Santa Maria firefighter Shea Weidler has lived in a van since October because he can’t afford housing costs with the salary he makes.
“As a 30-year-old, you see yourself owning a home and more stable, but when you’re living in a van, living paycheck to paycheck, it kind of wears on you,” Weidler said. “While I don’t want to live in a van, I can. If a coworker had a lease on their rental skyrocket and they can’t afford to live there and they have kids, that would be a much tougher situation.”
Weidler joined fellow members of the firefighters union and the city employees union to picket and speak during public comment at the Feb. 6 Santa Maria City Council meeting, advocating for higher wages that keep up with costs of living.
While negotiations resumed after that meeting for city employees, firefighters are still waiting for that chance and plan to attend future City Council meetings to continue those efforts.
“As a whole within our union, we are taking a stand together, and we decided together that we are going to fight for what we feel we deserve, not just what they offered,” Weidler said. “We could accept a low offer and move on, but it doesn’t get us out of the hole we are in and sets us back further in the future.”
Santa Maria Firefighters Local 2020 members, including 57 firefighters, captains, engineers, and fire inspectors, are paid 14 percent below the local market—making Santa Maria the second lowest paid fire department in the Tri-Counties area, Local 2020 President Matthew Chircop told the Sun. As a result, union leaders asked the city to come up with a plan to close that gap, but the city presented a last, best, and final offer of a 5 percent raise in year one of the contract and a 4 percent raise in year two.
“This pay disparity issue has led to a lot of problems. … We constantly have turnover, we constantly have recruitment and retention issues,” Chircop said. “Santa Maria is the fastest growing city in the county, the largest city in the county. We are busier than any other agency around; Santa Barbara city has more staffing, less population, and more response units.”
According to Transparent California, a nonprofit-run database that compiles public pay and pension information for state employees, Santa Maria fire captains made between $155,000 and $276,000 with 17 captains on payroll in 2022, while Santa Barbara city fire captains made from $160,000 to $292,000 with 28 captains. The 22 Santa Maria firefighters on staff earned between $40,000 and $165,000 in 2022, according to Transparent California, and Santa Barbara’s 24 firefighters made between $103,000 to $233,000.
Since Chircop joined in 2012, the department hired 62 employees and lost 25—about 40 percent of staffing, he said. The department has 73 employees total, according to Transparent California, and is trying to hire 11 new firefighters, Chircop said on Feb. 8.
In 2012, the Fire Department received more than 1,200 applications for open positions; this year the city received 75, Chircop said.
“The numbers are dwindling. There’s a lot of competition out there, a lot of places are trying to keep up with hiring, and unfortunately we don’t have the same applicant pool that we used to,” Chircop said. “Historically, firefighters are not a job where people move around a lot. They come to their dream agency and stay for 30-plus years, but now people are leaving for agencies that are paying better because we keep falling so far behind.”
While other agencies could strike to demand better wages, California law restricts public safety agencies from striking, he added.
“We can’t walk away from our constituents. We build a career on helping people and we can’t just walk away from them,” Chircop said. “All of my members love coming to work, they love serving their community, but it’s hard to not make a fair living wage.”
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 620 joined firefighters and took action for the second time in two months during the Feb. 6 meeting to advocate for higher wages, field representative Nicole Bryant told the Sun.
“Since COVID, it’s been harder and harder, and that’s why they are taking a stance because they are seeing they cannot stay here anymore, they can’t work under these conditions,” Bryant said.
SEIU Local 620 represents almost 50 percent of Santa Maria’s city employees, with members in utilities, public works, recreation and parks, and a few police and fire administrative employees, Bryant said. During SEIU’s previous contract, inflation rose by 11.1 percent and other jurisdictions saw a minimum wage increase by 16.3 percent, while SEIU members saw a 5.5 percent increase. Santa Maria and SEIU officials resumed negotiations after the Feb. 6 City Council meeting.
On Feb. 12, city officials announced that they had reached a two-year labor agreement with the SEIU, which will be presented to City Council on Feb. 20 for ratification.
Santa Maria Public Information Officer Mark van de Kamp told the Sun in a statement that the city does not engage with the news media during negotiations and remains committed to working with representatives of the labor groups at the negotiations table.
Santa Maria Mayor Alice Patino told the Sun that she cannot comment at this time because negotiations remain ongoing.
While Councilmember Gloria Soto also couldn’t comment on negotiations, she told the Sun that it was important for the City Council to hear from the labor groups during public comment and that she hopes negotiations will conclude soon.
“I’m always a huge proponent of having people come and share their thoughts with us and give us a different perspective. I for one am very supportive of the fact that we are hearing directly from employees,” she said. “We’ll just see what this brings, and I look forward to continuing to hear from city employees on how this process is going with their perspective in mind.”
SEIU Local 620 member Natalia Heredia told the Sun on Feb. 9 that she hopes the city and union can reach an agreement that will produce a better wage to help her stay in her hometown.
Heredia has worked for the city for nine years and currently works in the Utilities Department as an accounting technician. As a single mother raising two daughters, she said she’s felt the impact of increased costs.
“Everything has skyrocketed—gas prices, food, the bare necessities have increased significantly,” Heredia said. “Just to stay afloat you have to go to three grocery stores for the best deals and look for which gas prices are the lowest. There are a lot of employees that used to have a single income, and that’s impossible to do.”
The resumed negotiations are a step in the right direction, she added, and have helped boost morale among fellow employees.
“For the most part, I know for myself and many employees, we enjoy working for the city, we enjoy helping build up our community. For a lot of us, this is the community we grew up in and want to raise our kids in,” Heredia said. “I’m hopeful that this negotiation round has set forth a future to get some of the benefits so we can stick around with better retention so we have quality employees that love what they do just as much as the next.”
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 15-25, 2024.