NHFD MOU Raises Questions

Dennis Serfilippi (at right in photo), a Westville activist and candidate for alder, wrote the following opinion article about this news story:

(Opinion) Last month, I began receiving alerts the City was about to sign a very expensive Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NHFD Local 825. A few days later I received a copy of the MOU, and began discussing the language with people familiar with the deal. All of the people with whom I spoke agreed the City should not have been negotiating a new deal at this time, and the agreement signed was a very expensive one for the taxpayers. All of the people with whom I spoke agreed to do so with the understanding I would not disclose their names.

Before getting into the findings I need to make several points. First, prior to preparing this summary I filed multiple FOIA requests with the City asking for supporting documents and spreadsheets related to the MOU. I would have preferred to have reviewed the official city documents, to the extent they exist. However, the City has refused to provide any documents. Second, because an agreement of this magnitude has significant cost implications for the City, it should, according to the City Charter, be brought before the Board of Alders for a vote. Unfortunately, the union-backed leadership at the Board of Alders has decided to not bring it to a vote. Legal action may be required to force the City to disclose the true cost of the MOU. Lastly, some people will certainly say I am trying to close firehouses, or I am anti-union. I am not. My only reason for speaking out on this issue is to understand its cost and make sure the New Haven taxpayers are protected.

Below is a detailed outline of what I’ve learned regarding the new agreement. Briefly, for political expediency the City chose to engage the NHFD in contract negotiations rather than wait for a city approved operational audit of the department. The agreement maintains minimum staffing at 72 per shift, handcuffs the ability of the City to make staffing changes, and does little to address the demand for paramedic services while wasting $1 million a year on unnecessary resources. The suggestion the city could dramatically modify its ALS approach and save millions of dollars is without merit, and the proposed solutions are destined to failure. Changes to vacation scheduling, overtime hiring and acting pay will actually cost the City more, as will the newly established stipend for drivers, and grandfathering educational support for employees no longer performing paramedic duties. But, the most costly part of the agreement is rolling back the pension provisions, and spousal benefits that were agreed to in 2013. Those changes will eventually cost the city $300 million, and increase the likelihood of municipal bankruptcy.

Timing of the MOU

The timing of the execution of the MOU is very curious. On Thursday July 11
Agency reaffirmed its bond rating for New Haven debt. The very next day Friday July 12th the City and the fire union signed the MOU. It appears as though the City waited to receive the bond rating before inking the agreement. And the new agreement between the City and the politically influential fire union was executed less than a week before the Democratic Town Committee met to select its candidate, Mayor Harp, for this year’s Mayoral election. Perhaps the timing was just a coincidence, but the optics aren’t good.

Premature to Negotiate a New Contract

The City should never have been negotiating a new contract with the Fire Union. In June, the Board of Alders (finally) approved $30,000 for an operational audit to determine the proper staffing levels for the NHFD. To lock the taxpayers into a new contract with the NHFD without first conducting the study and learning its results is illogical and irresponsible. But, the NHFD Union demanded negotiations under the pretense that the Union had a say in the deployment of the Heavy Rescue unit and the City would not be able to deploy the Heavy Rescue unit without a new contract. In reality it is the City, NOT the Union, in its sole discretion that has the right to establish which apparatus to use, where it will be located, and how it will be staffed. So, the City should not have been negotiating at this time.

RFP for Operational Audit

Now that the City has signed an agreement, the City must not allow the NHFD Union to establish the language and requirements to be used in the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the operational study budgeted by the BOA. The language and specifications in the RFP will influence the scope and focus of the study. The NHFD Union has a clear and obvious conflict of interest in this matter and should be prohibited from any involvement in the RFP, and the selection of the consultant(s) who will perform the study.

Company Staffing/Personnel Levels

The new language keeps the minimum staffing at 72 and the number of companies at 18. The prior agreement included 18 Companies as follows: 10 Engine Companies, 4 Ladder Companies, 2 Squads (specialized units) and 2 Advanced Life Support (ALS) Units. The new agreement replaces 2 Squads with 1 additional ALS Unit and 1 Heavy Rescue Company.

