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Editorial: Reasonable raises for Sacramento firefighters
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, May 5, 2008
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B6
The Sacramento City Council approved a two-year, 10.3 percent pay raise for city firefighters and paramedics last week. Under the contract, firefighters working paramedic shifts would get even more – 7.5 percent equity increase on top of the 10.3 percent raise.
The city faces a $30 million deficit this year and a projected deficit of $58 million next year. To close the budget gap, Sacramento plans to cut its work force by 10 percent through attrition and layoffs.
Given that, a pay raise for firefighters that exceeds the cost of living may seem excessive. But it isn't. Here's why.
All of the bargaining units representing city workers will receive pay raises of either 4 percent or 5 percent this year, based on contracts negotiated two years ago. It just happens that the firefighters' contract, unlike the others, expires this June in the middle of a budget crisis. The city had planned to give its firefighters an increase on par with what had been approved for city police.
Had the council not approved the increase, firefighters almost certainly would have gone to arbitration and almost certainly would have been awarded at least their 5 percent pay increase. Under those circumstances, the 10.3 percent raise was sensible.
The additional 7.5 percent annual increase that goes to paramedics was a legitimate recruitment and retention issue for the city. Paramedics account for nearly 80 percent of emergency calls.
They respond to medical emergencies and accidents. They run into gruesome situations – children drowned in swimming pools, mangled bodies that have to be extracted from car crashes, the body parts of people who've been hit by trains.
The burn-out rate for paramedics is understandably high. The 7.5 percent equity raise on top of the 5 percent annual pay hike represents a legitimate effort by Sacramento to reward people for difficult jobs and to keep experienced paramedics in the department.
That's reason enough to award raises that at first glance might seem unreasonably high.
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