The International Association of Firefighters Local 4069 met in this union hall in Bronson to ratify their three year contract with the Levy County Commission. The vote was 21-4 to approve the contract.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Members of a public employee labor union voted 21-4 Tuesday to ratify a contract offer from the Levy County Commission giving them a $4,684 increase in their base pay over the next three years.
The vote was a victory for county commissioners who had negotiated with the International Association of Firefighters Local 4069 for a year and had declared an impasse when union leaders wouldn’t agree to their terms.
An impasse hearing had been scheduled for Aug. 17 and union leaders were threatening to take their grievances to a special magistrate before the contract vote ended the conflict.
The one sticking point that ground negotiations to the point of a stalemate was the county’s insistence that employees pay 15 percent of their individual health insurance. The county would pay the rest.
Until now, the county commission has always paid the full cost of individual employee health insurance. Two years ago, the county commission also stopped paying for family health insurance, shifting that cost to employees as well.
But after a year of hard-fought negotiations and with no sign of progress in contract talks, employees decided to accept the $4,684 three-year pay raise the county was offering rather than continue to fight.
Commission Chairman Matt Brooks said he was impressed by the employee vote.
“It’s pretty much a majority and pretty much a statement to pass it,” he said. “I think it was a good contract and I think it will be good for the employees and definitely good for the county as far as health insurance goes.”
Brooks was referring to the 85/15 split of health insurance costs between county government and the employees, with employees paying 15 percent of the cost of their individual insurance and the county commission paying 85 percent.
Katy Graves, president of IAFF Local 4069, said after the county declared an impasse the membership voted on what the county was offering and approved it by a vote of 21-4.
She said part of the contract is an offer by the county to provide a stipend of about $1,700 to offset health insurance costs. She said the stipend will be added to each employee’s base pay as part of the overall raise, but she said the additional 15 percent employees will pay for health insurance erases that portion of the raise entirely.
Graves had predicted employees would reject the contract.
The contract goes to the Levy County Commission for ratification by the full board.
Brooks said he had been told by someone that Gilchrist County was offering more starting pay than Levy County and as a result, Levy County would be losing EMS employees to Gilchrist. He said the statement wasn’t true.
“At the end of the day, starting pay will go up above Gilchrist by thousands of dollars, not hundreds of dollars over three years,” he said. “We still have some work to do for existing employees in the coming years.”
Brooks said he hopes the county doesn’t get hit with any more surprises like the COVID-19 outbreak, which has cost the county money. He said the county will be reviewing its special assessments, including the EMS assessment at an upcoming meeting. He said the board is going to look at shoring up its revenues.
“I think we’re on the right track. That was our goal as a board, I know me personally, was to get health insurance costs under control as much as we can and address wages and we’ve done that over the past 3 ½ years,” Brooks said.
Brooks said public safety positions (firefighter and EMS) are difficult to fill. He said Levy County will never be able to compete for wages against Marion County and Alachua County, which have much larger budgets and tax bases. Brooks said Marion County’s budget for public safety alone is around $70 million compared to $98 million for the entire Levy County Commission budget.
“How are we supposed to compete against Marion and Alachua counties? That’s never happening. It’s unrealistic,” Brooks said. “The higher wages we’re offering will help us recruit better. I’d like to see us look at some good longevity increases for people who decided to stick it out with us longer. It’s something we talked about for the last year and a half, so that’s something we can look at in the future.”
Brooks said he told some Levy County employees today that he knows social media was used in Marion County to put a lot of pressure on the county commission there, “and they were able to get stuff accomplished.”
“But you can’t take the same process used in the other county and try to brand our county and think our commissioners are going to respond in the same fashion. We’re all different,” he said. “I said some of you guys need to be more positive and stop beating the agency down and try to promote what’s good about it. At the end of the day, you’re going to have a hard time recruiting people if you can’t tell them why they should work there. So hopefully they’ll take that advice and hopefully. we can work together. We got a ton of good employees.”
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt August 11, 2020; Posted August 11, 2020
