The unfolding events after the passage of Proposition B in Houston last November has been painful and frustrating to watch. As of Friday, May 3, 2019, the arbitrator says that they are at an impasse. Let’s look at some of the aspects of this issue and how it compares with how Los Angeles and New York City handled reductions in force.
The Houston background:
For three years Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association IAFF Local 341 was unable to get raises for their members. The local obtained enough signatures to get Proposition B (Pay Parity with Police) on the November 2018 ballot. The proposition passed by a 59-41 margin.
The mayor warned that the impact of Proposition B would add $100 million to the Fiscal Year 2020 budget, that will start July 1, 2019. The city cannot raise property taxes because the voters put a limit on the growth of property tax revenue in 2004. This cap has required RATE CUTS in four of the last five years. The only way to pay for Proposition B is to make cuts in the existing budget.
The timing:
“Give me some time, expand the runway a little bit, and we can absorb all these positions to where nobody gets a pink slip,” (Fire Chief) Pena said at the Superneighborhood Alliance meeting March 11.
By moving all firefighters to a three-shift schedule in place of the current four, and factoring in annual attrition, the reduction in force could be spread out without leaving a station or engine understaffed, Peña said.
“I can absorb 240 positions and still be able to fill every seat that we have space for right now,” Pena said.
In addition, Peña estimates the department loses 150 to 160 firefighters on average per year to attrition, but that number may be higher after pay raises are factored in.
“We have about 150 firefighters that have over 30 years [experience] and over 200 that have between 25 and 30 years,” Peña said. “I anticipate that when the new pay rate goes into effect, a lot of them will cash out and retire, so I expect attrition to increase.” (Whalen and Dulin 2019)
Public safety response to the Great Recession of 2008 was to reduce the number of uniformed positions through attrition – when Lieutenant Smedley retires, his position is not filled and eliminated. No one has lost a job, but the department has one less Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) position in the budget. With enough FTEs gone, so will the entire staffing for a fire company.
As part of Chief Sam Peña’s April 2019 plan, 3 ladder companies, 2 engine companies, and 4 field supervisors would be closed, resulting in a city-wide response time impact of 2 additional seconds.
To meet the size of Houston’s obligation, the normal attrition process would take 3.5 to 5 years. There may be an increased liability to the city if Proposition B takes more than one budget year to be implemented.
Positions eliminated and layoffs
- 70 vacant positions from 21 city departments were eliminated.
- 47 municipal employees have received layoff notices.
- 67 fire cadets – they had completed recruit school but not been sworn in as firefighters – received layoff notices
- 154 firefighters received layoff notices
Fire Department Demotions
- 28 chief officers
- 149 company officers
- 21 investigators/telecommunicators
- 254 engineer/operators
Houston Fire Department is going from 3,999 employees in Fiscal Year 2019 to 3,712 employees in Fiscal Year 2020. A less than 10% reduction in size.
Los Angeles 2012 Recession Reduction-in-Force
When the Great Recession hit local governments in 2008, senior administrators believed that it would take one or two budget years for the local revenues to return to normal. The old-school drill was to establish a hiring freeze, closely monitor overtime, and reassign uniform staff doing administrative activities into fire stations. LAFD closed 17 peak load EMT-level ambulances that were staffed with overtime crews.
The Los Angeles Fire Department, like many big-city agencies, had to start eliminating positions when it was apparent that the recovery process would take many more years. Through attrition and reassignments, the department eliminated one division chief position and two battalion chiefs. Seven of the remaining 14 battalion commands would lose their “staff assistant.” While no uniformed staff was laid off, civilian staff did lose their jobs, including nurse educators.
In 2004 an EMS Supervisor (Captain II) was assigned to each battalion. EMS Supervisor work areas were expanded in 2010 to two battalions, eliminating 7 EMS Supervisor positions. A total of 30 command-level Full-Time Equivalent positions were eliminated.
For three years LAFD did the practice of rotating brown-outs, closing 15 engine companies and 6 ambulances throughout the 106 station department for a period of time to not spend overtime.
The Fiscal Year 2012 budget, that started July 1, 2011, included permanent closure of 11 engine companies, 7 light forces (a truck company + a pumper), and 4 BLS ambulances. No fire station was closed and every fire station maintained a paramedic capability. The change of daily on-duty staffing for FY 2012, compared to FY 2006, was a net reduction of 228 firefighters every work day. LAFD has about 3,400 employees in 2015, the net result of the recession reduced the size of the workforce by 17% between Fiscal Year 2006 and Fiscal Year 2012.
