Haverhill

Mayor rejects deal to keep all fire stations open for a year

Bradford station likely to close

By Shawn Regan
sregan@eagletribune.com
Published: June 30, 2009

HAVERHILL — Mayor James Fiorentini has rejected a proposal by firefighters that would have kept all city fire stations, including the one in Bradford, open for at least another year.

The proposal also would have given the fire chief new powers to reduce overtime and sick leave in the department, and required the mayor to immediately hire five to 10 new firefighters and a temporary fifth deputy chief to replace a deputy who has been on injury leave for about a year.

A dwindling number of firefighters and the loss of the fifth deputy has caused overtime spending in the department to surge. The 90 firefighters and deputy chiefs who worked for the department in the 2008 calendar year saw their paychecks buoyed by $1.5 million as a result of working almost 40,000 hours of overtime, according to city payroll records. The average firefighter took home $79,000 in pay, and the average deputy chief made $131,000, those records show.

Firefighters said the large amount of overtime pay is the result of not having enough firefighters. The mayor blames the overtime increase on contract rules that require the city to pay overtime rates in many instances when it should not have to.

Fiorentini rejected the union's proposal because of two changes the firefighters made to an agreement negotiated over the past several weeks between him and the union's executive committee.

Fiorentini had agreed to keep the Bradford fire station open through June 30, 2010, in exchange for new rules that would have given the city the ability to monitor and control firefighters' sick time. He said the union's changes substantially weakened the proposed new sick time rules and would have given the Fire Department financial protections not given to any other departments. The firefighters changed the negotiated agreement to stipulate that the city not close any fire station in the city or reduce staffing for one year, Fiorentini said.

Capt. Paul Weinburgh, president of the firefighters union, said his group pushed to protect all city fire stations, not just Bradford, because they feared Fiorentini would simply close another station after winning concessions on sick time rules.

The mayor said the firefighters' proposal would require him to protect the Fire Department from any budget cuts in the upcoming year, no matter what happens to city finances.

"If we have more middle-of-the-year state aid cuts or we run out of money for any other reason, they want to prevent me from making any changes to stations, manpower or apparatus," the mayor said. "The city will continue to talk, but we can never agree to keep the Fire Department exempt from cuts while we have to cut police, schools and libraries. This is what the union has asked me to do. I will never agree to that."

Fiorentini said he "walked the extra mile" to keep the Bradford fire station open, but that he now expects he will have to close the station sometime in the new fiscal year. He said he could not provide an exact timetable for closing the station, however.

Last week, the City Council gave preliminary approval to the mayor's city budget, which gives him the power to close Bradford fire station, demote seven fire lieutenants and captains and reduce the minimum number of firefighters in the city at any one time from 19 to 16. There is money in the spending plan to hire at least five new firefighters, but at least three current firefighters are retiring, the mayor said.

The council is scheduled to give final approval to the mayor's overall city budget tonight at 7 in City Hall.

Fiorentini said he is relying on fire Chief Richard Borden's recommendation on which of Haverhill's four fire stations should be closed to save money.

"It's the fire chief's opinion we can't make it long without closing a fire station without union concessions," the mayor said yesterday. "I'm following the chief's strong recommendation that if we have to close a station, that it should be Bradford."

If he could, the mayor said he would spread the spending cuts among the four fire stations, closing each one on certain days of each week or for part of the year, but none permanently. He said the city's contract with the fire union would not allow that, however.

"My own preference is rolling closings, which is what is being done in Lawrence, Lowell, Methuen and many other cities," the mayor said. "But I cannot do that without the union's approval."

Weinburgh claimed the mayor told him he would not close the 16th Avenue fire station under any circumstances because it is close to Fiorentini's house on Macon Avenue. The mayor recalled the conservation about the 16th Avenue station differently.

"Mr. Weinburgh asked me if I had a secret plan to close the 16th Avenue station if this agreement was signed, and claimed there was talk of that," the mayor said. "I told him I had no such plans, secret or otherwise, and that the city hoped to keep all stations open."

Fiorentini has proposed closing the Bradford fire station several times in recent months, as well as demoting seven fire officers and making other organizational changes in the department to cut costs. The Fire Department cuts, which are similar to cuts being imposed on other city departments, are primarily the result of about $6 million in reduced state aid to Haverhill, the mayor said.

The proposed sick time policy would have allowed the fire chief to require a doctor's note before firefighters are allowed to return to work in instances where they missed two consecutive 24-hour shifts or four consecutive work days due to illness or injury.

The original agreement gave the city the power to have firefighters examined by a doctor of the city's choosing, but the union changed the wording to allow the medical evaluation to be done by the employee's personal physician.

"The city doctor part was key," Fiorentini said. "I was a lawyer for a long time. You can get your personal physician to go along with anything."

Fiorentini said the sick time rules he proposed for firefighters are the same as what is required in the police contract.

"The sick leave change was the only concession the fire union was willing to give us, and in the end the firefighters wouldn't even go along with that," the mayor said.

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