Council approves change in fire department pay

The Maricopa Fire Department will grow by six Friday when it swears in its graduating class of 2007, just in time to be among the first to benefit from a step and grade pay plan to be implemented next month.

Albert Bandin, John Barr, John Campanaro, Oshea Davis, Joshua Eads and Anthony Fornaro will be sworn into service at 7 p.m. Friday at Province Town Hall, 20942 N. Province Parkway. The new recruits will join the 49-person membership of the Professional Fire Fighters of Maricopa, which is affiliated with the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Cpt. Richard Jackson, president of the local association, praised local leaders following the approval of the changes to the way police and fire personnel are paid were approved Tuesday during the regular session of the Maricopa City Council. The plan is designed to make pay for jobs in each department based on years and length of service in addition to the specific job title each holds.

“There were some disparities and this addressed them,” Jackson said. “We thank the city, the mayor and the Fire Department for letting us have a voice in our own destiny.”

Interim City Manager and Finance Director Roger Kolman explained to the Council and those present that the existing pay plans of the two agencies didn’t exactly match across the board or with the rest of the city employees.

With the help of an independent consulting firm, the city created a plan in which starting pay for a captain in the Fire Department is the same as that for a sergeant in the Police Department. Each step up in each department was matched with the other, to make working in either department equally financially rewarding in terms of rank and time of service in each.

The change required a budgetary transfer of $300,000 from the contingency fund to the fire personnel fund to pay for the increased rate of pay through June 30, 2008.

“Sometime in the next year or so we will be redoing the plan across the board again,” Kolman said.

Photo by Mandy Hank