Committee forwards salary corrections, new communications role, building‑maintenance post and several budget appropriations

The Personnel & Finance Committee voted unanimously to forward a package of personnel and budget measures to the Committee of the Whole with favorable recommendations, commissioners said during the meeting.

The package included a salary correction for certain non‑captain fire positions, title changes and a new public‑facing communications role in the fire department, a Teamsters building‑maintenance position for the planned new City Hall, internal budget transfers to align program budgets, and multiple appropriations including a pending federal grant for Kennedy Park.

City Controller Kyle Willis told the committee that Bill 9‑25 corrects an omission in the collective bargaining agreement negotiations for fiscal year 2025: certain non‑captain positions that historically have been paid at the captain salary level were inadvertently omitted from the CBA chart. Willis described the change as retroactive for 2025 and requested authorization to correct the salaries and make retroactive payments. Assistant City Attorney Adam Taylor characterized the issue as a scrivener’s error in drafting rather than an operational change; Fire Chief Carl R. Buchanan said the omission was not intentional and that some employees who perform investigator/inspector/paramedic duties have long received captain pay despite not holding the captain rank…