Vote FOR Prop B in November
I am a Houston fire department Captain. Sylvester Turner, the mayor we got elected, used our good faith efforts against us to renege on his promises and decimate our pension.
I begged a forum of conservative voters to take their time, to write and call their elected representatives and ask them to vote against the Houston pension solution. To no avail, we lost our request both with voters, and with the elected officials.
When we agreed to 700+ million dollars in cuts, the mayor needed more to balance his books and he took closer to 1.25 billion.
We went back to the table to ask for reform on the 43rd level salary of Texas departments after the end of our benefits, we had the voter support, but were stonewalled for over a year and after a judge’s ruling the city petition for pay parity was introduced this summer.
We ask for fair pay between Houston’s first responders. Nothing more, nothing less. We do so in good faith because the curtain of “pension costs” the city has been hiding behind while we have been offered much less, nor received a pay increase in line with the cost of living, in well over 8 years.
The cost looks substantial in terms of the mayor’s projections, but not factored in is the massive amount of cost savings raided by a campaign against our retirement a year ago.
Vote for prop B. It cannot raise property taxes and will in fact push any attempt by the mayor to do so 2 years down the road. A charter amendment (which is what it would take to raise the tax cap) can only be introduced every 2 years.
The city cannot afford the cost…. that was the story we were told just a few months ago when the mayor in true political fashion lamented that 90 million (his estimate but not fact) was more than the city can afford.
A month later, during the campaign and behind closed doors a 7% raise was given to the police department at a cost of 53 million.
We are hemorrhaging firefighters to better paying departments at an astronomical rate. Unprecedented to any rate we have seen before.
Houston Police Department officers deserve every raise they receive and more so, but we hope the City of Houston taxpayers can look beyond the smoke and mirrors, and vote for Prop B, and end the discrepancy in our city’s first responders who all love our careers, and just look towards the ability of serving our citizens and providing for our families.
(Editor’s note: the writer of this post did not want his/her name published. We have verified that this person is a captain in the fire department.)
The Republican city council member I spoke with says the City simply cannnot afford a 25 to 32% pay increase for firemen.
He or she is lying. Our Republican council members are all total idiots or bobbleheads for the mayor.
When conservatives vote yes for prop b, will firefighters return the favor next year and vote him out for good?
Did you ask that same CM how they could afford a $53m raise for HPD without batting an eye ?
The truth is if the city just ceased to subsidize other departments’ budgets with revenue generated by the FD, the entire raise plus some would be taken care of.
PD generated revenue is used to pay salaries, buy cruisers, etc. FD revenue is put into the general fund – 100% of it.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander – unless of course you’re all about the cognitive dissonance.
Jack, your comments reveal the belief that you think you own any funds generated by HFD operations. Those operations are financed entirely by the taxpayers and as such any funds derived from them belong in the general fund, just like the 100% of the ticket revenue from the police. I’ve seen this argument pop up a number of times of late and even if the city could collect 100% of the face value of ambulance rides and other funds your group generates, you’re not expensing the costs against it so no, no, a thousand times NO. The police should also end the practice of civil forfeiture, many of us uncomfortable with incentive they have to seize assets just to get their cut from the DA or federal authorities.
Hi, Peter. I agree 100% on the issue of asset forfeiture.
The revenues I’m taking about with PD are almost entirely generated by fines, fees, etc. NOT selling at auction the drug dealers 8 year old Escalade with 170k Miles.
You should at least understand my argument that if every other department has revenues generated by that department retained within its budget why would the same not occur with the FD ? What is so unique about public sector budgeting for a FD ?
Their fines have traditionally gone to the city’s General Fund via the municipal courts. If this has changed, by all means provide a copy of the city ordinance allowing for the direct transfer.
Did he also mention the tentative 10% raise going to PD provided Prop B fails ? In July the city and HPOU had a tentative agreement for 17% over 3 years.
This latest agreement for 7% over 2 years is in light of Prop B possibly passing. If it were to fail, the city had indicated a willingness to revisit the agreement to something closer to the original July contract.
