opportunities to serve this community, and we love the fire department," Dailey said. "But we’re not talking about the department per se as negotiating with the union leadership and what is the union leadership going to do with this vote.”
Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor is hosting a town hall meeting with the Tallahassee firefighters Thursday night, March 21st, at 6 p.m. at the Northeast Leon County Library.