Adding only one ALS unit will not do enough to relieve the burden on the two existing ALS units. The demand for service is in the paramedic area. It would have been better to add 2 additional ALS units and bring the total number of ALS units from 2 to 4. Indeed, there was language in the current agreement that would allow one engine to be removed in exchange for two paramedic units to the system. The language was agreed and voted on by the union and approved by Board of Alders. The new agreement eliminates this language effectively handcuffing the city and removing any flexibility in staffing. The new contract further handcuffs the city by stating, ​“If the Fire Chief deems it necessary to operate with more than the [18 Companies] an additional suppression company or companies shall be activated for each purpose. By specifying suppression company the language requires a minimum amount of staffing. The Chief couldn’t simply add an additional ALS Unit in the event of an impending storm for example.

The language also states that two Special Operations personnel shall be on duty at any given time. However, it’s unclear what these two special operation personnel will be doing on a regular basis, or how they’ll be supervised. Adding two Special Operations personnel for each of 4 shifts will waste a total of $1 million per year.

Right to Drop Staffing/Personnel Levels to 69

The new language states, ​“The Fire Chief has the right and discretion to drop staffing to (69).” The operative words here are ​‘the right and discretion’. The Chief could do so under 3 scenarios: (1) Hire 60 medics (2) Pause ALS Service or (3) Drop ALS Service. The reality is the City will never be able to drop staffing to 69 because there are major impediments to all three scenarios.

(1) Hire 60 medics: It would be impossible to hire 60 paramedics. There aren’t 60 paramedics available to hire, and most fire personnel don’t have any desire to be paramedics. Paramedics are on the go for their entire shift, whereas firefighters in some of the more quiet firehouses are able to get a full night’s sleep. But, even if the system was able to find enough firefighters to become paramedics, it would take many years and millions of dollars to train them. In addition, paramedics need to complete 60 hours of training every 2 years, and the city pays for the cost of the training and the cost of testing and also pays (usually at 1.5 x) for the time the paramedic is at training. In one case, it cost the City close to $100,000 to train a firefighter to become a paramedic, and once the firefighter became a paramedic he was promoted to lieutenant and never served a day as a paramedic.

(2) Pause ALS Service: The City can’t simply ​‘pause’ ALS service. State law requires the City have ALS service 24/7/365. ALS Service isn’t something the City can turn off and on.

(3) Drop ALS Service: The City in theory could drop ALS service, and contract with AMR or other ambulance companies, but doing so would be very costly. Ambulance companies make money on non-emergency transports in between facilities, and in more affluent towns where people have insurance. But, for the most part, the 911 business is a loser and especially so in cities like New Haven where a good portion of the population has no insurance or is underinsured. The City would probably have to pay an ambulance company to take on the service. And if the NHFD decided to drop ALS Service, why would the City still need a staffing level of 69? The call center statistics demonstrate that 85% of the call are for medical service, and only 15% are ​‘fire calls’, with less than 1% of all calls requiring fire suppression.

Vacations (effective January 1, 2020)

The new language changes which employees may be on vacation at any point in time. Under the last contract, vacation was established by seniority only. The new language bases the vacation rules on both seniority AND rank. The new language creates a scheduling nightmare for management. And because new language, elsewhere in this agreement, eliminates ​“acting pay”, it means the highest paid employees will be required to fill shifts that become available due to vacation scheduling. This will drive more overtime among senior officers, who are the highest paid employees, and at the same time increase the city’s pension liability because most of the senior officers still count overtime earnings toward pension calculation.

Overtime Hiring and Acting Positions

The new provisions remove acting pay, and require all overtime to be filled by precise rank classification. Acting pay is when a Lieutenant serves as a Captain for example, and is paid a Captain’s wage instead of a Lieutenant’s. On its face, it appears as though it will save the City money. But it won’t because in practice, you don’t have staff earning acting pay because the senior people always take the overtime (at 1.5 time pay) because the senior people know one another’s schedule and it is easy to coordinate vacations and time off such that senior ranks always get the overtime. And for the senior ranks, overtime still counts toward the pension calculation. The City is viewing the elimination of acting pay as a ​‘win’ in the agreement, but it isn’t.

