Firefighter union, county, continue contract conferences

File photo: A Marion County Fire Rescue engine [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2020.

The Marion County Board of County Commissioners (MCBOCC) and the Professional Firefighters of Marion County (PFFMC) are negotiating a new three-year collective bargaining agreement following the expiration of their previous contract in September.

The Professional Firefighters of Marion County is the local chapter of the International Association of Firefighters and is the labor organization that represents its members, who are employed by Marion County Fire Rescue (MCFR), during their negotiations with the county.

The two sides met on Feb. 1, where they went over the county’s most recent counteroffer, which includes $11 million in new money.

The MCFR budget, according to Amanda Tart, executive director of Administrative Services and Human Resources for Marion County, who’s acting as the county’s representative in the negotiations, is split in two, and each section funds a different set of services.

“The fire assessment fee pays for all of the firefighting services,” Tart said. “And then the ambulances and rescues, those are paid for out of the general fund.”

Daniel Garcia, the president of Professional Firefighters of Marion County for the last four years, represents both its rank and file and supervisory members, said sometimes it seems the county, in looking to be fiscally responsible, misses the bigger picture.

“So the M.O. of Marion County Fire Rescue administration has always been to me penny wise and dollar foolish,” he said. “So they generally will try to minimize the amount of immediate fiscal impact at the expense of turnover, lack of retention, future costs, and, of course, taxpayer expense.”

Part of that taxpayer expense, said Garica, comes in the form of individuals who leave the department, which is something MCFR has seen quite a bit of recently.

“We’ve had 36 resignations since October 1, 2021 ad we currently have 65 vacant positions in our department,” said Garcia. “So every employee that has resigned in the last four months represents roughly a $17,000 investment at taxpayer expense to test, process, equip, train, and place these EMT firefighters.”

“The 36 resident resignations mean roughly over a half-million dollars in loss of investment at taxpayer expense, plus another half-million dollars in reinvestment to replace them with new employees,” said Garcia.  “I would say most of our people that are leaving are leaving for higher-paying departments that have a better wage and benefit package.”

Tart said that not every resignation was tied to pay.  It was impossible, she said, to know why those who left chose to and clarified that 18 of the 65 open positions Garcia referenced were only recently added to the budget and not tied to employees who left MCFR.

Garcia said the recent resignations not only have financial effects but operational ones as well.

“So these vacant positions, what they fiscally represent is an increase in our budgetary requirements to fill those spots with overtime, because we will fill those spots. We haven’t blacked-out or browned-out stations or eliminated trucks off of the road,” he said.

“But we currently are not meeting demand; the demand of the citizens and the call volume,” said Garcia. “So what that means is that our budgetary footprint goes exponentially higher when we have these vacant positions. And of course, that’s at taxpayer expense.”

The county, according to Tart, has worked to provide MCFR with what they need to be successful over the years and signaled the board’s willingness to continue to do so.

“So over the past probably five or six years, the county commission has really made public safety a top priority. We’ve added more ambulances, we’ve added more employees, we got pay rates to where they needed to be,” she said. “And now, we know that there are some things we have to do as we go into this next contract, and the board is willing to do that. And so we think that the offer is more than fair and addresses the needs of the department.”

Garcia pointed out that MCPFF’s role in the negotiation is to ensure a level of equality for MCFR, but also to keep in mind a higher obligation to the county’s citizens.

“So what we’re trying to mitigate in all of this, is to make sure we have obviously a fair and balanced wage and benefit package for our employees, but also something that while it may cost a little bit more upfront, saves the taxpayer millions of dollars on the back end because we’re not losing employees to other local higher-paying departments and we’re not hemorrhaging experience, which is what has been our issue for many years,” he said.

The current round of negotiations included both rank and file as well as supervisory members in a single contract, a break from previous contracts where the two groups each had their own collective bargaining agreement.

Tart said grouping the two into one contract made sense to both sides.

“It’s something that both the union and management knew was the right thing to do,” she said.  “There’s no reason to have two separate contracts for a group of people that are first responders doing the same type of work.”

Garcia agreed and said it should simplify the process, but said the current negotiation process is not being done efficiently.

“It’s been difficult,” he said. “We presented our initial proposal to the county on Feb. 10, 2021. We’re almost a full calendar year away from our initial proposal to the county and it took them over eight months to get back to us with their counteroffer. And in that time, of course, you’ve lost a ton of employees. We’ve had COVID, It’s been a difficult run. So the actual negotiations process is grueling, but we’re working through it.”

Tart acknowledged the delay and pointed to a multitude of factors such as departmental changes, the process of combining two contracts into one, working out the finances of MCPFF’s contractual demands, and of course, COVID, as all playing a role in getting back to the table.

