By Bernard Harris
Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER CITY, Pa. — One of them is an expectant father. Another is planning a wedding. They — and two other young men — had been anxiously awaiting word about their future as Lancaster city firefighters.
On Monday night, they each got phone calls.
As of Tuesday, the four men were out of work, not knowing what the future holds.
“No idea,” Craig Robertson said after being asked what he will do now.
Robertson, 34, Adam Bonholtzer, 30, and Tristen Dressler, 29, had been city firefighters for about two and a half years. Samar Rudolph, 26, had been a firefighter for a little more than three years.
“February 2, 2010, is a sad day for Lancaster Fire Fighters, Local 319,” said Capt. Ken Barton, the union president, at a news conference Tuesday. “We had four of our own laid off today.”
The layoffs followed a vote by union members Friday to reject a city request for salary concessions and negotiations that could have led to a change in the firefighters’ schedule.
The city administration had asked firefighters to help save the four jobs by accepting a 1 percent salary increase this year instead of the scheduled increase of 3.25 percent. That raise, negotiated in October 2008, took effect this month.
“It did not hinge on the pay issue,” Barton said of the vote. “Most of the guys I talked to did not want that 24-hour schedule. That’s a big change in your life.”
Furious mayor
Mayor Rick Gray said Monday the city’s request was only to begin a good-faith discussion of changing the schedule, not a ratification of a schedule change. He hoped that, despite the vote, the union would still be willing to discuss the change.
That’s not going to happen, Barton said. Firefighters voted to reject changing the schedule.
Gray was incredulous on Tuesday.
“They agreed to lay off four firefighters because they didn’t want to talk about a schedule change? There is no harm in talking, is there? I don’t understand that, quite frankly,” the mayor said.
Barton contended that changing the schedule so firefighters would work 24 straight hours and then be off for the next 48 hours would mean firefighters would work an additional 312 hours per year, or about eight additional weeks without more pay.
Gray did not dispute the numbers. He said it worked out to about six additional hours per week.
Since 1980, city firefighters have worked a schedule of two 10-hour days followed by two 14-hour nights, followed by four days off.
Barton contended that schedule is the standard for professional fire companies in Pennsylvania and much of the Northeast. The 24-hour schedule is followed in many southern and western states.
The change to a 24-hour schedule would allow the city to operate with current staffing levels but with fewer firefighters.
“That would mean an additional 10 firefighters lost upon implementation,” Barton said of the schedule change.
Lancaster city laid off firefighters during previous financial crunches in 1995 and 1998. In each case, the firefighters were eventually rehired.
“I’m hoping to be called back. It could be a year off,” said Rudolph, who grew up near Fire Station No. 1. He said he waited two years to be hired by the city.
Dressler was less optimistic.
“If the city is successful with the 24-hour work schedule, this isn’t the end of the layoffs,” he said.
Both men said other cities are in the same situation as Lancaster. There are few jobs for firefighters available and thousands of applicants.
Could have been avoided
Barton and Dressler on Tuesday both said the layoffs could have been avoided.
Barton said he presented a proposal that would have saved the firefighters’ jobs plus $600 by scrapping spending on uniforms, the firefighters’ shoe allowance, a reduction in training funds and reducing longevity payments.
He said that proposal was dismissed by administration officials because the deadline for counter-proposals had already passed.
“Nobody came in at the very end with anything,” Gray said. He said the time for negotiations had been extended.
Nothing was presented by firefighters that addressed the long-range financial problems the city faces, he said.
Dressler cited a federal grant program — the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grants, or SAFER — to which the city could have applied to save his and the other firefighters’ jobs.
He said the city would have had to announce the layoffs prior to Oct. 31, the application deadline for the grant program.
He said he believes Gray was reluctant to announce layoffs before the November general election, which Gray won.
“I think announcement of layoffs could have influenced the election,” Dressler said.
Gray, a Democrat, beat former Mayor Charlie Smithgall, a Republican, by 313 votes.
Gray called the assertion “ridiculous.”
He said his administration looked at the grant program but decided not to apply.
“What we did was attempt to avoid all layoffs by offering substantial sums of money to people to retire who were already eligible to retire,” he said.
“We went out of our way to be fair. We went out of our way to offer additional sums. We went out of our way to avoid layoffs,” the mayor said.
Gray said his administration sought nine early retirements to avoid layoffs. The administration asked for salary concessions after just five firefighters took the early-retirement offers.
Barton contended firefighters have taken a beating from successive mayors facing financial difficulties.
“We’ve done so many things over the years, We’re just exhausted from giving and giving,” he said.
The negotiations began in November as Gray’s administration sought to close a projected $5.4 million deficit in the city’s 2010 budget. That budget, passed by City Council in December, included a 25 percent property tax increase and the elimination of 43 city positions.
Copyright 2010 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.