College Station Firefighters Association gathering signatures for petition

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - College Station firefighters are pushing for a formal seat at the table — launching a petition drive to give them more power in negotiations with the city.

“We appreciate the collaborative work that we’ve been able to enact with the city over the past few years. However, the collaboration is never guaranteed,” said Brian Johnson, the President of the College Station Firefighters Association.

The association is working on a petition to implement:

• Civil Service to maintain high standards and fair, consistent practices for firefighter hiring, promotions and discipline
• Collective Bargaining to help ensure College Station maintains sufficient firefighter staffing and a competitive benefits package needed to recruit and retain qualified firefighters.
• Binding Arbitration to provide a structured process for resolving contract disputes through an independent third party when reasonable agreements cannot otherwise be reached. This process can save taxpayers money by helping keep disputes out of court.

The association posted the statement to Facebook before launching its signature drive.

“These propositions would guarantee both [a] seat [at] the table and transparency with the ability for us to go to the taxpayers and articulate any needs that we might have,” said Johnson. “Regardless of changes in leadership at City Hall, we are the firefighters that are actually out providing the services and will continue to do so for decades to come.”

In a statement, the City of College Station says:

“The City has concerns about the negative impacts that a civil service system and collective bargaining could have on our community and its taxpayers, as well as on the competitive compensation, benefits, and overall safety of our firefighters. In the overwhelming majority of Texas cities with civil service and collective bargaining, citizens pay significantly higher tax rates for fire departments that lack College Station’s ISO 1 rating or national accreditation.”

The city also highlighted that the fire department’s budget has increased by 65% over the last six years.

“It’s more about protecting the rights of the individual firefighters and fire associations to speak up about matters. That’s really the effect that these would have,” said Johnson. “It doesn’t have any implications on the tax rate, the budget as a whole, only very minor ones when it comes to enacting things like a civil service board.”

Johnson says the changes would improve pay, recruitment, and retention.

“We’re finding a lot of feedback from our firefighters is that the average base pay has gone up in Texas, and we’ve not been able to capture that in the past year. So our concern is that this year and in the future we will be losing firefighters or not [be] able to recruit firefighters if that deficit remains,” said Johnson.

The College Station Firefighters Association will be hosting another pop-up next Saturday, time and location have not yet been set.

To learn more you can visit the College Station Firefighters Association Facebook page www.facebook.com/CollegeStationFirefighters