Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration is moving forward with plans for hundreds of layoffs following last week’s voter approval of Prop B despite questions about whether jobs could be saved through renewed negotiations with the city’s firefighters union.
The pay parity referendum, which passed decisively after a bitter campaign that pitted Turner and the city’s police union against Houston firefighters, adds an estimated $100 million a year to the $500 million annual budget of the Houston Fire Department to bring firefighter salaries in line with those paid to police of corresponding rank and seniority.
In the wake of the amendment’s passage, Turner announced HFD would hire no new firefighters and ordered Fire Chief Sam Peña to draft a plan to move the department from four shifts to three, perhaps eliminating more than 850 positions. The new staffing chart could be submitted to the city’s civil service commission later this month, Turner said, with an expected city council vote in early January.