City replies to firefighter wives' joint complaint

Grants firefighter Brian Chavez parks one of the fire engines while Elliot Knighton directs traffic on Friday at Fire Station One on High Street in Grants. Citing budget problems, the city has changed some of the over-time policies. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

Grants firefighter Ralph Vallejos picks up a hose to put it away Friday inside of the Grants Fire Station on High Street. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

GRANTS — The city manager has offered a generic reply to complaints from a group of Grants Fire-Rescue Department firefighters wives which was published in Saturday's Independent.

Fire Chief Andrew Valencia said Wednesday he expects to issue a statement Friday.

City Manager Bob Horacek could not confirm that the situation was the topic of Monday night's 75-minute City Council executive session about personnel. During the agenda's call for public comment, he indicated the city would reply Wednesday.

In his Wednesday letter scheduled to be published in Saturday's editorial page, the manager said there were some "misunderstandings that the writers of the letter may have with respect to the Fire Department's budget and the scheduling and paying of firefighters."

Horacek said the city will pay firefighters for work, training and "teaching fire safety to the community." But to keep from breaking the budget, he directed the chief to schedule employees in a way that avoids unnecessary overtime. This is why, the manager wrote, that the schedule calls for 98 hours on duty each pay period (two weeks) or a department total of 900 hours per pay period.

He reinforced his point by writing, "In non-emergency situations, it makes sense to maintain a schedule that does not call for routine overtime and keeps overtime hours to a minimum ... continuing to provide all the vital services to the community."

The manager adds that for emergencies, "the City is more than willing to pay for such overtime."

Horacek said the current budget allots $510,442 for the nine full-time firefighters at the 98-hour pace of work. This includes $333,224 for salaries, with the other $177,218 going for fringe benefits. The chief and administrative secretary are excluded from those figures. There also is $12,000 for the approximately 15 volunteers who receive a $10 stipend when called to a fire, according to Horacek and Valencia.

Six years ago the city began using a new pay scale, developed by what the manager labeled a balanced cross-section of employees and managers, with heavy assistance from the North West New Mexico Council of Governments in Gallup.

City Personnel Manager and Horacek's assistant Anna Brown honored Monday as the city's employee of the month with the Cliff Lear Spirit Plaque said in the 1997-98 fiscal year all employees received a 5 percent pay raise. The next year each worker got a step up in the retirement contribution ladder, which the manager said cost the city about twice what a pay raise would have. In April 2000, the city gave a longevity (seniority) raise. For the 2000-2001 fiscal year the raise was 3.5 percent, followed by 2.5 percent hikes in pay checks each year since then. Merit increases of $125-$400 were given, except for the last two years, Brown said.

In their Oct. 15 letter, six wives Vanessa Pena, Michelle Maes, Shannon Chavez, Aarin Knighton, Shanna Rougement and Marlina Molina said they "think it is a shame and disappointing that our firefighters are making less than any other fire department in the Gallup, Acoma, Laguna and Albuquerque (and) surrounding areas."

Horacek on Wednesday afternoon said he didn't know what the pay scales are for the other departments.

The wives of two-thirds of the paid firefighters also complained about the highly-touted Junior Firefighters Program being dumped. It sought to introduce Grants High School students ages 16-18 to firefighting careers by having them take classroom instruction from the department, then apply what they learned.

The city manager said, "The Junior Firefighters program was suspended indefinitely because we had some internal problems," and admitted those haven't been solved, whatever they are.

He added the city attempted to pay three of the Junior Firefighters using money from the New Mexico Legislature. Horacek said the real problem was that the students' schedules, both in school and extra-curricular, conflicted with the city's work schedule and therefore they couldn't participate.

"It's a great program," he concluded.

The wives had written, "We cry that we need to get kids involved, and come out with programs that will get them off the streets. The fire department tries doing that, but gets set back because it will cost more money."

They added that firefighters were required to work 106 hours before being paid overtime. They also questioned not being paid for two-hour drills twice a month. "That's only four extra hours a month that the City no longer wants to pay for," they complained.

The 8-hour difference between the budgeted 98 hours and the 106 hours cited by the wives remains unexplained.

Firefighters in Grants are not unionized. The city's only union is in the Police Department, the manager said.

— To contact reporter Jim Maniaci, telephone (505) 285-6184 or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).