Of the three pension plans and the back room deals that brought them to us I am the most sympathetic to the firefighter’s current position. The firemen kept their raises in check to keep their pensions better funded. When it all fell down their plan actually met the Sarbanes-Oxley standard and the muni and police did not.
That said the most of very little does nothing for their plight. All of the city employees got in bed with unions that have screwed everybody but the leaders of those unions. As a tax payer I never got a seat at the negotiating table. All I got was the bill to pay.
Now Sly being the political weasel he is has successfully pitted the employee groups into opposing camps. Look around the city today. It’s likely as good as it will ever be, We are broke and getting poorer because of the debt of these pensions. The folks just voted themselves a nice lien on their properties via bonds backed by same. Got that? We just secured $1 billion in bonds to pay for public employee pensions.
That won’t fix any roads. Replace any water or sewer lines. Won’t improve any aspect of our existence at all. We won’t be replacing police and firemen at the level we currently have and isn’t as high as it was 5 and 10 years ago. And that first bond wasn’t even 8% of the pension debt.
The firemen did the best they could to keep the plates spinning but the reality is less than 30,000 people from all three groups believe they are owed the other $12 billion in pension debt and the other 2.1 million people need to give it to them.
There is a term that is being used more and more. GTOW. Go Their Own Way. Watch it take hold. Houston, like Detroit will have plenty of green space in the coming years.
I support the prop for the simple reason that our firefighters, just like our police officers, risk their lives in the line of duty every day and we need to pay them a reasonable wage to support their families, if we want to keep a workable force in our city. When they are going to other cities which are offering them more money and benefits, then there is something wrong with Houston’s priorities. Police, firefighters, infrastructure, libraries, are the basics which I expect my tax dollars to fund. The city needs to cut out the fat everywhere else, and there is plenty of fat to cut.
Pay parity is not a bad thing, but parity for fire fighters should be compared to other fire departments to which our fire fighters are moving, not the police department, where similar job titles have very different responsibilities, experience and educational requirements.
If the fire fighters believe they have a good case for the passage of Prop B, why are they not outside (since they have not been invited in), all of the Mayor’s community meetings, sharing their position with voters as they enter and leave the meetings? It is as if they believe voters love and idolize fire fighters and that will be enough to get them to vote yes
Finally, charter amendments are not the way to address pay increases since citizens do not have a full understanding of the financial implications of their vote. The City has successfully negotiated new contracts with the other two unions, why has this not happened with the Fire Department? The City has offered a 9% raise over 3 years, but the Department rejected it.
That 9 percent raise you speak of is not an actual 9 percent. The city stated if the FD took that deal (which is horrible if you ask me), then it would have came with concessions in which the FD would be giving up more than gaining. I believe they stated to them an increase in Insurance premiums of approx 2 percent per year for the contract deal, as well as giving up other items, costing the FD more than receiving. But the PD gave up no concessions for their 7% (technically 9% if the FD and city don’t have an agreement on their next contract at the end of their new contract, they will receive an additional 2%). How is this even fair. Please explain. I will surely give my time and ear to hear this debate. I will be voting in favor for our fd.
Healthcare costs have tripled for the city over the last 20 years and the city uses our tax dollars to pay you for this benefit. Your percentage of the cost is about 25% of that cost, which has no relation to your salary because it costs the lowest paid employee the same amount as he makes far less than you. The bulk of these rising costs have been absorbed by the city, not the employees, and the city does not include insurance increases as part of their contracts so you heard wrong. I looked over the numbers for a few friends that work for the city and pointed out how much cheaper they have it than the rest of us in the private sector. http://www.kff.org/health-costs/slide/cumulative-increases-in-health-insurance-premiums-workers-contributions-to-premiums-inflation-and-workers-earnings-1999-2012/ (just one example)
Major Fire Departments in Texas first year firefighter pay.
