Editor’s Note: The Professional Firefighters of The Villages, IAFF Local 4770, Union Executive Board released the following statement in response to an article written by District Manager Janet Tutt about the status of negotiations. You can read Tutt’s piece at Janet Tutt – Negotiations’misrepresented’
What District Manager Janet Tutt is not telling you, is that the proposed “pay increases” are geared toward the future employee. Their proposal is just an attempt to attract new employees and it does not fairly compensate its current, experienced, and loyal employee.
The Villages Fire/Rescue is currently unable to get more than a handful of applications for multiple positions, this is unheard of in the fire service. The ones we do get are inexperienced applicants straight out of school and they are now even willing to waive qualifications, such as the state standard EMT certification, to get applicants.
The Villages Community Development Districts’ proposal will compress salaries to a point where a 10-year loyal and experienced medic will make just $1,500 more than an inexperienced new hire. To put this into prospective and so you have some numbers the proposed “longevity” increase of 3 percent, this being for Fire/Medics with nine years or more of experience, is just $1,440. With your firefighters working 2912 hours a year this breaks down to just .49 cents an hour; if the district feels that this is valuing their employees then we strongly disagree. This proposal shows that the district is only concerned with filling our current openings and with attempting to fill the upcoming positions due to the rapid growth. They have shown no concern with keeping the current employee. They are content with your department being a “stepping stone” or “training ground” for surrounding departments. This has been a tremendous cost to the department and a waste of your money. The money that has been wasted would have funded the fair raises that the Union is asking for. If the district thinks that this turnover and the waiving of certifications does not affect the safety of both the firefighters and the community then we are sorry, but they are mistaken.
Over the years the Local 4770 and Villages Fire/Rescue employees, through the collective bargaining process, have foregone raises to get the retirement to where it is. Due to this, our pay is far behind and we are losing employees. The district is portraying that their proposal will bring us up to the highest paid in the area, well this is true if you compare us to departments with less stations, less call volume, and far less residents served. These departments are not taking your firefighters. When compared to the departments in the area that your firefighters are leaving for, are of our comparable size, and have close to the number of residents served the district’s proposal will still leave us amongst the lowest paid. The district has also included a top out pay with no path to reach it. Jacksonville was stated to have just gone to a defined contribution retirement plan, while this may be true we invite you and the district to look at the contribution that they will be receiving.
To be clear the Local 4770 has never made any representations or misrepresentations about Ms. Tutt or any individuals on their negotiation team although individuals on the Local 4770’s team have been personally attacked. You can read about this for yourselves in a letter written to the editor of Villages-News by an unbiased resident that attended one of our negotiations. Also, there has never been any proposal by the District to increase staffing numbers on our engines or ladders. By using Ms. Tutt’s number of 1 percent of the calls being related to the number of firefighters on an engine, this equates to roughly 250 opportunities for a firefighter or resident death or injury to occur. Due to our current staffing numbers, the chance of these injuries or deaths occurring increases. While staffing is a concern, the real disagreement with the district is the attrition rate and their value, or lack of, the current employee.
The Local 4770 of The Villages Fire/Rescue wants nothing more than this department to attract and retain the best firefighters possible. We want this to be a place that your current employees and many others want to spend their careers and retire from. We want to retain your firefighters and stop the turnover. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us via Facebook at Professional Firefighters of The Villages, IAFF 4770 or by email at secretaryiaff4770@gmail.com.
Professional Firefighters of The Villages, IAFF Local 4770, Union Executive Board
