Buffalo Firefighters Ordered To Repay 5.5% Raise

From The Buffalo News, April 14

BUFFALO, NY – Buffalo firefighters were paid too much money and must repay thousands of dollars, as well as bear a salary cut, a judge has ruled.

Barring any speedy action by an arbitration panel, most firefighters would be forced to repay the city about $9,000 in "overpayments" for the past three years, city officials estimated Tuesday.

"That's a lot of money to a working person, and we were trying to avoid that," said David Rodriguez, the city's acting corporation counsel.

The judge's decision requires the city to eliminate a 5.5 percent raise and recoup what would amount to about $3,000 a year over three years from most firefighters. The sums will vary by job category, city officials said.

But the fire union also scored some victories in the decision, including its insistence that the city restore benefits to injured-on-duty firefighters and offer employees four health insurance options instead of one.

State Supreme Court Justice John A. Michalek ruled that the city must comply with a ruling last October by the state's highest court. The Court of Appeals nullified a 2005 arbitration award that granted raises to firefighters but also made numerous policy changes that angered the union.

Mayor Byron W. Brown's administration was hoping to keep salaries, benefits and policies "status quo" until the complicated four-year legal fight could be placed before an arbitration panel for a final resolution, Rodriguez said.

But the union's decision to return to court in a quest to have the city cited for contempt of court essentially forced the issue, he said.

"We were trying to get the union to agree [to] keep it status quo and let it go back to [an arbitrator]," Rodriguez said.

But fire union President Daniel Cunningham insisted that the union "prevailed in court," because it won long-fought battles over policies that the union insisted were punitive to workers.

The city will have to resume paying injured-on-duty firefighters for vacation time, uniform allowances and other benefits, Cunningham said. He said the city also will have to reimburse firefighters for benefits that were denied and will have to begin offering firefighters multiple options for health insurance. The city put all firefighters under one insurer years ago.

While Cunningham acknowledged that some firefighters "may not be happy" with the salary cut, they also understand the rationale for the union's legal fight. He also questioned Rodriguez's contention that the city was concerned about the possibility that firefighters' salaries would be cut as a result of the court battle.

"If the city was so concerned about taking money away, why didn't they sit down and negotiate [a new contract] with us?" Cunningham asked.

The union president added that firefighters rejected two previous contract offers from the city, including a 2008 proposal that would have raised salaries by an average of 18.7 percent over seven years, because the pacts contained many harmful concessions.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez suggested that the union's effort to depict the outcome as some type of victory is misguided.

"I call it a Pyrrhic victory, because no side is really winning here," said Rodriguez.

Cunningham criticized Brown for refusing to comply with last October's decision from the state's high court.

"If I ignored a Court of Appeals decision, a judge would have had me in jail in 30 minutes," he said. "Maybe the same standard should be applied to city officials."

The city is asking an arbitration panel to fast-track a review of the complex dispute, but Rodriguez said it could take a while before hearings are scheduled.