Firefighters propose cuts

[Henry Apfelbach]

I read this a few months ago.
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/opinions/x13292164/COLUMN-American-workers-got-what-they-deserved

 

[30ashopper]

30a, so are you telling me that you think this job is pretty simple?

No I do not, and I think the 25 year term is perfectly understandable.

What I am questioning:

1) are the members of the union currently overpaid when you take into account salary and benefits?
2) Is there an unfunded liability with the pension fund?

If yes to 2:

A) how serious is the problem?
B) should firefighters and/or the county be contributing more?

I like running forward looking scenarios, and I'd like to do that on the fund. As I've mentioned previous the core problem with any defined benefits pension system is that none of the active players have the incentive keep the system on sound financial footing. The union constantly works to increase benefits - which increases liability. Elected officials constantly work to keep taxpayer contributions to a minimum, and it seems in our case have let the union walk all over them in the past during negotiations - which increases liability. So here we are in a very typical fiscal situation where the pension fund is underfunded but by how much we do not know as the actuarial studies aren't using the right assumptions. (As I previously stated I'm amazed something like this could come about in Walton County.)

 

[30ashopper]

30a, When I got the numbers I was told that they are slightly different from the numbers in the valuation study. The person who gave me the numbers did not know why they are different, but the numbers I have provided as best I can tell deal only with the investment portion of the plan. If we don't hear from Buzz I'll try one other person to see if they know why there is a difference.

Someone must have copies of the actuarial studies that have been done in the past. As a basis that's really all we need. From that we can figure out typical return rates and wage increase history, both of which are key to figuring out what state the fund is in.

 

[30ashopper]

Absolutely, I chose this career and I have no beef. That still does not make me say I should do the job for you for free. Your elected officials and our labor leadership sat down and decided what was fair through negotiations. I have no idea how old you are, what kind of work you do or what you are paid and what your retirement plan is like, but if you are making more money than me, living large on your retirement, living in a huge house on the beach, I am not jealous of you matter of fact, congrats, at the same time quit thinking that what we do is meaningless and some how we are less deserving of our wage and pension because we are public employees. You do what you do, we do what we do. So are you going to run for Fire Board or what?

I don't care how much firefighters in the district make, as long as there is no long term liability in the pension for taxpayers and the taxes levied on the citizens are reasonable when compared to the services they receive.


Bob, you don't seem very concerned about the state of the trust fund that will pay your benefits, why is that? Is this not something you should concern yourself with?

 

[Diane]

As long as you brought up the raises in 2006, I just want to clear something up for the taxpayer's sake. When the raises were proposed (and I believe some raises were up to 27%) the two civilians working for the District at that time (myself and the fiscal officer) were told by the fire chief at that time, that we would also be included in these huge raises. When it came time to finalize the details, Mr. Abbit met with the former fire chief and told him that the support staff was not to be included in these huge raises, that we were support personnel and were not to be included because our value to the District was not the same as a firefighter. I was personnally told this by that fire chief. There was also a salary survey taken of my position and the fiscal officer's, which provided salary information that relayed that we were "underpaid" compared to other District's in the surrounding area, just like the salary survey did for the line personnel. Shortly after these raises and the former fire chief departed, the commissioners voted themselves their stipend. Just my opinion, but it appeared to me that two members who worked just as hard as the firefighters (maybe not at as high a risk level) and certainly worked more hours than the commissioners (no high risk going on there), were not included because of a commissioners opinion of support personnel.

Also, in the 2009-2012 negotiations, there were no raises negotiated, but every firefighter received an increase of 100 hours each of paid time off (in my opinion, time is money). This lead to line personnel taking more time off (I don't blame them, if you give someone more paid time off they are going to use it)and increased the overtime paid out to extraordinary amounts. So much so, that the District had to implement Adaptive Staffing in order to try to cut down on overtime.

Just wanted to clear that up for what it's worth.

 

[30ashopper]

Diane, any idea what the PTO schedule is for current firefighters? This doesn't seem to be part of the pension agreement, so I'm assuming we have some other form of agreement with the union. I wonder how all these extra benefits are tracked.

 

[scooterbug44]

100 hours of paid time off - hell yes that is a raise!

Question - what exactly do Fire Commissioners do? I am wondering if both fire and mosquito commissioners are positions we could reduce or eliminate.

 

[Diane]

I used to know, but truly can't remember right now. It is public record. You can make a public records request, which is very easy or you can call the fiscal officer at the District and they may even tell you over the phone. It is not part of the pension, it is in the Union Contract (Collective Bargaining Agreement 2009-2012). There are tracking mechanisms in place for all benefits and they should be able to provide that information also quite easily.

Thanks.

I forget to mention in my earlier post that the administrative personnel did not receive the extra 100 hours and are not part of the union contract.

 

[Diane]

Glad you agree. I thought it was a poor decision to make during difficult economic times.

I have no idea what the "mosquito commissioners do", which is my own fault for not staying informed regarding taxpayer funds. I do believe they receive a stipend also, but not certain about that or any other benefits they may receive.

As for fire commissioners, I'm sure someone will get into some lengthy detail about what they do; but from what I have observed, it's not that difficult; and as all things in life, some take it very seriously and others don't appear to, but for $500 a month they should all be taking it extremely seriously. They are elected officials with responsibility for the spending of taxpayer money.

 

[Henry Apfelbach]

If you want to see what the PTO chage was go to www.local3516.com and find the tab for contracts. You can see the last three contracts there and you can see the changes to the Leave sysem. under the current contract Article 14 is PTO.

Diane, I know the conventional wisdom was that when we changed over there was more Overtime becuase of the leave. I asked one day if anyone had run the numbers to see how many hours were actually used. With no suprise at all no one had. We (labor) went back and based on the daliy staffing counted up all the Unscheduled Paid time Off (which is what causes overtime) and to our suprise the year before we had the increase in leave there was 500 more hours of sick time/UPTO used. In fact with the exception of the first two months after we started the consolidation of time, the useage has been less every month than the same month the year before.

The increase in PTO that is mentioned was not just given out. If you look in previous contracts you will see that we got the same ammount of leave minus 72hrs. We asked for 3 more paid holiday days off. In the previous contract we recieved 3 paid days off for 10 recognized holidays. Admin staff gets all 10 days off including the big ones like Christmas etc. That was the increase we asked for and that was the increase given to the firefighting staff. 72 more hours a year.