The City of Concord and the fire officers union have agreed on a new contract that, as pursued by the union, brings its annual pay increases and educational incentives more in line with those received by the police department. 

The new agreement adds a 5% annual wage increase, boosts pay for those with certain certifications, raises the cap on the amount of vacation time employees can accrue — and receive a payout for down the line— and includes Juneteenth as a paid holiday. It would add approximately $253,000 in spending next year, according to a city report.

 The Concord Fire Officers Association represents fire captains, battalion chiefs and lieutenants — just over two dozen employees or roughly a quarter of the department’s total payroll. The union representing rank and file firefighters is now in negotiations with the city ahead of the June 30 end date of its current agreement.

“I feel strongly this agreement helps ensure that the City is a desirable place to choose to work and to have a career,” Jim Duckworth, the fire officer union’s president, said in a joint statement with the city on Tuesday.

In the same release, City Manager Tom Aspell celebrated the close of negotiations and said that “the city recognizes and appreciates the contributions of our officers in the fire department.”

Bringing incentives and benefits for the fire department more in line with what the city offers law enforcement was a driving factor behind the union’s rejection of previous city offers, its leadership has previously said. These changes mirror some of what was included in a new contract for police supervisors approved last month. As a four year agreement, it’s longer than other city contracts, but — if the firefighters union, currently in negotiations, gets a standard three-year contract — it would put the two fire unions on the same negotiating cycle, as the two police unions are. 

The city declined to provide a copy of the new contract Tuesday, stating that it had not yet been finalized, though it has been approved by the union’s membership and passed City Council unanimously Monday night. 

Based on a report outlining costs associated with the agreement provided in the Monday city council agenda, though, compensation gaps between the two public safety departments are still visible. 

While the new fire officers contract increases the cap on the amount of unused leave time an employee can accumulate, police supervisors get more leave time sooner in their careers with the city. This accrual rate was increased in their most recent contract, but was not for fire officers. 

In their first year, for example, a police supervisor receives 120 hours of leave, while a fire officer gets 108. Police get bumped up to the next level after two years with the city, while fire are held at that rate until their sixth year. After 10 years with the city, police supervisors are allotted 240 hours of leave per year, while fire officers receive 180. 

The absolute ceiling for leave accumulation, with this new contract, is the same for fire officers than for their counter parts than for police — 660 hours. But police supervisors reach that ceiling after 15 years of service, while fire officers don’t hit that maximum until they’ve been with the city for more than 25 years.

With multiple vacancies in both departments, their members are less able to use all of their time off and more likely to accrue it. When an employee leaves, they get a payout for their unused leave. Higher allotments of leave early on mean police supervisors considering other job opportunities have access to larger payouts sooner.

Duckworth noted in January that the ground firefighters are looking to make up goes beyond what would go into a contract.

“Even if we signed a contract tomorrow, there’s a lot more to do to fix things,” he said at the time. “The fire department has been left behind.” 

Union leaders have previously also argued that Concord has been outpaced by its peers in firefighter pay rates and step programs. This agreement doesn’t appear to address that concern, though the city is in the process of a wage study evaluating its competitiveness as an employer. 

The agreement also doesn’t appear to address the idea of retention bonuses — cash payments to all employees who stay on the payroll through a certain date. Those aren’t included in police contracts, either, but city councilors approved $400,000 in December for a second consecutive year of police retention bonuses after Chief Bradley Osgood told city leaders the incentive had helped slow an outflow of staff. Firefighters have expressed wanting the same support.

Meanwhile, despite reupping the bonuses, city leaders have expressed a desire for more comprehensive solutions to public safety workforce shortages. 

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.