By Terry Witt- Spotlight Senior Reporter
Union officials representing Levy County paramedics, EMTs, and firefighters asked the county earlier this week to do a memorandum of understanding that would give them just the $4 per hour raise originally offered by the county while they negotiated the other issues.
The county rejected the memorandum.
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) would be an informal agreement that would allow the raises to be given out but wouldn’t be legally binding on either side involved in the negotiations.
The International Association of Firefighters Local 4069 said it hasn’t voted on the county’s contract offer for a $4 across-the-board pay raise.
“We have not voted on the contract because there are still some articles and language that hasn’t been agreed on,” said IAFF 4069 President Ryan Tietjen. “We can’t just vote for 1 article. It has to be the whole contract. We have not rejected the $4 raise though.”
Tietjen said he asked the county negotiating team at a Jan. 24 bargaining session to prepare an MOU for the $4 raise as a way to get more paramedics and EMTs hired to run the ambulances while negotiations are in progress.
“We could start getting people in here and get Rescue 8 in Fanning Springs back open, then we can sort the rest of the articles out in the next few months and they did not want any part of that,” Tietjen said.
County Coordinator Wilbur Dean was asked to comment on Tietjen’s offer for an MOU on the $4 raise.
“Not without approval of the whole contract,” Dean responded.
The union wants to keep the current practice of senior paramedics getting first choice on EMS station assignments, a process known as “bidding,” but the county says it wants Department of Public Safety Director Mitch Harrell to make those assignments in the future. Harrell said the bidding process strands less experienced personnel at the less attractive EMS stations and he is losing people because of the policy.
Union officials also want to keep a policy that allows them to count sick leave as hours worked toward overtime. The county negotiating team, including Harrell, said that’s also a non-starter as far as the county is concerned.
The county offered the $4 across-the-board pay raise as an effort to attract more paramedics and EMTs to Levy County EMS. Staffing shortages have sidelined the Fanning Springs ambulance. The union countered with its request to keep the other two existing policies, and later made an additional counteroffer for the MOU.
Union negotiations will resume on Feb. 7.
Spotlight traditionally has covered IAFF negotiations, but Spotlight wasn’t notified of the Jan. 24 negotiating session. Spotlight has been notified by the county of the Feb. 7 negotiating session.
IAFF 4069 is a Levy County public employee labor union. The union has the right under federal labor law to negotiate with its county employers, but it doesn’t have the right to strike.
The county traditionally hasn’t paid paramedics and EMTs high base salaries but instead allowed considerable leeway for ambulance employees to earn overtime pay, but often with very long hours.
The long hours have been a sore point with the union. The union was particularly stressed about being required to work additional shifts when there was a shortage of employees. The process of requiring employees to work additional shifts is known as mandating them to work.
The county’s offer of $4 per hour was aimed at bringing more EMTs and paramedics to work in Levy County, reducing mandatory overtime, giving them wages competitive with neighboring counties, and retaining the ambulance employees for longer periods to gain more stability in the workforce.
It was a watershed moment when the county made the big offer at a December 2021 negotiating session. Nothing of the sort had ever been offered in the past.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt January 29, 2022; Posted January 29, 2022
