Danville Firefighters Local 429 is calling a proposal to cut 16 firefighters a dangerous move. The union reacted today (Wednesday) to Mayor Scott Eisenhauer’s proposal to trim the number of firefighters from 42 to 26. The Mayor said he made his recommendation because of an arbitrator’s ruling in favor of the union which Eisenhauer says will cost the city $1.3 million dollars.
Local 429 President Jerry Sparks (shown in photo above) says if the city council approves the cuts, the cost will be even higher.
‘’This proposal is going to cost immensely more money than keeping the people, a lot more money than keeping the people,’’ said Sparks during an interview with VermilionCountyFirst.com News. ‘’Between the unemployment, between the enormous overtime costs, and the inevitable injuries, inevitable work-comp settlements, and God forbid we actually loose someone. It’s not unheard of in this town. You know we memorialize five firefighters every year who died on the job here.’’
Mayor Eisenhauer (shown here) says something has to be done to address the skyrocketing costs of pensions.
‘’We need to decide how we are going to address the rising costs of pensions on a long-term basis, because as I’ve shown you – over the course of the next three years we’re looking at almost a 50-percent increase in the pension costs from where they are today,’’ says Eisenhauer.
Sparks also worries about the overtime hours remaining firefighters would be expected to work.
‘’We’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of very close to doubling our workload for the remaining people that are there…putting us at 100 hours a week approximately, and that’s a dangerous workload to put on a group of people and expect there not to be accidents – expect there to not be mistakes. That’s dangerous – that worries me as a firefighter. As a labor leader,’’ added Sparks, ‘’I’m upset because I feel while this is maybe not a literal, certainly is a practical end (run) around collective bargaining.’’
Long time alderman Steve Foster backs the Mayor’s proposal for cuts.
‘’If you take our current population and divide it by the 26 firemen, we still have 1.2 firemen per thousand. And I can’t remember, but that’s pretty close to the national average – is it not? So I guess I’m going to say it’s not as bad a day as you think because I say we should have done this twenty years ago, to be real honest with you, and we wouldn’t be in this problem today,’’ said Foster during Tuesday night’s city council meeting.
But Sparks says the National Firefighters Protection Association says a town Danville’s size should have 43.5 firefighters – not 26. So he says Danville currently is one firefighter short of the national average for towns our size.
