By Ty Tagami and David Pendered
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s firefighters won a pay increase Monday, persuading the City Council to snub the mayor, who didn’t want to give them anything.
The 3.5 percent raise for firefighters mirrors the increase that Shirley Franklin had already recommended for sworn officers in the police department, which suffers comparatively high turnover. The mayor planned to fund the police raises with part of a surplus, the remainder of which is earmarked for employee pensions.
In a 9-6 vote, the council gave $1.9 million to firefighters and told Franklin to shave the money from other departments citywide. The council was reacting to demands by firefighters for parity with police.
It takes 10 votes to override a veto, so the mayor could still have the final say. The raises, if unchallenged, will go into effect with the new fiscal year next month.
Franklin declined to comment on whether she planned to veto the council’s action.
Jim Daws, president of Atlanta Professional Firefighters, said a veto would be a slap in the face of the city’s firefighters.
“It would be a disastrous blow to firefighters’ morale,” Daws said. “A veto would be doing violence to firefighters’ morale.”
Franklin has said she didn’t give the fire department raises because it doesn’t share the police department’s problem with attrition. The police department has about 150 vacancies and is treading water: it has lost almost as many officers as it has recruited this year.
Hoping to stanch the flow, Franklin devoted $3.8 million of a $16 million surplus to boost police pay. The rest of the surplus will fund increased payments into the employee pension system.
Councilman Ceasar Mitchell, who voted against the firefighter raises, said pay is low in both departments. But he said police are about 14 percent behind their peers in comparable cities, while firefighters are about 6 percent behind. “Police lag further behind than fire, and police deal with an attrition rate that far exceeds fire,” said Mitchell, who occupies a citywide seat.
Felicia Moore, of northwest Atlanta, sponsored the legislation boosting firefighter pay. She said there is a perception that firefighters sit around their firehouses and don’t work hard, but she said they need down time to recuperate from backbreaking work. She warned that firefighters, like police, might have other job options with all the new cities expected to be created in Fulton County.
Moore said Franklin would not voluntarily alter the budget to fund pay increases for firefighters, so she urged her colleagues to force the mayor’s hand.
“The power is in this council if this council wants to exercise it,” Moore said. Her legislation cuts about 0.3 percent from the $593 million budget but doesn’t specify where the money will be cut. She left that to the administration.
The battle over pay for firefighters has become an annual rite. Last year, after firefighters marched on City Hall, the council boosted their pay by 4 percent after Franklin recommended first a 1 percent increase and then a 3.5 percent increase.
HOW THEY VOTED
Voting for the pay increase for firefighters:
* Ivory Lee Young Jr.
* Natalyn Archibong
* Clair Muller
* Felicia Moore
* C.T. Martin
* Jim Maddox
* Joyce Sheperd
* Mary Norwood
* H. Lamar Willis
Voting against the pay increase for firefighters:
* Carla Smith
* Kwanza Hall
* Cleta Winslow
* Anne Fauver
* Howard Shook
* Ceasar Mitchell