City looks at volunteer firefighter needs

A busy agenda for the Osawatomie City Council on Thursday night covered issues from volunteer firefighter stipends to clean streets and from levee repairs to trouble for the city’s planned eastern trailhead of the Flint Hills Nature Trail.

A $2 raise per call for the city’s volunteer firefighters, proposed by public safety liaison Councilwoman Amanda Martin, would bump the pay from $25 to $27 per call.

Martin said with recent pay increases approved for full-time city employees, the council should offer similar treatment to the volunteer fire department.

“My thought is that if we’re going to offer incentives for the rest of our employees, we need to do it equally throughout the city,” Martin said.

“I know that the fire department has said they would prefer equipment purchase money over raises,” she added, but “I’ve talked with Don (Cawby, city manager) and my guestimation — with 22 firefighters on staff, and if they go on, approximately, 100 calls a year, including training — we could feasibly offer a $2 per call raise.

“The (extra) cost would be between $4,400 and $7,000,” she added. “That’s not an astronomical amount.”

Cawby said, in response to a question from Mayor Mark Govea, that Paola pays its volunteer firefighters $30 for in-town calls and Louisburg pays $25.

Cawby also said the city has budgeted $28,000 for the fire department this year, estimating that actual cost would be about $22,000.

“It’s not that it’s not worthy to give the firefighters a raise and more equipment,” he said, noting that the firefighters have received $25 per call “for years,” but he expressed concerns including:

• Adding in non-budgeted expenses during the middle of the budget year — “taking it out of context because we’ve got money left.” Cawby said the council could wait until next year’s budget process, then make the raise retroactive.
• His preference that before the budget is increased, Fire Chief DuWayne Tewes be allowed to prepare a budget for the department.
• Whether, in the future, firefighter stipend increases would be annually tied to city employee salary increases.

“While everyone probably wants raises for the fire department,” he said, “those are the things to think about.”

The city manager said there is money for equipment and more for the fire department in the next three-year capital improvement spending plans.

“My game plan is to get the electrical department (moved),” Cawby said, which the fire department shares space with, to expand their space. Currently, fire trucks and equipment are tightly jammed into a space they have outgrown.

“The main thing they are looking for is a new place,” said Councilman Nick Hampson, adding “not that they wouldn’t take that (raise).”

Martin said that firefighters have said they are more interested in equipment funds, but “even with that, they really do need that (stipend increase.)

“I asked Don (Cawby) if we can feasibly do both.”

Councilman Ted Hunter thanked Martin for bringing up the issue.

“I want the fire department to be as happy as can be,” Hunter said, “and with all the issues coming up with the council (about the raise and budget), I’d like to table this.

“I appreciate you bringing that up,” he said to Martin. “It’s a vital thing.”

Council members — with Tamara Maichel and John Farley absent — agreed to table the discussion until April 2014.

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