HUNTINGTON BEACH : Firefighters Dispute City’s Pay Findings

A new salary comparison prepared by city officials concludes that the city’s latest contract offer to its firefighters would boost their average pay within two years to the third highest among Orange County cities considered in the report.

But the president of the firefighters’ union, who is calling for salaries to be raised to that level, assailed the report as being “heavily skewed” in the city’s favor.

“What we’re looking at here is not the whole package,” Curt Campbell, president of the Huntington Beach Firefighters Assn., said Monday. “The way the city is looking at this is what’s convenient for them and not convenient for us.”

City officials, however, contend that the study proves that their offer is fair and would meet the union’s key demand--that firefighters’ pay be elevated to the third highest in the county.

“This is not a science. We’re having to use projections and assumptions, and we really don’t know exactly what salaries are going to be,” said Robert Franz, deputy city administrator for administrative services. “But we think this (report) puts us in the top group” in terms of how much cities pay firefighters.

The city and the union declared an impasse in contract negotiations last month.

The firefighters, who have been working without a contract since last Oct. 1, now earn between $31,000 and $41,000 a year, with an average salary of $36,480. The city offered to raise average pay to $45,204 annually by April, 1993, while the union requested an increase in the average to $47,028.

The city’s proposed increase would cost $1.8 million over the three-year contract. The union’s requested pact would cost an additional $500,000, according to the city study.

Representatives of the Huntington Beach Firefighters Assn., in a series of recent pleas before the City Council, stated that their current average salaries rank 14th among Orange County’s 16 firefighting agencies. The city’s offer would boost the department only to seventh in the ranking, union officials say.

In arguing they should be paid third highest in the county, union leaders have noted that the city is the third largest in the county and its fire department fields the third most calls.

The Huntington Beach study did not report the department’s pay standing compared to the entire county because it examined 11 cities encompassing only eight firefighting agencies.

Union leaders argue that the total compensation figures being compared should include other elements, such as how much cities reimburse employees for costs related to education required for their job.

Campbell has requested that union leaders be allowed to dispute the city’s findings during a formal presentation at the Sept. 3 City Council meeting. City officials will decide later this week whether to grant Campbell’s request, said Robert Franz, deputy city administrator for administrative services.

Union officials are preparing their own salary comparison to challenge the city’s report.