Plano-67,000
Magnolia-67,000
Baytown-60,000 with 5k signing bonus
Frisco-63,000
Lewisville-62,128
Arlington-62,000
Carrollton-61,500
Beaumont-60,800
Denton-60,600
Irving-60,360
Mesquite-60,105
Dallas-60,000
Woodlands-59,000
Euless-58,760
Austin-56,588
Waxahachie-56,300
Texas City-54,000
Sugarland-52,591
Fort Worth-52,000
San Antonio-52,000
Spring-52,000
San Marcos-51,700
Conroe-48,000
Corpus-48,000
Houston-42,000 (cadet pay 28,000)
Houston Police Department
First year officer 49,917 (cadet Pay 42,000)
HFD is the 4th largest and busiest (call volume) in the United States. We are the Largest class 1 ISO rated department in the country. ISO rating effects your insurance costs. HFD fire and Ems is also the top two rated city services voted on by the residents of Houston.
So are you sure you want us to compare ourselves to other departments in Texas? We have tried numerous times when negotiating with the city with multiple administrations to get comparable pay with other TEXAS fire departments but it was always rejected, and yes the Turner administration rejected it.
The thought process here is if the city can’t afford to pay HFD comparable salaries to other fire departments in Texas then maybe they can afford to pay us what they pay HPD.
For decades HFD took the table scraps when it came to raises and did not give up retirement benefits and only asked the city fully fund our pension system. The police and municipality workers gave up a lot of retirement benifits for new hires and allowed the city to defer pension payments for pay raises. Hfd was FINE with the deal we had. We worked harder and multiple jobs to make ends meet because we would have it on the back end. Mayor turner took our pension to the state legislature and changed laws to get his hands on it. He cut some 1.4 billion dollars from the fund costing on average 160k from every working and retired firefighter and then he passed a 1 billion dollar pension bond to bail out hpd and munciple workers pensions. Hfd saw all of $0.00 from that 1 billion dollars. Before turner raided hfd pension fund it was one of the top rated public pension funds in the country.
Also the fall back of saying HFD only works 9 days a month is a fallacy. If you want to get technical hfd works for example 630 am to midnight on a Monday then from 12:01 to 6:30 am on a Tuesday. Then work again 630 am to midnight that Wednesday an then from 12:01 to 6:30 am that Thursday. The imagery from tv shows that show firemen sitting around the fire house cooking and sleeping is also at least in 90% of the fire stations in Houston just not the case. If most firefighters are able to close their eyes for an hour or two in a 24 hour shift they are lucky.
As far as cooking and eating at the fire station. I can’t even count how many meals were supposed to be eaten at 5 pm only to be eaten 3-4+ hours later or while rolling down the road to a call.
No other city service outside of the fire department do not have a guaranteed meal break, not even HPD, an firemen are at work for 24 hours.
Firefighters are not asking for anything other than to be fair. Everything the police bargained with (pensions) was just taken from us in one fell swoop with the stroke of a pen. Why does it make Firefighters so greedy to want to be put on the same playing field as police now that our pensions are the same.
I have yet to hear a reasoned argument as to why firefighters should be paid the same as police officers.
It isn’t the same job. We should pay what is necessary to recruit and retain every position in the City. There has been approximately 4,000 firefighters every year for the last decade. As of the start of this fiscal year there were 3,963.
From a Human Resources perspective a 32% increase is uncalled for.
I’m tired of hearing the excuse of “fire/police jobs are not the same.” First they may not do the same thing, but accomplish the same goal, protect/help people. Second, HFD works 8 hours more a week than HPD. Now think of this. When your house is on fire who do you call? The fire department, not the police department. Who do you call when you, a loved one, or a friend has a medical emergency? The fire department, not the police department. When you get shot or stabbed who do you call? Both the fire department and police department. So basically firefighters go to the same dangerous situations just like police do and will be right there by their side. But I can guarantee you when that firefighter is pumping chest on your loved one, or inside that burning building saving your child, that police officer is outside watching from a distance. So please tell me now how the firefighters don’t deserve equal pay to police.
Fred did you know that HFD and HPD used to have Pay Parity in the early 2000s? It was broke so HPD could take raises, and HFD chose to have thier pension funded in lieu of raises. Pension reform ruined that. Did you also know that every other leading city in the United States has Pay Pariry? Cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio all have Pay Parity. But some how Houston firefighters don’t deserve Pay Parity?
