CHRIS MORAN
Houston Chronicle
Reprinted with Permission

The city and Houston firefighters have reached a labor deal that heads off what could have been the first firefighter layoffs in the city's history.


Tuesday was the deadline for issuing layoff notices to city employees to be dropped from the payroll as Mayor Annise Parker seeks to bridge a $75 million budget gap for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Jeff Caynon had said that 238 firefighters' jobs were on the line. Fire Chief Terry Garrison put the number at 236.

The mayor seeks to reduce the fire department's $449 million budget by $17.7 million. The agreement's components include program cuts and fees for services that are currently free such as plan checks for new construction. But the largest chunk of the savings comes from deferring rather than cutting spending.

Under the agreement, firefighters who leave the department will no longer get their accrued time off paid in a lump sum but instead spread over four years. In addition, although the mayor's team guaranteed no firefighter layoffs for fiscal year 2012, the union did not succeed in getting that guarantee extended to 2013.

Nor did it solve the thorniest of issues between the city and the union. The city wants to smooth out vacation scheduling by restricting how many firefighters can take time off during summer and holiday months, when the city pays millions of dollars in overtime to cover the shifts while so many employees are out. The two sides agreed to appoint a joint labor-management committee to work on the issue.

"It's not a permanent solution, but it is something that will absolutely prevent the immediate layoff of firefighters," Parker said.

Caynon said, "We have accomplished agreement in principle that prevents firefighters from layoffs and preserves our ability to provide service at the level we have today."

However, Caynon did not attend the news conference in the City Hall rotunda at which Parker announced the deal, though mayor's spokeswoman Janice Evans said the union president had agreed to Evans' request that he come.

"I was actually standing out on the Rosemont Bridge a little after 5 (p.m.), and I got a call that it had finally been done and I was asked (by Evans) to come here and stand with Jeff Caynon, the union president, and I have been stood up," Parker said.

Reached just after Parker's news conference, Caynon said he was at the union hall and was busy getting word of the deal out to his 4,000 members.

"If we were done, that would be the appropriate time to celebrate. We're not done yet," Caynon said. The agreement requires ratification by union membership and approval by City Council.

Caynon will have to sell his membership on raises that were less than the city's original proposal. Though both the city's original offer and Tuesday's agreement offered no raises for the next two years, the city first offered raises of 2 percent each in 2014, 2015 and 2016. But the city insisted on the vacation smoothing in exchange, and the union rejected it.

The deal struck Tuesday offers a 1 percent raise for 2014 but nothing beyond.

The city has issued layoff notices to more than 700 city employees this month. No police officers or firefighters will receive notices this year. Parker has repeatedly insisted that public safety, which accounts for about 60 percent of the city's $1.9 billion budget, was a priority and that she would do everything she could to avoid police officer and firefighter layoffs. Tuesday's deal allows her to stick to that.