City council: Bardstown firefighters should get the pay they deserve

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015, 11 p.m. — The Bardstown City Council voted down the proposed salaries and job descriptions for the city’s fire department after it learned that a number of longtime firefighters had turned away proposed pay raises partly out of concern the higher costs would trigger a negative reaction from the council.

Councilwoman Kecia Copeland questions Bardstown Fire Chief Marlin Howard about the decision to pay firefighters less than recommended pay following a study by a human resources consultant.

At its last regular meeting, the council gave initial approval to new job descriptions and pay rates. The new job descriptions were necessary because of the additional job duties the new full time firefighters would be doing.

As part of the fire department transitioning into a 24/7 department, human resources consultant Paul Combs evaluated the new job descriptions and provided recommended pay scales — just as he had done earlier in the year for the rest of the employees of the City of Bardstown.

But unlike the other departments at city hall, firefighters did not receive the pay scales the Combs’ study suggested they receive.

Just prior to the council’s final vote on firefighter pay and job descriptions Tuesday night, Councilwoman Kecia Copeland asked Chief Marlin Howard why firefighters did not receive the recommended pay rates.

Howard said that given the council’s budget concerns and heightened awareness about spending, there was fear that the increased pay scales may jeopardize funding for all 17 full time firefighter positions.

Another concern was staying with the already completed 2015-16 budget, Mayor John Royalty said, adding that he would support giving firefighters the pay scales Combs recommended.

Bardstown Fire Chief Marlin Howard told the council that firefighters agreed to take less pay because the 2015-16 budget was already approved and they did not want to risk the loss of funding of the 17 approved firefighter positions.

“If you want to do this — and I think they deserve it — you’ve got to come up with the extra revenue. You can’t keep digging into the coffers, sometime you have to pay the piper,”  he said.

Royalty suggested that it comes back to raising the occupational tax to fund the higher pay.

The Combs study initially looked at the old structure of the fire department, and some firefighters did get raises when that portion was completed, Larry Green, assistant city administrator, told the council.

Green said the command structure Howard wanted for the department looked “top heavy” — it appeared to have a lot of people in leadership positions. When Combs re-evaluated firefighter pay with the new structure and job duties, the resulting pay grades would raise salaries again — in one case, it would mean a $10,000 a year raise for one individual.

Green said that rather than force Howard to re-design the fire department structure to make it more affordable, it was decided to keep the structure and to lower the pay grades.

Larry Green, city assistant administrator, told the council that the decision to not offer firefighters the recommended pay was because the firefighters wanted to preserve the department’s new structure, which changed as it transition from a part-time to a full-time department.

The chief and firefighters felt “the structure was important enough that they would rather keep the structure and make it affordable than do without it,” he said.

Councilman Fred Hagan said he supported giving the firefighters the pay grades the Combs study recommended.

“We did the Paul Combs study so we could pay our people fairly and be competitive,” Hagan said. “We did it for the other departments, I think we should do it for the fire department.”

Councilman Roland Williams asked Councilman Bobby Simpson if he would be willing to withdraw his motion to approve the classification and compensation plan; Simpson let his motion stand, explaining it was what the fire department had originally asked the council to approve.

After additional discussion, Hagan and Copeland were joined by Councilmen Francis Lydian and Roland Williams in voting against approving the classification and compensation plan in favor of giving firefighters the pay scales first recommended in the Combs study.

Councilmen Simpson and Bill Buckman vote to approve the existing pay scale.

NEXT UP. The council will take up approval of firefighter pay and job descriptions as early as its next meeting Sept. 23, 2015. The council’s finance committee will examine the issue at its meeting Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015.

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