Council Votes to Send Layoff Notices to 220 Firefighters

In a 10-6 vote, Council authorized 60-day layoff notices to be sent to 220 firefighters to assist in paying for the firefighter raises mandated by Prop B, the controversial measure approved by the voters to mandate “pay parity” for Houston’s fire and police departments on the basis of job title/classification and seniority.

Per Controller Chris Brown, the measure is estimated to cost $100,000,000.00 annually, the equivalent of about a 29% raise across the board for firefighters. For context, this is more than the entire General Fund budgets for all of the following City departments, combined: Neighborhoods, Libraries, Housing, the Mayor’s Office, all Council offices, Finance, Business Opportunity, and Human Resources. The Prop B petition, written by the Houston Professional Fire Fighter’s Association union, did not include a funding source for the raises.

Fire Department Chief Pena has reported that, by implementing education parity requirements for those who would receive pay parity raises, the cost of Prop B is brought down to $80,000,000.00 annually.

To pay for these raises, Mayor Turner has proposed a 3 1/2 year phase-in, which would reduce the number of layoffs required to fill the deficit created by Prop B. He shared a proposal with the HPFFA union and has entered mediation with their president, Patrick “Marty” Lancton to negotiate a compromise solution.

Mr. Lancon has previously rejected a proposal to implement the raises over a five year period, which would eliminate the need for any layoffs or cuts to City services. Mr. Lancton did not share specific criticism of the five-year plan beyond questioning whether the plan included both base and incentive pay, which Mayor Turner has confirmed that it does. (Please see rows 3, 4, 7, and 8 in the above linked proposal, which show the incremental and cumulative annual costs for both base and incentive pay in the new proposal.) Mayor Turner has since released publicly the detailed financial information requested by the department.

While both Mayor Turner and Mayor Pro Tem Cohen favor a five-year implementation because there would be no layoffs, a three and a half year phase-in is being offered as a compromise solution, since it would lead to less layoffs than no phase-in at all.

If the raises are not phased in and must be implemented all at once, Prop B will necessitate extensive layoffs and steep cuts to City services like parks and libraries. The layoffs will include:

• laying off 220 firefighters
• laying off 67 unseated cadets
• eliminating 91 currently vacant positions within the Houston Fire Department
• laying off 47 municipal works from the Parks, Health, and Library departments
• eliminating 67 currently vacant positions within those departments

In a presentation on April 9th to the Public Safety Committee, Chief Pena shared that, by restructuring his department to be more efficient, he can achieve his department’s portion of the layoffs while maintaining current public safety standards.

As of Friday, April 26th, Mayor Turner and the HPFFA fire union continue court-ordered mediation. If they are able to reach a compromise solution to phase in the raises over five years, City Council will retract all layoff notices and all employees will retain their jobs.