Dear Anonymous Firefighter,
Thank you for your service to the community. Like some of the others commenting, I find your logic flawed in regard to this specific proposed charter amendment. The pension cuts you took were over a year ago but long overdue, the other two groups endured multiple rounds of such cuts yet city finances are still exposed because your dance partner, mayor Turner, cratered to your demands to continue having a defined benefit pension. The corridor provision does not even dictate appropriate cuts should the markets not perform well enough and we are sure to see scores of sob stories when the first adjustment needs to be made.
Many of us feel the city’s finances are already in deep trouble, just driving around town is proof positive that infrastructure has been neglected for too long, further evidenced by the flooding every year, collapsing water mains and so forth. This trouble will not be cured by additional spending on salaries for those who live outside the city and it seems fair that your union membership bears some of the pain you caused by helping to elect this latest liberal to office. Your intervention may not have been the tipping point but along with the other city unions, it moved the needle just far enough to change the results from a RINO to a democrat so live with it.
Captain, spending other people’s money is easy and if anyone at your union bothered to look at the city’s financial books, cooked or not, the time of reckoning is coming. Without major changes in how funds are spent, the bottomless well you seek to draw from is going to dry up. As to the proposition itself, Fred’s point is well made and if you get your way, the only thing the taxpayers of Houston are guaranteed is reduced services and greater costs. When you’re ready to accept a smaller raise, I’m sure your sugar daddy in office will be there for you as he has been for years but I urge residents to vote no on the proposition.
You do realize the cuts the other two pension systems took and deferred payments resulted in raises for them right? The firefighters refused to give up pension benifits for pay raises until turner just took it. The firefighters pension was one of the best funded and managed pension systems in the country.
As for pension benifits now, new hires are almost exactly the same benifit wise between hfd and hpd thanks to the reform.
The Houston business community universally opposes Prop B for the reasons stated in this press release:
HOUSTON’S LEADING BUSINESS GROUPS COME TOGETHER TO OPPOSE PROPOSITION B
Greater Houston Partnership, Houston Realty Business Coalition, and the “C” Club of Houston Urge Houstonians to Vote AGAINST Prop B
HOUSTON (September 26, 2018) – The Houston business community respects and supports our fire fighters and police officers that risk their lives every day serving our community. When it comes to the issue of Proposition B, however, any reasonable assessment of the ballot measure shows that Prop. B puts the city’s fiscal health at risk, creates an unequal compensation system and is the wrong way to ensure our first responders are fairly compensated.
On the issue of fiscal health, Bob Harvey, President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership said:
“The Partnership and these other business groups worked for more than three years with stakeholders from across the community to reform the City’s pension plans. We cannot take a step back and waste those tremendous gains that put our City on a firmer financial footing. The City simply can’t afford Prop. B – it will cost $100 million or more in the first year. This would necessitate budget and service cuts within the General Fund budget just as pension costs were beginning to do prior to reform. Prop B would make it even harder for the City to reach a balanced budget, maintain a strong balance sheet and credit rating, and provide adequate and timely City services.”
Prop B would also establish an unequal compensation system between fire and police. Alan Hassenflu, Chairman of the Houston Realty Business Coalition said:
“We agree that equal pay for equal work is essential, but Prop B. actually creates an unequal system. The “parity” component of Prop. B doesn’t account for special pay categories. Police officers are required to buy their own equipment, fire fighters are not – yet they would receive the same equipment stipend. Police are required to earn certain academic degrees to progress in rank, fire fighters are not – yet they would receive the same education stipend. Prop. B also completely ignores the enormously-generous pension benefits fire fighters earn over the years which is significantly more attractive than the police plan. While Prop. B promises parity, it is anything but equal.
Finally, Prop B is simply the wrong way to address issues of compensation for city employees. Christopher Zook, President of the “C” Club said:
“We respect and appreciate our firefighters, but this city cannot afford the 32 percent pay raise the fire union is demanding if Prop B passes. We strongly encourage the city’s voters to vote AGAINST Prop B, so our elected officials and the firefighters’ union can re-engage in the collective bargaining process Houston voters gave the union over a decade ago – and find a more responsible, and workable, solution to ensure our firefighters are properly compensated.”
