Despite tough economic times, some of Clark County's highest paid employees just got a raise. With a unanimous vote, the Clark County Commission approved a new contract for the fire department's battalion chiefs.
There are nine fire battalion chiefs. You could call them the middle managers of the fire department. In 2007, each of them made in the neighborhood of $200,000 when you tally their salaries and overtime pay. Under the terms of their new contract, that figure will jump by nearly 10-percent.
The county began negotiations with the International Association of Firefighters in 2007. Talks stalled over two key issues and late last year, a third party came in to mediate the dispute.
The union argued well-qualified fire captains sometimes earn more than their superiors, the battalion chiefs, and pushed for a 19-percent pay difference between the two. Also on the table was five-percent more in premium pay for battalion chiefs who complete a two day safety training provided by the county.
The third party fact-finder sided with the union, at a total cost to taxpayers of more than $180,000 a year.
"We're not happy with it either. Basically, we're a victim of state law here. State law requires us to enter into collective bargaining and in those cases we're subject to the opinions of third party arbitrators and fact-finders -- people we have no control over," said Clark County Spokesperson Erik Pappa.
The five-percent premium pay, according to the fact-finders report, was agreed upon in 2007 before the economy went south. He rejected an additional two-percent requested by the union.
Eyewitness News asked why the county couldn't enter into the collective bargaining process and offer nothing given the current state of the economy. Pappa explains, hypothetically, that's possible with a new contract, but in the case of the battalion chiefs, the county was bound by negotiations that began two years ago.
Ultimately, with a zero offer, it would come to down to whether the union or an arbitrator would consider it fair.
