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Firefighters and Parish Spar Over Pay, Millage Use as Council Orders Millage Review
Summary
Firefighters, union leaders and residents pressed the Jefferson Parish administration and council for higher starting pay and transparency in the fire millage while the administration called for fiscally constrained solutions; the council voted to require millage projection reports to assess funds at risk over time.
Jefferson Parish firefighters and their supporters spent the bulk of public comment at the Oct. 22 council meeting pressing officials for higher starting pay and an accounting of how dedicated fire millage dollars have been spent.
The session’s most sustained exchange came after council members adopted a resolution directing the Department of Finance to prepare millage-projection documents. Councilwoman Van Brinken said the reports are intended to identify any millage department “anticipated to experience a negative fund balance prior to the end of the life cycle of the millage,” giving the council data to plan ahead.
Union leaders and firefighters described long-term pay stagnation and hardship. Robin Burkett of the Jefferson Firefighters (public comment) urged the council to back item 11, saying the fire department faces “a financial house” in disrepair and that current wages are untenable. Multiple union speakers repeated that starting pay for many firefighters remains near $10.53 an hour while total pay (base plus supplemental/guaranteed overtime) produces higher in-bank pay for longer-serving staff. Kevin Crossen, representing the Jefferson Firefighters Association, said it has been six years of unsuccessful negotiation and accused the administration of not meeting in good faith.
Parish President Cynthia Lee Chang acknowledged the seriousness of the issue and described two immediate options the administration has presented to the union: seek a statutory carve-out from state law that would allow raising starting pay without triggering across-the-board increases, or provide a one-time supplemental payment (a check) to raise entry-level pay. Chang said the fiscal cost of fully resetting the pay grid would be large and cited constraints in state Revised Statutes as reasons the administration could not unilaterally compress the pay scale. “We want to find a fiscally responsible way to be able to bring our starting firefighter pay up,” Chang said, adding that the administration had proposed targeted approaches and asked the union for workable alternatives.
Several speakers asked the council for a public, line-by-line presentation of the fire millage—how revenues are computed and where the dollars are spent. Council members agreed to pursue greater transparency. Councilman Walker asked the administration to present a fire-millage report or to consider a special meeting so the public can see the millage accounting in black and white.
The meeting concluded with both sides urging further negotiation. Officials said they will continue talks with union leadership; council members encouraged transparency and faster information-sharing to inform any future decisions on millage adjustments or ballot measures.
The council did not adopt any immediate pay changes at the Oct. 22 meeting. The adopted millage-projection resolution (see related article) requires finance to prepare projections that the council said should be produced with urgency but not in a way that delays ongoing audits.