That list of those wanting us to vote against Prop B also tells me to vote for it. That looks like the same coalition that opposed the bathroom bill too.
Like most of the fire, police and muni workers I’m moving out of here too so whatevs.
If the Firefighters had campaigned to remove the Revenue Cap, then I would believe them. What they have proposed is financially untenable, and the method they used was attempted rape.
Please support your Houston Firefighters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EixqX1KTGpI
I’d just like to hear everyone’s opinions that seems to think the firefighters are asking for way too much from the city. 1. Do you honestly believe that whether the firefighters get paid better or not will effect city of Houston and the way it spends its money? I keep seeing the crumbling infrastructure argument. What makes you think that not paying the firefighters better will result in better spending habits by the city? This doom and gloom narrative of bankrupting the city doesn’t have a solution attached to it. You do realize Detroit (huge buzzword of fear nowadays) laid off less than 200 firefighters when it filed for bankruptcy, yet our mayor states that he may have to layoff 800+ firefighters and 300 police officers if Prop B passes? Please, none of you were born yesterday, start seeing past the lies and fear tactics. HFD covers 720 square miles of Houston with under 4,000 firefighters. Laying off a quarter of the workforce would put the city in real legit danger. 2. Since the firefighters are asking too much but no one seems to call out the police for making 30% higher wages or more, would be be fair to say you equate HPD to be more important for public safety than HFD? You do realize that if you call 911 and do not have a criminal complaint, it goes to HFD. They handle fires, rescues, ALL EMS calls, fire prevention, etc. I come across many people who have no idea that HFD handles all medical emergency calls. So 2/3 of the time at a minimum or 3/3 out of the time (3/3 if your call involves criminal activity with reported injuries), HFD shows up. Who responded to you and your loved ones during the hurricane in Houston if they were not busy doing other rescues and evacuations? HPD may have leaders on TV that say they were, but media cameras were not around always in the bad situations to capture the thousands of rescues and evacuations that HFD performed. Did you know that the mayor & fire chief did not approve overtime for firefighters unable to go home (still at the station) due to flooded streets that were ready and willing to work, but instead HPD was required to work 12 hour shifts with mandatory 12 hour rest times and rack up overtime? Plus if they lolived outside the city, they were put up in city hotels free of charge for days? It’s hightime many citizens of Houston wake up and stop believing the “bad/greedy guy” narrative that has been created about HFD by the past mayor, current mayor and past and present administration. Think for yourselves.
When employees ask for double digit raises while offering nothing in return, I show them the door unless they are offering to provide a commensurate increase in value to my company. Had you requested a series of 2% raises every few years, it would have been more acceptable but few businesses can absorb a 30% increase all at once unless it can charge its customers that much more. As it stands, the city can increase taxes by a strict formula but much of that increased revenue stream is already spoken for in the form of your ever increasing healthcare costs, programmed raises and contracts, and other obligations.
And using Detroit as an example is okay except Houston is 4 times larger in population, has a completely different set of financial issues, and did not lose two thirds of the city’s population while refusing to adjust the number of city employees. In the end, pensions were cut more than Houston’s, healthcare for retirees was eliminated so they went on Obamacare, pay was cut (Detroit is paying EMT’s 15 to 20/hr these days). As far as how many service calls you make, officials at Houston’s emergency center claim most of the calls coming in are for police by a wide margin but you can look that up if interested. Playing with statistics is fine except when someone catches you in your desperate attempt to persuade them.
As far as HFD’s response during the hurricane, most employees were not called to work because the city lacks the equipment for you to use to save people. Some of that has been addressed already but there is a long way to go and who would call people to work overtime when they don’t have the gear needed to assist those in need? Do you think spending an additional 30% on personnel is going to provide more equipment? I’d like to know how you figure that. But police being offered free hotel rooms by private businesses really isn’t a problem for me, they have enough of their own problems to deal with that have nothing to do with this twisted extortion scheme by union employees.
