Hollins says HFD increases could have saved Houston millions

The city would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars if it had increased the pay of Houston firefighters six years ago, compared to the proposed $650 million back pay settlement, City Comptroller Chris Hollins said Monday in an analysis that Mayor John Whitmire quickly dismissed as irrelevant.

Hollins’ presentation suggested the settlement would be much less costly if it were tied to hypothetical pay raises that former Mayor Sylvester Turner might have granted years ago.

The comptroller’s presentation featured high stakes for him, Houston taxpayers and Whitmire, who is trying to win council approval for the deal in his first big test as mayor.

Hollins said he wasn’t trying to take sides, but the Houston Professional Firefighters Association immediately rebuked his presentation, calling it an irrelevant and inaccurate attack on the mayor.

Whitmire, in a statement, said the analysis was nothing more than an “academic” exercise that did not consider relevant law.

A regulation scrutinized

Whitmire said in March that he had reached an agreement to resolve a seven-year standoff with Houston firefighters over their pay, which had lagged behind that of other Texas cities due to declining of the service’s workforce.

The total cost: $1.5 billion, including about $1 billion to settle back wages, plus interest and bond fees to pay, as well as the cost of a prospective collective bargaining agreement.

Whitmire and the firefighters union say that without the settlement, the city could have faced a court order of up to $1.2 billion in back pay alone. The settlement gave the city financial security while paving the way for the department to grow, they say.

Details of the negotiations have been kept secret due to ongoing litigation. In his presentation Monday, Hollins attempted to develop scenarios that would serve as criteria.

The fire department’s last contract with the city expired in July 2017. Hollins said that while the city increased its hourly wage to match the average of four major Texas cities and continued to increase it at the average over the following years, the city would do so. had to pay $330 million more between fiscal years 2018 and 2014. If the settlement had been based on this scenario, the total cost with interest would have been approximately $380 million.

Other, less generous scenarios, comparing Houston firefighters to police and other city employees, or phasing in raises less aggressively, would have lowered the total cost to $110 million.

Comparison questioned

Hollins’ presentation was accompanied by a key footnote, saying his office did not attempt to conduct a legal analysis exposing “the likelihood of various judgment outcomes.”

That decision made the rest of the analysis meaningless, Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Marty Lancton said Monday.

The Houston Fire Department had sued the city for failing to reach a contract. Before the settlement, the city faced a March 25 lawsuit in which the law would have required a judge to compare Houston firefighters’ pay to that of their private-sector peers. Lancton said firefighters in the private sector earn 50 percent more.

“The law is very clear,” Lancton said. “What is unclear is the comptroller’s motivations for continuing to politicize this issue. His facts are wrong. Its scenarios are legally inapplicable.

The comptroller’s analysis also did not take into account the cost of retirement benefits and additional overtime that would have been associated with higher pay, Lancton said.

“He is politicizing an issue in order to undermine Mayor Whitmire, and that doesn’t help the citizens, and it certainly doesn’t help the brave men and women who came out all weekend to save citizens in floodwaters ” said Lancton.

Whitmire also took a dig at Hollins in a statement. He had similar analytics to Hollins when he made the deal with the fire department, Whitmire said.

“Monday morning quarterbacks might choose to ignore the fact that Texas law requires firefighter pay to be based on pay comparisons with the private sector, not the public sector, but as mayor and negotiator principal, I cannot ignore that fact,” Whitmire said. “This very well could have been a less expensive deal to make with the Houston Professional Firefighters Association, but that’s a conversation to have had with the previous administration eight years ago.” »

Go forward

The other part of Hollins’ analysis compared the five-year prospective fire department contract to other Texas cities.

Hollins said the July 1 increases under this proposed contract would bring Houston to within 3 percent of the state average. If the city raises wages by 6 percent each year through fiscal year 2029, a possibility under the proposed settlement, then the department’s average could reach 9 percent above the state average.

However, these 6 percent increases will only be effective if the city is able to increase its revenues.

On Monday, Hollins said additional revenue would be needed regardless, given the $160 million to $200 million structural imbalance the city was experiencing even before the proposed settlement.

District F council member Tiffany Thomas said she was intrigued by two scenarios presented by Hollins that amounted to between $110 million and $260 million in back pay. The city could pay the cost of such a settlement using its fund balance of more than $400 million, she said.

Hollins warned that depleting the city’s reserves so quickly — whether as part of a settlement reduction or in an effort to reduce the long-term cost of the mayor’s proposed settlement bond — could create problems in itself.

“Whatever money you give today to try to recoup some of this settlement, it certainly reduces your debt in the long term. It also takes away the margin we have to deal with the structural deficit and the challenges we currently face,” he said.

Related