It was not until Fiscal Year 2019, starting in July 2018, that Los Angeles re-opened 4 engine companies. This is possible with an initial $15.4M Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant.
New York July 1975 Layoffs
New York started its fiscal year 1976 by laying off more than 40,000 city employees, including 1,600 firefighters. This represented 11% of the fire department workforce. Although the city hired some firefighters back within a month using the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) federal grant funding, 900 firefighters lost their jobs.
After a few months, some of the laid-off firefighters became temporary employees under a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant. They were assigned as the fifth or sixth member of an FDNY ladder company, with the job of boarding up roofs and windows of fire-damaged buildings. The job prerequisites to get employed through this grant were written exclusively for laid-off FDNY truck company firefighters. It would take 2 years before the city could rehire all the laid-off firefighters.
This was in the height of the “war years”
Between 1970 and 1980, seven census tracts in the Bronx lost more than 97 percent of their buildings to fire and abandonment. Forty-four tracts lost more than half. The results were staggering — blocks and blocks of rubble. (Why The Bronx Really Burned 2015)
Joe Flood’s book The Fires: How a Computer Formula Burned Down New York City – and Determined the Future of American Cities, states that Commissioner O’Hagan said that could run the FDNY with 7,500 instead of the current 14,000 budgeted firefighters in 1971.
Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe took exception with Flood’s book and provided a 57-page document “ ‘The Fires …’ by Joe Flood: Instances of Errors, Misrepresentations, Speculation and Analytical Deficiencies.“ responding to issues by page number and providing references.
What does it all mean?
The specific economic and political climate was different in each city. In all cases, the city is in crisis and public safety, as one of the larger employee groups, is feeling the pain. Company commanders would profit by learning more about how your municipality, company or fire district is funded – follow the money AND follow the power.
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Wray, Dianna (2018 October 22) “What You Need to Know About Proposition B
A primer on what Houston firefighter pay parity with police officers actually means.” Houstonia Accessed May 3, 2019, from https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2018/10/22/proposition-b-houston
Harvey, Bob (2019 April 6) How to untangle the Prop B mess {Opinion} The Houston Chronicle. Accessed May 3, 2019, from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/How-to-untangle-the-Prop-B-mess-Opinion-13745830.php
Whalen, Emma and Dulin Matt (2019 March 12) Houston fire chief: Department could absorb 240 layoffs with no impact on service. Community Impact Newspaper. Accessed May 3, 2019, from https://communityimpact.com/houston/heights-river-oaks-montrose/public-safety/2019/03/12/houston-fire-chief-department-could-absorb-240-layoffs-with-no-impact-on-service/
Oberg, Ted (2019 April 9) “Ted Oberg Investigates: 220 layoffs and shift reduction to implement Prop B: HFD Chief” ABC 13 KTRK. Accessed May 3, 2019, from https://abc13.com/politics/220-layoffs-and-shift-reduction-to-implement-prop-b-hfd-chief/5240252/
Downen, Robert (2019 April 9) HFD Chief Peña: No station closures, but changes coming. Houston Chronicle. Accessed May 3, 2019, from https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/HFD-Chief-Pe-a-No-station-closures-but-changes-13754576.php
Lopez, Robert A. (2009 August 10) L.A. firefighter union posts signs on impact of budget cuts. L.A. Now Blog: Los Angeles Times. Accessed May 5, 2019, from https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/08/la-firefighter-union-alerts-public-about-budget-cuts.html
Photo: A sign is posted in front of Fire Station 63 in Venice. Credit: Robert J. Lopez / Los Angeles Times
Flood, Joe (2010) The Fires: How a Computer Formula Burned Down New York City – and Determined the Future of American Cities. New York: Riverhead Books. ebook ISBN 978-1-101-18720-3
Wolfe, Catherine O’Hagan (no date) ” ‘The Fires …’ by Joe Flood: Instances of Errors, Misrepresentations, Speculation and Analytical Deficiencies.” Accessed May 4, 2019 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3a8a2aa2772c2f141d7d2f/t/5c255a63c2241b57cbd384a4/1545951843721/Instances+of+errors%2C+misrepresentations%2C+speculation+and+analytical+deficiencies.pdf