Salaries and benefits should have been considered when the Santa Maria City Council discussed long range planning for the Fire Department, Firefighters Local 2020 union President and Fire Capt. Matthew Chircop said.
“The message we’ve been communicating with the City Council and the public: because our pay is falling farther and farther behind the market, we are having a hard time recruiting and retaining,” Chircop said.
During the Feb. 20 City Council meeting, Frank Blackley from AP Triton, a consultant group hired by the city, found in its analysis that Santa Maria’s fire department staffing levels fall below the national and regional average ranges, with 0.64 firefighters per 1,000 residents. The city needs to increase staffing levels by one additional paid firefighter per shift, Blackley told the City Council.
While the report helps the Fire Department take a proactive approach to expanding services, it’s hard to grow and hire new firefighters when the department is paid 14 percent below the local market rate, Chircop said.
“With adding more staffing but not taking care of compensation, it’s going to exacerbate the problem. We’ve been experiencing significant growth for the last 12 years—that coupled with low pay is making it that much more difficult to maintain and enhance services,” he said. “Unfortunately the City Council doesn’t seem too interested in addressing the pay aspect and quite reluctant over the years to address the staffing aspect, but it’s all tied together.”
The Santa Maria Firefighters Union has spoken during public comment at every City Council meeting in 2024 to advocate for a plan to close the 14 percent pay gap, but the city hasn’t budged from its last, best and final offer of a 5 percent raise in year one of the contract and a 4 percent raise in year two.
“It’s been really strange this time around. This process has been very different. This is the first time the city has taken such an abrupt step of basically ending negotiations in December,” Chircop said. “The conversations since then have been few and far between and that’s been really frustrating.”
In an emailed statement to the Sun, Interim City Manager Alex Posada said that the city is doing the best it can “given the financial constraints” Santa Maria faces.
“There is obviously some areas that we just can’t bridge, and we’ll continue to work on those as we progress through the negotiation process,” Posada said.
While the firefighters union struggles to get back to the table, fellow city employees union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 620, reached a new contract agreement that was approved by City Council during the Feb. 20 meeting.
“As a whole, our membership is happy with the contract we achieved with the city, it was overwhelmingly supported by the ratification vote,” Field Representative Nicole Bryant Bryant told the Sun.
SEIU Local 620 achieved a 10 percent cost of living adjustment increase over the two-year period (5 percent per year) and made “significant gains” in medical contributions with the city agreeing to cover 100 percent of the 2025 health insurance premiums for the lowest cost preferred provider organization plan.
“The city team is pleased to have successfully negotiated, pursuant to City Council direction, a two-year agreement with SEIU Local 620. This affects 313 full-time and part-time employees,” Santa Maria Public Information Manager Mark van de Kamp told the Sun in a statement.
Bryant added that the SEIU Local 620 stands in solidarity with the Local 2020 firefighters union as it fights for a market wage. While Chircop said he’s happy the SEIU reached an agreement and it’s been heartwarming to have fellow union support, but it’s hard to see one union reach an agreement while the firefighters struggle.
“To know the SEIU was offered a better deal was really frustrating. That’s a gut-check, that really hurt morale,” Chircop said.
This article appears in Feb 29 – Mar 10, 2024.