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The city of Winston-Salem is mulling over a decision to cut its firefighters' sick and vacation time by half. In an interview with the Journal Friday, City Manager Pat Pate said the potential choice is part of an effort to correct Winston-Salem's philosophy on how it competes in the marketplace for recruiting and retention of employees. For years, the city has offered a better benefits package for firefighters but hasn't offered pay that is competitive enough with that of other municipalities, Pate said.
Sick, vacation and holiday time off for Winston-Salem firefighters is double that of other city employees and roughly double time off for some neighboring fire departments, yet pay for entry level firefighters without a 4-year degree or military experience is 4 to 7% lower than comparable fire departments. Because salary is the primary factor in most job decisions, according to Pate, the city is not being as competitive as it could be when recruiting employees by prioritizing benefits. People are also reading.
.. Pate argued that the philosophy of more benefits but less starting pay is costing residents more than what they might pay in taxes in other cities and that it makes the city less competitive.
Coupled with what will likely be a significantly tight budget process ahead for the city, Winston-Salem authorities have to "look at doing the things that keep us competitive but that are not in excess of what other people are doing," Pate said. Part of the elephant in the room is that, at best, the city will have no growth in federal and state revenue within its budget, according to Pate. And with the country's current inflation rate, it will be difficult to decide how to fund "basic city government," Pate said.
"We're in a different place in time right now," said Winston-Salem Mayor Pro-Tempore D.D. Adams when the city staff presented the potential change Monday.
"County's got issues, school board's got issues. All of us do." "But the one thing we know is we have to keep the house whole," Adams said.
The potential decision about sick and vacation time has already drawn fierce opposition from Winston-Salem's firefighters' union, which is fresh off their battle against the city's call to reduce staffing levels in February because of the fire department's overspending of its overtime budget. "We feel like we're being kicked while we're already down," said Ashton "Perry" Parrinello, the president of the local union. "Firefighters feel really undervalued, and for good reason.
" Firefighters stand to go from 288 hours of sick time per year to 134 hours per year, under the new proposal. The plan would also lessen accrued vacation time for firefighters in their first year from 240 to 112 hours per year. Pate defended the plan and said that the change will put firefighters' benefits on par with other city employees.
Firefighters typically work 121 days out of the year, while regular 40 hour a week employees work 260 days out of the year, Pate added. For firefighters, who work a 24-hour shift and then have two days off, their schedule naturally works so that they only have to take two shifts off to have a week of leave, said Pate. "(Sick leave) is not supposed to be something you use every time," Pate said.
"It's intended to be banked so you can use it when you're sick." But Parrinello said comparing other city employees to firefighters is like comparing apples to oranges. Because firefighters work a 56-hour work week, against a 40-hour work week, they would stand to work much more hours over their total career, Parrinello said.
"We work 25,000 hours more and you want to give us the same benefits? Who's going to take that deal?" Parrinello said. "No one." The job of a firefighter is much more physically demanding than that of any other city employee and requires much more time off, Parrinello argued in an interview with the Journal.
Reasons for time off, such as shoulder surgeries, could require much more leave than for other city employees because of the nature of a firefighter's job, Parrinello said. "You could never even see a fire and get exposed to cancer," Parrinello said, referencing how firefighters are exposed to carcinogens on a daily basis. When asked about the physical hazards for firefighters, Pate referenced other city employees like police officers and the city's utilities workers who "work in very tough environments as well.
" Ultimately, the change could address many financial impacts that are even nearer, according to city staff. Pate said Friday that it was "logical" to presume that if you are accruing more sick and vacation time off than other employees then it will give you more chances to be off than others. Thus, the higher numbers of sick and leave time off for firefighters has impacted the budget from an overtime basis, said assistant city manager Sharon Wojda Monday.
Because firefighters had more time off, it required more overtime spending to maintain staffing numbers, contributing to the fire department using 75% of its overtime budget with more than several months to go in the fiscal year. The development led to the city's choice to reduce the number of available firefighters every day to protect the remaining overtime funds. "When you're trying to maintain minimum level service, yes you could point to that as something that would increase need for overtime," Pate said.
Pension 'spiking' In discussions with the city council Monday, Pate mentioned he had a conversation with firefighters when he was first hired in which they asked him to fix how their sick leave contributed to their retirement planning. Here's how it works: when a person has more than 30 vacation hours rolled into a sick leave balance, unused sick leave is converted into years of service when someone retires. But if a firefighter has earned excesses and excesses of sick leave, their pension payments would exceed the state's forecasted amount for a single employee.
That leads the state to charge the city of Winston-Salem a "pension spiking payment", which can total $100,000 per employee for retired firefighters, according to Wojda. "They couldn't use all the accrual time we were giving them," Pate said. "They wanted us to fix that so they could retire earlier.
" Under the city's new proposal to change the amount of benefits for firefighters, the massive cut in sick and vacation time could likely help prevent the city from additional "pension spiking" payments. But the discussion over the firefighters pensions isn't all that's left: city staff is planning to look at salary adjustments during the upcoming budget process and will compare vacation and holiday accrual rates for all city employees in a May general government committee meeting. None of the changes are final, either.
The Winston-Salem city council will vote on the proposals in June during the budgeting process. But way ahead of the final call, Parrinello told the Journal he plans to fight against the city's efforts to halve firefighter's benefits. Parrinello said he has meetings with city council members and the city manager's office, and plans to speak at the city's council meeting on Monday.
"I've got firefighters with one foot out of the door," Parrinello said. "Why did you think this was a good time?" Winston-Salem City Manager Pat Pate Ashton Parrinello Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
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