By James Carlson
Topeka Capital-Journal (Kansas)
Copyright 2006 The Topeka Capital-Journal
All Rights Reserved
With fingers crossed for good luck, the city of Topeka and firefighters have a new contract.
More than a year of often contentious negotiations could come to an end if the Topeka City Council approves the deal at Tuesday’s meeting.
According to city spokesman David Bevens, negotiators for the city and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local No. 83 reached the four-year agreement about a week ago.
“We’re pleased by the good-faith efforts put forth by both parties, and we’re hopeful the council will agree with what the firefighters have already approved,” Bevens said.
The agreement lays out a 10.4 percent increase in wages over the next two years and a retroactive increase of a combined 4.6 percent for 2005 and 2006. Some of the benefits currently enjoyed by firefighters, such as meal and uniform allowances and fire medic pay, would now be folded into the wage increases.
Bevens said this change should be to the liking of the union by allowing future pay increases to be based on a bigger base salary.
“It is good from a policy standpoint because it’s a better way to compensate a person for what they do,” he said.
Capt. Kent Dederich, president of Local 83, confirmed the tentative agreement but said he wouldn’t comment until after Tuesday’s meeting.
Topeka firefighters continue to work under a 2001 contract that ended Dec. 31, 2004, but has a provision that both sides will honor it until a new contract is in place.
Negotiations for that new contract often took a bitter tone during the past year.
In September, after two months of talks between the sides and an outside mediator, the union rejected an offer from the city. Bevens then released details of the city’s offer, and Dederich accused Bevens of breaking state regulations by bargaining in bad faith.
The city’s offer, according to Bevens’ September news release, included an 11 percent pay increase over the three-year period from 2005 to 2007. The tentative agreement includes a 15 percent increase from 2005 to 2008.
The retroactive hikes for 2005 and 2006 would be 1.5 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively. Aggregate increases for 2007 and 2008 would be 5.4 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
Over that four-year period, firefighters’ annual salary would increase anywhere from $5,039 to $8,935.
Those increases would be partially offset by phasing out ad-pay benefits, including the following:
- $720 annual medic pay. Currently, firefighters receive money for maintaining their emergency medical technician status, which is a requirement of the job.
- $480 annual meal allowance.
- An up to $600 annual uniform allowance. Instead, the new agreement proposes giving firefighters free replacement uniforms when needed.
These offsets will cover some but not all of the proposed $718,000 in pay increases for 2007.
According to a document on the city council’s Web site, the fire department will need $200,000 more than the department’s 2007 authorized budget, which was passed by the council in August.