North Las Vegas firefighters agree to forgo raises to avoid layoffs

The city of North Las Vegas has reached a tentative agreement on contract concessions with its firefighters union that will save the jobs of 16 firefighters and end a months-long stalemate, officials said Thursday.

Under the agreement, which must be ratified by the City Council, the 200 firefighters represented by IAFF Local 1607 will give up their annual cost-of-living and merit or "step" raises for fiscal year 2010-2011, which begins July 1.

In exchange, the city agrees not to lay off any union firefighters during the fiscal year and will increase firefighters' annual leave by 2.9 hours each pay period during the year.

Concession talks have "gone back and forth and been pretty contentious," Councilwoman Anita Wood said Thursday. "Slowly but surely we've been working with the union to get to a place of agreement."

The city, which has been dealing with plummeting revenues in recent years, had looked to save about $1.8 million in its 2010-2011 Fire Department budget by laying off 16 firefighters. Those firefighters had already received lay-off notices effective June 18. Instead, the $1.8 million will now come from union concessions, the city said.

"I'm really pleased for myself and my family," said Brad Iverson, one of the firefighters who had received a layoff notice. "But there are a lot of other people still losing their jobs and that hurts."

The city in April approved eliminating 204 jobs, including the firefighter positions.

Before the agreement, firefighters were scheduled to receive a cost-of-living raise of 3.5 percent in 2010-2011, the city said. Step raises average about 5 percent.

The union also agreed to extend an agreement made with the city last year that decreases the manning of certain engines from five people to four; decrease the starting pay for entry-level firefighters and firefighter paramedics by 5 percent for the life of the union's contract, which runs through 2015; and cut its stand-by pay in half in 2010-2011.

In addition to preserving the 16 positions, the concessions will save North Las Vegas $367,801 in 2010-2011, the city said.

The Fire Department's budget for fiscal year 2010-2011 is $36.3 million, compared to $39.4 million for 2009-2010.

City officials had long said they couldn't agree to guarantee no layoffs in a shaky economy. But Council members Wood and Richard Cherchio said once the firefighters agreed to give up, rather than simply defer, their annual raises, the city could afford to offer that guarantee.

"I'm very glad the union decided to do the right thing by their membership," Cherchio said. "These are people's lives we are dealing with."

Jeff Hurley, president of the union, said city staffers and union officials "had a lot of late night meetings trying to save these firefighters."

"In our profession, we eat dinner together and know each others' families," he said. "It's difficult to say, 'We expect you to get laid off so we can get a raise.'"

Wood said the agreement "sets a positive tone" for negotiations that are still ongoing between the city and its largest employees union, the Teamsters.

North Las Vegas this month adopted a $736.8 million budget for fiscal year 2010-2011, an amount about 10 percent less than the previous year's budget.

The city has since December 2008 undergone several rounds of budget cuts, eliminated or frozen dozens of positions, trimmed departmental budgets and offered voluntary employee buyouts and furloughs.