By John Hill
The Press Enterprise
MURRIETA, Calif. — Murrieta firefighters have agreed to a new four-year contract with the city that will reduce vacation time and increase their contributions to the state pension fund.
The agreement, which is laid out in an agenda item for the City Council’s next meeting, was approved by “an overwhelming majority” of the firefighters Wednesday night, Firefighters Association President Mike Ramos said. The council will vote next week on whether to ratify the deal.
Firefighters will lose 36 hours of vacation time and 60 hours of holiday time per year, along with all compensatory time. They also will begin paying 1.9 percent of the city’s contribution to their pensions.
“All the members of the local know what the current economic situation is, and we feel as if we are doing our part to bridge that gap … our hope is that this 5 percent concession makes things a little bit easier,” Ramos said.
Negotiations covered more than six months, Ramos said.
The firefighters were the last group of employees to agree to concessions to help cover city budget gaps brought on by the recession. Many other employees took 5 percent pay cuts in the form of unpaid furloughs.
To institute the furloughs, Murrieta put the employees on a four-day workweek and closed City Hall on Fridays. Because closing the fire or police stations for a day wasn’t an option, different arrangements had to be made with those groups and negotiations took longer, Assistant City Manager Jim Holston said.
The firefighters’ agreement will save Murrieta about 5 percent, more than $340,000, over its first year, according to a report by Human Resources Director Jeffrey Price. The reductions in vacation time and payments to the pension fund eventually will go away over the course of the contract.
Salaries will remain flat until 2014, when firefighters are scheduled to get a 1.25 percent bump in pay.
“We’re hoping that we’re … recovered in four years,” Holston said.
The deal is retroactive to July 2010, when the association’s previous contract with the city ran out.
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