The answer to city financial problems is complex but nothing in the proposition is going to address it, nor force city leaders to make the needed changes. The proposition will, however, require cuts to services while not saving taxpayers a cent.
Peter, are they asking for double digit raises, or asking to be payed equally with their public safety counterparts who protect the city and it’s citizens together? You do realize the top 3 cities in the nation by population have parity and Houston had it until 2003? This isn’t some novel idea HFD came up with out of nowhere. HFD actually helped HPD gain parity in 1975, but now the firefighters are greedy and HPD’s Union is putting up $600k+ to fight against Prop B. Why is it ok for HPD to gain a 3% raise this year and 4% next year but firefighters should have settled for 2% per year according to your logic? Would you accept raises of 2% per year, knowing that’s only enough to keep up with inflation? How about if your employer said you can have a 2% raise, but insurance premiums are going up, you cannot use benefit time allotted to you to take off from work and oh, 200 of your newest employees will be laid off if you take the measly raise. Those are all real concessions that were demanded in return for a “raise”. When the question gets asked constantly “why did HFD not take these raises offered previously” I laugh hysterically. Who in their right mind would turn down a raise of any percentage unless it came with huge concessions?
I’m not the one using Detroit, I’m saying it gets mentioned anytime a city is in a crisis. If Prop B passes, it will inevitably be mentioned. And when did I say anything about HPD getting more calls having to do with anything? It’s no secret they get more calls, they have more officers, equipment, etc to handle more calls. They have a bigger budget that seems to increase year by year while HFD’s has been shrinking recently. Did you know they do not have to respond emergency to all of these calls and they can be put in a queue, sometimes for hours depending on their priority? HFD responds emergency to every call. You did not catch me in anything, I never stated HFD made more calls, I stated HFD responds to 2/3 or potentially 3/3 of all 911 calls. And when did I mention anything about equipment? You are mentioning things that have nothing to do with getting a raise for HFD? You do realize without public safety unions, both police and fire would get paid peanuts, have much less safety equipment, barely have any benefits, etc. It’s no secret that the city would get away with whatever it could if the unions did not bargain and negotiate for the safety and livable wages for its members. Cities and corporations (private sector) would pay and treat laborers and public safety workers like garbage if they could. Look at the criminal way public school teachers are being treated in Oklahoma and other states.
When roughly 5% of your workforce that you have spent tens of thousands of dollars on to train leaves to go to other departments because their retirement is severely stricken down and they can easily make more money on the front end at another department without constantly hearing they may get laid off if they get a raise, there is a major problem. Who wants to work for a boss that threatens layoffs every time the employee asks for a raise? HFD did not take legit raises for years because the retirement was great. Now it’s a different story…
Your internal jealousies for one another do not concern me, nor do the false comparisons or the collective chips on your shoulders. Turner has been helping you against the better interests of the taxpayer for close to 30 years now and the wheel finally came around for you to see the light. Public sector unions do nothing for those who pay the bills, merely prevent most of you from being fired when you are caught sexually harassing someone or otherwise engaging in misconduct, their time has come and gone as seen across the world. So if a small percentage of the employees want to move to greener pastures, let them go and moving forward have all new employees sign contracts to pay the city back for their training, adjust starting pay if enough people do not apply for openings. That holds true for all of you that work on our dime, you should appreciate what you have.
