The 130 members of the city's firefighters union will get a one-time cash payment of $1,500 and annual raises of 2 percent and 2.5 percent under a three-year contract the City Council approved this week.
The contract is entirely retroactive. It begins July 1, 2015, and ends June 30, 2018, meaning it will leave the city and the firefighters with what they began with three years ago: an expired contract.
The firefighters will receive their retroactive raises in a lump-sum payment.
Talks on a new contract are expected to begin soon.
The average firefighter now earns about $53,000 annually. The new contract will raise that to about $55,400.
The three-year contract will cost the city a total of $1.4 million, which it will pay out of reserves accumulated from earlier budget surpluses and out of a separate contingency fund set aside for union settlements and other expenses that can't be fully anticipated. The reserves total about $15 million.
City Budget Director Mark Ianello projected that if the city's two police unions receive similar contracts in separate ongoing talks with the city, the cost to the city will be $1.9 million next year and as much as $4.7 million in 2023. The police contracts also expired in 2015.