Clark County firefighters lock in pay raises, 1 more vacation day in contract

The 720 Clark County Fire Department employees covered by the firefighters union locked in pay raises for the next three years and one extra vacation day in a new four-year contract.

The County Commission on Tuesday approved the contract, which carries a roughly $7.6 million fiscal impact to the county for the years the contract is in place.

Firefighters will see a 1.5 percent pay hike and an extra vacation day during the first year of the contract, which will cost the county an additional nearly $2.6 million. The 2 percent increases in each of the second and third years of the contract will cost the county $2,442,358 and $2,525,977, respectively.

The additional vacation day for firefighters is one 24-hour shift. That extra day will continue in perpetuity, unless it’s negotiated out of a contract in the future. Firefighters opted for the additional vacation day during the first year rather than the full 2 percent pay increase.

The 2 percent raises are mostly in line with the pay hikes the commission granted some of the county’s other public employee unions two weeks ago. Those unions saw 2 percent pay increases, effective July 1. Some of the approved increases were 2 percent for consecutive years, others were for just the current fiscal year.

The firefighters contract calls for a fiscal reopener during the fourth and final year of the contract for a cost-of-living adjustment. The contract runs through June 30, 2020. Captains are included in this contract. Chiefs have their own contract.

The current annual cost of the contract is $127.1 million. The union’s members ratified the new contract in late June.

The vacation time firefighters receive depends on their seniority with the department. Those with five or fewer years receive eight shifts; 10 shifts for six to nine years of experience; 12 shifts for more than a decade of service and 15 shifts of vacation for 15 years of service.

There was public outcry several years ago when a series of emails obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed an apparent misuse of sick time by county firefighters. In 2012, the newspaper reported employees had cut back on sick leave requests by 57,000 hours in the two years since county officials began questioning potential abuses of the system.

Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Find @JamieMunksRJ on Twitter.