El Paso firefighters press for 7.5% contract gains as OMB flags multi‑million dollar cost

Captain J. Nicholson, union president, laid out a suite of contract requests Wednesday during a bargaining-session presentation with the city Office of Management and Budget, asking for what he described as a 7.5% total adjustment over the life of the contract and a series of contractual cleanups and new specialty pays.

The union asked for a new compensatory-time section to allow comp time instead of pay for certain overtime and to raise the maximum compensatory accrual and payout on separation from 240 hours to 480 hours. "The El Paso Fire Department is not average. We are a pinnacle department," Nicholson said, arguing members perform many specialty tasks without current compensation.

Sasha Andorovsky of the Office of Management and Budget presented cost estimates tied to the proposals and described a counterproposal that would combine a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment with step adjustments. "I just wanna mention that the variance is $65,800,000 for the life of the contract," Andorovsky said when describing one comparative estimate; later in the same presentation OMB estimated the union's 7.5% combined proposal would cost about $10,500,000 in the first year and approximately $40,100,000 over the life of the contract.

Why it matters: the union framed its request as pay parity with similar departments and proposed structural changes intended to modernize an older contract. Nicholson identified multiple targets for amendment: clarifying limits on assigning firefighters to non‑core duties, categorizing station repairs by severity and timeline, prohibiting mandatory use of personal devices to conduct city business when city equipment fails, and updating drug-and-alcohol and promotion processes.

The union also proposed a new labor-management relations article to consolidate and expand committees (medical wellness advisory, equipment/apparatus/facilities, professional development/promotions, paramedic advisory and medical review), and seeks to recognize peer-support and other specialty teams with pay adjustments. Nicholson said committee composition should expand to increase participation and oversight.

On benefits and leave, Nicholson asked to increase maximum vacation/holiday accrual from 75 days to 90 days and to revise accrual steps so lower-ranking employees gain time earlier in their careers. He also raised health-and-safety language and argued the city should avoid forcing employees to incur out-of-pocket costs for required uniforms and equipment.

OMB staff explained they rely on ERI market data for apples-to-apples comparisons and that some peer cities do not publish pay scales until the start of their fiscal year, limiting OMB's ability to project other jurisdictions' 2027 pay scales. An attendee challenged the ERI comparisons as omitting certain cities for 2027 data; OMB said it will continue to update rankings as verified data arrive and provided supplemental materials in the packet.

No formal votes or actions were taken at the session. Participants tentatively agreed to reconvene next Thursday if schedules allow, and attendees requested copies of the presentation slides.

What remains unresolved: the city and union differ on the fiscal impact and structure of raises and comp-time changes; OMB presented multiple cost figures during the meeting tied to different comparison baselines, and both sides signaled follow-up negotiation sessions.

The session closed after scheduling discussion and requests for the slide packet; no ordinances, motions, or votes were recorded at the meeting.