Pension Buy Back, Survivor Benefits, and Pension Eligibility

The new language adds a third pension credit buyback tier, based on date of hire. Tier 1: Includes employees hired prior to August 28, 2013
Tier 2: Includes employees current employees hired on or after August 28, 2013 Tier 3: Includes new employees hired after July 2019
Tier 1 remains relatively unchanged. Tier 3 is new and impacts new employees. The big changes are to Tier 2.
Tier 2 was created in 2013. At the time Tier 2 was adopted, it eliminated (a) overtime from pension calculations (b) the ability to buy years of service (i.e. pension credit) using sick time (c) the ability to buy years of service (i.e. pension credit) using military time. (d) survivor benefits (spouses of retired employees were no longer eligible to receive pension benefits once the employee passed and (e) health benefits for spouses of retirees.
The new language approved July 11, reinstates items (b), (c), (d), and (e). Items (b) and (c) combined will add approximately $105 million to the pension obligation. Item (d) will add $50 million to the pension obligation, and item (e) will add $150 million to the OPEB (Other Post- Employment Benefits).
The new language does require employees hired after August 28, 2013 to have 25 years of active service (instead of 20) to be eligible to collect a pension payment OR have attained a minimum age of 52 years. But active service is defined as years of service plus any years of buyback, and the years of buyback are generous. A member, for example, with 4 years of military experience could join the NHFD at age 25, buy 8 years of pension service (4 for military and 4 for sick time), work only 17 years and retire at age 42.
 

Sick Time Accrual

The new provision would reduce annual accrual of sick time from 15 days to 12 days per year, while maintaining at 30 the number of sick days needed to purchase 1 year of pension service. Members work 3 days a week, so 12 sick days is essentially 4 weeks of sick time]. But employees will still be able to accrue a maximum of 150 sick days; 150 sick days is needed to buyback the maximum number of years of pension service (5 years). It would now take 12.50 years instead of 10 years to accrue the maximum amount of sick time. So, it would take slightly longer to accrue the maximum amount. But, the reality is nearly all members retire with 150 sick days, and will continue to retire with the maximum 150 days. That’s because members receive 4 weeks of vacation after Year 1, 5 weeks after Year 5, and 6 weeks after Year 10. And remember, members also receive 12 paid holidays, which equates to another 4 weeks of paid time off. So, in total after Year 1, members are receiving 12 weeks of paid time off. At Year 10, they are receiving 14 weeks of paid time off. So, with so much vacation time there is little need to take a single sick day, let alone 12 or 15. The only time sick days are taken is when an employee has accrued the maximum 150 days, because at that point there is no reason to not take a sick day. Again, the City is viewing the decrease in sick days from 15 to 12.5 per year as a ​‘win’ in the agreement, but it isn’t.

Driver Stipend

Under this new provision, drivers would earn an additional $1.50 per hour. The City pays for driver training so it’s unclear why drivers should earn more, and it’s unclear who qualifies as a driver. For example, does the Battalion Chief who drives his own car qualify as a driver? The extra pay for drivers is not common. Drivers in the Bridgeport FD do earn more, but they take a civil service test. The fact that some fire employees will be paid more without having passed a civil service test could lead other fire employees to argue they too are entitled to the $1.50 an hour, and it could trigger a lawsuit. In any event this new provision will cost the City $130,000 per year.

Educational Incentive

Employees who perform the function of EMTII/Paramedic receive an additional $3,500 per year. However, some employees no longer perform the function for various reasons, a promotion for example. The new language would grandfather in the $3,500 a year payment for employees no longer performing the function of EMTII/Paramedic. The cost is relatively small, but I don’t understand how the city can justify paying employees for services they no longer provide.