The Valley Morning Star
SAN BENITO, Texas — The city gave firefighters $97,000 in back pay more than a year and a half after former Fire Chief Orlando Garcia slashed their salaries in a move that was “wrong,” city officials said.
“We had to take a proactive stand to correct an obvious wrong,” City Manager Manuel Lara said in a news release issued Wednesday. “It was money that was rightfully due to them. There is no doubt about that, so we had to do the right thing by them.”
City officials issued individual checks ranging from $766 to $4,875 to 28 firefighters Oct. 16, the news release said. The checks totaled $97,022.
Garcia slashed firefighters’ pay by about 70 cents an hour in March 2008 without giving them a reason for the cut, the local firefighters union charged in an April complaint to City Hall. The salary cut reduced the department’s payroll by some
$50,000, firefighters said.
Lara fired Garcia about two weeks after firefighters’ April complaint amid an inventory inspection sparked by concerns of unsafe equipment.
The city’s move to pay back the firefighters comes more than 18 months after the union complained to city officials, Fire Marshal Henry Lopez said.
“The city made good on its promise to correct the problem. I know the men are happy,” Lopez said. “Orlando did something wrong. I don’t think the city would have given the money back if he didn’t do something wrong.”
The back pay decision came after officials passed a tight $10 million general fund budget that factored a drop in sales tax revenue as a result of the economic slowdown.
“We found their claims to be valid in that their pay rates per hour had been decreased,” Lara said. “The only thing that we could do at this point was to make it right by paying our firemen at the correct rate for the work they did.”
Lara thanked firefighters for waiting while city officials responded to their request for back pay.
"(T)hrough the process, the firemen continued to perform their duties as the true professionals that they are,” Lara said.
“We thank them for bringing it to our attention and for their professional approach they took to resolve this matter to the satisfaction of all.”
Copyright 2009 Valley Morning Star