“Working our way through that contract and all of the things the union asked for, and then going back and costing those out. Because a lot of times, they give us a proposal and a lot of the things that they want to do they have a cost, whether it’s an increase in tuition reimbursement, or it’s new boots, or it’s new uniforms, or any of the things that they asked for come with a price,” she said. “And so we have to go back then and figure out, ‘Hey, what is that going to cost us, and is it something that we can afford? And is it something that we’re willing to pay for, and it is now the time to do that?’ So all of those things factor into the length of time it takes to get back to the negotiations.”

Garcia recognizes that issues do arise, including the pandemic, but he said the county’s delay has pushed their timeline back significantly.

“Our hope was to complete these negotiations during the summer of 2021. And we mentioned that to them at the initiation of negotiations on February 10, 2021.”

The longer discussions, in Garcia’s view, favor the MCBOCC.

“The county benefits by dragging on contract negotiations when they refuse to pay a retro (retroactive pay) back to when the contract is actually effective. So if they were, hypothetically speaking, to drag the negotiations on for two years and 364 days, and then agree on that last day of the contract, they have saved themselves essentially three years of benefits, salaries, and wages increases,” he said. “So obviously, it benefits the county. However, we’re in a position now as an organization where we need employees, we need to fill vacant spots, our workload is through the roof, and our retention is poor. So we need to get a contract done last year that addresses these issues so that we can hire, recruit, train, and retain high-quality employees.”

At their Feb. 1 negotiation meeting, Tart stated that while the county is willing to compromise in some areas, offering retroactive pay, or back pay, is not one of them.

While the two sides may not agree on the issue of retroactive pay, one area they do agree on is the importance of making sure the contract’s language is worded correctly.

“In a contract, one small word can change the meaning of everything,” Tart said. “So as we go through, it’s important for us to listen to both sides, and to ensure that whether it’s a ‘will’ or a ‘may’ or a ‘must,’ that each side understands the implications of those words.

Garcia concurred and added, it’s not just the words that matter but also who is defining them after the contract is written.

“What I’ve learned about a collective bargaining agreement is that it’s a legal document that almost exclusively lives in gray areas,” said Garcia. “So I do recognize that a contract is up for interpretation, and it depends on who’s interpreting [it] to dictate fine point details.”

Tart said that it becomes tricky to add anything that was not previously agreed to, which speaks to the importance of getting the language just right.

“Once we have these contracts in place it can be quite difficult to navigate our way through changes, once a contract is signed by the board,” she said.

If the two sides are not able to agree on language, or a contract, after their upcoming meeting or beyond, Tart detailed how the negotiations would proceed from that point on.

“So, if we get to a point where we’re essentially at an impasse, meaning, ‘Hey, we’re down to these couple items and we’re not willing to change our stance and neither is the union,’ then we would go to an impasse,” she said. “And at that time, the Board of County Commissioners changes from the Board of County Commissioners who is negotiating back and forth to a quasi-judicial legislative body. And then at that time, neither side can have any communication with them regarding anything to do with union negotiations.”

She said the two sides would then meet with the board where they would both present their options,  and then “the board would make a decision on what type of a contract they want to essentially impose. And then the union will bring that contract or that agreement back to their body and they’ll vote on it.”

If the PFFMC body does not vote to accept the contract, Tart said the MCBOCC can choose to impose the contract, but only for one year, rather than a three-year term.

After that year is up, according to Tart, the negotiations start over and the process plays out again.

If the two sides can agree to a contract without coming to an impasse, Garcia said it then goes to the PFFMC main body for acceptance, which only requires a simple majority vote of its 510 members.

“There’s a 15-day notice requirement for a vote on a contract ratification to our membership. So it would take at least that much time to get us to hold a three-day vote for the ratification of the contract,” he said. “So if it were to ratify, we then submit it back to the county and now we have a ratified CBA (collective bargaining agreement). And at that point, they need to have it approved and adopted by the county commission at the next meeting that it’s on the agenda.”

Both Tart and Garcia are optimistic the two sides aren’t that far off.

“We’re hopeful that they’re going to come back with something that we’re able to both agree to, and then have a contract to bring to the employees to vote on,” Tart said. “And hopefully, they’ll vote yes. And then we’ll be able to get it to the board. I mean, surely impasse is not something that either side wants.”

“I’m hopeful that the current state of the department has incentivized both sides to reach an agreement as soon as possible for the betterment of the Marion County taxpayer,” Garica said. “Because we do render a critical service. So we need to be able to retain, hire, and train employees to meet demands for the citizens and taxpayers of Marion County…it’s like a dance.”

The two sides were expected to resume negotiations on Feb. 10; check out the Feb. 18^th issue of the Ocala Gazette for an update.

The next meeting in the negotiations is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 10 at 9:00 a.m. and will be held in the Employee Wellness Center located at 2730 E. Silver Springs Blvd., Unit 300.