A proposed two-year labor agreement with Los Angeles firefighters to be considered by a City Council committee on Tuesday would eliminate a 2 percent wage disparity with the city’s police officers.
Firefighters and fire captains would not receive pay increases this year, but would see their salaries go up by 2 percent starting July 2015 to match police officer salaries, under the proposed deal to be considered by the Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee.
If the police union, which is still negotiating its contract with the city, secures even higher wages, the city would agree to apply the same increases to firefighter salaries.
The proposed contract also includes an immediate 2.5 percent increase to a monthly dental insurance subsidy, and another 2.6 percent increase in July 2015. The city would also increase its health insurance subsidy for firefighters by 5 percent starting in July 2015.
The contract would cost the city $1.6 million in the current fiscal year, which started in July.
Since there is no increase to the healthcare subsidy this year, the contract would save the city an estimated $2 million.
The contract, which does call for the 5 percent increase next year, would result in $12.9 million in costs for the city in fiscal 2015, bringing the full amount of the two-year contract’s costs to taxpayers to about $13.5 million.
— City News Service