City Attorney Jess Kane updates the City Council on the status of negotiations between the City and the International Association of Fire Fighters during a meeting held Monday night.
Negotiations between the City and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) for a 2025-26 Fiscal Year contract have not progressed since September and increasingly appear to be headed toward arbitration, City Attorney Jess Kane said during his monthly update to the City Council on Monday.
The update was the third since talks between the two sides stalled in September, with union negotiators refusing to participate further or respond to the City’s most recent offer, Kane said.
The offer contains three of the City’s top priorities, which include continuation of premium pay for all firefighters, promotional reform, and sick leave reform.
While the City remains open to continuing negotiations, non-action by the union in response to the City’s more recent offer prompted the City to initiate the arbitration process in late September. Arbitration is an adversarial process in which arbitrators hear the arguments and make a ruling.
The process faced delays due to the government shutdown, but Kane said Monday the arbitrators have been selected and both sides must now agree on an arbitration date.
Ultimately, Bartlesville voters could be asked to decide the matter in a special election.
Priority No. 1 – Premium Pay
Kane said the No 1 priority for the City is to continue offering premium pay for Bartlesville Fire Department employees — a mandate he said was outlined by City Manager Mike Bailey when Kane was hired as City attorney in 2019.
“Mr. Bailey made it very clear to me that one of our priorities was going to be premium pay,” Kane said. “It has been a priority, and I challenge anyone to look at not only the numbers that have been presented to you but also our record of giving raises to fire employees. We have worked hard, at Mr. Bailey’s direction, since I have been City attorney to provide premium pay. In fact, we are offering a 5 percent raise to our firefighters in these negotiations.”
Kane said Bartlesville firefighters are paid well above firefighters in peer cities — as well as other City employees.
“We are paying wages that are more than fair,” he said. “Twenty-two of the highest paid 50 City employees are firefighters. I’ll say that again: Of the 50 highest paid employees of the City of Bartlesville, 22 of them are firefighters.”
Priority No. 2 – Promotional Reform
The City has also requested changes to the City-IAFF contract to include promotions based on merit rather than seniority. According to municipal records, Bartlesville appears to be one of only two cities in Oklahoma with populations over 10,000 that still promote firefighters based on seniority, while a third city promotes based on a mix of the two, Kane said.
“Of those that we could find information on, 34 promote based on performance, or merit, and only two promote based on seniority — us and Muskogee,” he said. “Everybody else, of any size, has long-since abandoned seniority-based promotions as an outdated and ineffective way of providing for promotions within the fire department. I think that pretty clearly indicates how far behind we are on making this realization, and that’s why it’s been a priority for us in these negotiations.”
Priority No. 3 – Sick Leave Reform
Kane said the City continues to seek reforms that would reduce sick leave abuse, which currently costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and far exceeds sick leave taken by comparable fire departments — as well as other City employees.
“Our firefighters are using 188 hours (on average) of sick leave per firefighter, and that’s based on six years of data,” Kane said. “That’s 80 percent more than our peers, it’s more than four times more than leading fire departments such as Owasso, Midwest City, and Bixby, and it results in extensive call-back double time pay.”
The City has proposed that the double time pay provided to firefighters who work unscheduled overtime, which primarily occurs when a scheduled firefighter calls in sick, be reduced to time and a half pay — the same amount firefighters receive for scheduled overtime.
“The overtime problem is driven by sick leave,” Kane said.
Kane said Bartlesville firefighters take the majority of their sick leave when it will not negatively affect their overtime pay, which creates a need to “hire back” other firefighters to work in their place. This results in those firefighters receiving double time pay.
“So even though the short (pay periods) are only a third of the time, the vast majority of sick leave is taken during those short (pay periods),” Kane said.
Kane also presented data showing firefighter sick leave rates compared to other City employees, indicating firefighters take significantly more sick leave than other employees. He said the information came to light when the IAFF requested information on sick leave taken by non-fire employees.
“Make no mistake, this is a classic union tactic — to throw coworkers under the bus,” Kane said. “The idea here was to demonstrate that other City employees are also abusing sick leave and therefore it should be acceptable for the Fire Department to do so. The data demonstrates something entirely different, and that is that when compared to other City employees, particularly the Police Department, it is very clear the Fire Department is abusing/overusing their sick leave.
“Fire union shifts use 86 percent of their sick leave, whereas other employees – all City employees – use about 50 percent of their sick leave. The Police Department, in particular, uses about 44 percent of their sick leave. So the Fire Department, year in, year out, is using double the sick leave as the Police Department, which is also represented by a union.”
More information
See Kane’s presentation to the City Council on Monday. (The PowerPoint is available in full HERE.)
For more detailed information, see the following editions of City Beat: