By Alaina Bookman
al.com
Mary Kay Graham’s father was a firefighter for the City of Bessemer. And for years, he worked multiple odd jobs to provide for his family.
Graham said she was just a little girl when the state passed legislation giving benefits to firefighters, securing a more certain future for her entire family.
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“My dad was a firefighter and at that time, they had no retirement system, no retirement plan,” Graham said.
“When he was able to get retirement and stay with the fire department…My mom outlived him by 18 years. He retired at 62 and died at 63. Luckily, that retirement was a plan that paid my mom until she died. It had a wonderful, positive impact on my family.”
Graham, now the board president of Jefferson County’s Palmerdale Fire District, has secured the same opportunity for her community’s firefighters and service employees.
Fighting for their future
The Palmerdale Fire District, located just 15 miles northeast of Birmingham, is now officially a part of the Retirement Systems of Alabama. Palmerdale firefighters say this will help plan for not only their own futures, but their families as well.
“They hung in there with us...We were trying so hard, and there were times when we just felt like, ‘I don’t see how it’s gonna happen.’ But it did. We kept on fighting,” Graham said.
The Palmerdale Fire District launched in 1972 as a volunteer-only, running out of some of the firefighters’ homes. They began to staff the district in 1986. It has since grown in both size and prestige.
Courtney Campbell, the Palmerdale Fire District’s executive administrator, said her husband’s family helped to start the district.
Now she’s helping to improve the district for other families.
“I’ve been here for 13 years and I never thought I would have a retirement,” Campbell said. “It’s just very exciting, because it just secures my husband and I our future…It means more that we can do in our retirement age to help our family.”
Palmerdale firefighters serve 52 square miles, from the City of Clay to Morris. The district is a department of 27 who respond to emergencies ranging from fire and medical to trauma and mental health calls.
Despite the long 24-hour days and demanding work, many of the firefighters - just like Mary Kay Graham’s father did decades ago - still work multiple jobs to provide for their families.
Palmerdale Fire Chief Taylor Hancock is also a fire department lieutenant in the city of Homewood. Palmerdale Assistant Fire Chief Chris Whitfield, who worked for the Birmingham Fire Department for 20 years, is also a Pleasant Grove firefighter.
Hancock has been working with the Palmerdale Fire District for 14 years.
“I was actually getting close to the time where I needed to make a decision on whether or not I needed to stay here or find somewhere else where I could build my retirement up,” Hancock said.
“My heart’s here. So I really wanted to see this place succeed...It means a lot to me.”
Whitfield said the extra retirement will help him take care of his family.
“I’ve already got one pension from Birmingham, so the state retirement actually gives me a chance to have a second pension,” said Whitfield, who has worked with Palmerdale for 16 years.
“And working with Pleasant Grove, they take your salaries and combine them, so my retirement will be based on the two salaries…I can leave my wife more [money].”
Road to retirement
Graham said it’s been a years-long, hard-fought battle to retirement.
In the last two years, the district has lost three captains and numerous paramedics to other departments.
And fire departments can’t just sign up for retirement – it takes a lot of paperwork and even more money.
The longer a fire department has been in existence, the more it costs to be added to the state retirement system. The district also has to pay for feasibility studies, which cost upwards of $1,500.
This isn’t the first time Palmerdale has tried to join the retirement system. In years prior, the district simply couldn’t afford it.
But this time was different. Graham said Palmerdale was determined to make it happen this year.
It cost Palmerdale more than $1 million, which is no easy feat for the district, but Graham said the money is worth it to secure Palmerdale Fire District’s future.
“It’s going to make a huge difference in our ability to recruit and maintain quality staff. For years, we have been the department where people come to train just to go to work somewhere else,” Graham said.
“We have not faulted anybody for doing that. But we have wonderful people who’ve stayed with us, who’ve been patient with us, who’ve watched us struggle with this. It was not easy. It was a very arduous task. But it has been done…We are finally there.”
Hunter Pepper, a Palmerdale firefighter recruit, said that alongside loving the job, the retirement makes him want to stay.
“Now that we have that, it’s not only going to be a great retention incentive, it’s going to be a great recruitment incentive. I’m super excited to be a part of that,” he said.
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