Ah the classic “my tax dollars pay your salary” statement comes to light finally. You realize you just mentioned in your last comment that you think it’s a good idea to adjust starting pay to attract good candidates, essentially what HFD is trying to do? While not losing the good ones they already have? Your pessimism towards unions is a result of decades strong narrative against unions that is really only creating a further wage gap. It’s no secret unions are not as popular in the south compared to the west and northeast, so it’s even harder to defend them down here. Pay unskilled and not properly trained workers the least amount you can so the higher ups can make more profit margin. It doesn’t matter if it’s a livable wage, if they are worked 40+ hours with little to no breaks, no overtime, no vacation, benefits, etc. Unions are easily attacked now. Airline ticket prices keep increasing? Blame it on unions. Instruction of new buildings costs HOW MUCH!? Blame it on unions. Unions exist to give a fair wages and safety measures to workers. You know in the back of your mind what it would look like if they did not exist…..oh wait, just look at Wal-Mart employees. Yes, like all things in life, there are some negatives, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Everything I mentioned concerning HPD is true and fact, so interpret it as jealousy if you choose. Appreciate what you have….I buy that some. If that was the case for everyone though, all workers, union or not should simply take the wage and benefits offered to them no matter how low it is and never request anything more? Turner has not done anything great for HFD, past or present. He used his experience in Austin to gut their pension last year. The city has given huge tax breaks to corporations though, letting them away with paying a fraction of what they should. No one wants to hear that though. If everyone was paying their fair share to operate and live in the city, there would be enough money to go around. Don’t put the blame on public safety or their unions. Call 911 sometime and see if your tune changes.
Stay/Cmon/Classic, please pick a name and run with it. This being said, if HFD has had a long running problem attracting qualified candidates, and it hasn’t, than adjusting starting pay makes sense. Only recently have we heard of the horrible slew of new candidates you’re getting, apparently not as good as the rest of you that have been so employed-a common refrain heard in every industry by the way. But let’s be honest and point out that you are not focusing your collective union efforts on getting better starting pay or the bulk of this crazy large raise would not be directed at those with more time in service.
Your love of unions is understandable given you reap the bounty they provide you but the reason why unions have declined so much over the last 80 years is that most of the excesses by companies have been curbed by the wealth of laws and regulations implemented by society. So unions have outlived their usefulness to most workers, those in the public sector have not fared so well either over time.
As far as your pal Turner, he and the now deceased Mr. Gallegos were your water boys in the legislature for decades, bending over backwards to cater to you at the taxpayer’s expense. And your union supported Turner for Mayor so you get to reap the benefits of your actions, supporting liberals gave you perks that now require the rest of the world to claw back and look like the bad guys because those perks are not sustainable. Even your newfound love, Bill King, routinely points out your pensions are still not sustainable even after the cuts from last year.
So if all you want is to pay new employees more, ask the city to direct all 9.5% offered to those positions, the ones that won’t get that lottery-sized check upon retirement like the rest of you. I’m sure your dance partner Turner would go for it.
You don’t think HFD has had a hard time obtaining quality individuals in the last 5-10 years? You may want to go research some numbers buddy. Also,don’t tell me that giving a raise to a group/organization that makes up less than 1% of the total budget is going to banckrupt a multi billion dollar budget. It’s amazing that someone who sounds so smart can actually be so dumb.
Island/likely the same guy as all the other aliases, as much as I appreciate your belief that I sound smart, it would facilitate the discussion if you bothered to spend 10 minutes learning the basics first.
1. The city’s operating budget is where you get paid from, not the enterprise funds or capitol improvements parts of the “total” budget. HFD accounts for over a half billion dollars or over 20%. Most of that is for pay so increasing pay by 25 or 32% just by itself will be more than your fantasy 1%.
2. HFD has managed just fine finding qualified employees over the last 10 years. There might have been some individual poor choices in hiring but for the most part, I doubt any additional screening would have eliminated all of them up front. If you’re claiming most, all, or even many of those hired in that time frame are markedly deficient, you are in disagreement with anyone that will go on record, including your union.
As a separate comment, very few people want Houston to be like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, pay parity is not the norm across the country and is dying off even where it exists. If any of you could address the basic tenants of supply & demand or were willing to go all in for a true parity of compensation, at least it might be an interesting topic for discussion. And it might be wise to remember that HFD’s pension agreed that it needed changes in a drastic turnaround from years of stonewalling over discount rates, lowering the needed rate of return which increased it’s unfunded liabilities immediately to add over a billion extra dollars in debt. That pension board also agreed to most of Turner’s pension cuts before he demanded too much, this is the history of the facts that some of you seem to have forgotten.
Thank you all for your comments. Clear as mud!