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A $20 monthly garbage fee, higher property taxes and cuts to other departments could be needed to pay a roughly $1.5 billion settlement agreement with the Houston firefighters union, Whitmire administration officials said Tuesday.
The final cost comes with a big asterisk, however. City officials acknowledged they still are hammering out the finer points of a new, five-year contract with firefighters.
Among the possible contract concessions: The city would no longer be able to impose random drug tests on firefighters, and it would face more hurdles to discipline them for wrongdoing.
City officials said they hope to return to City Council with more information soon, as Mayor John Whitmire races to win legislative approval of the pact before the new fiscal year starts July 1.
Several council members said they were skeptical the city had come out a winner in the closed-door talks with the firefighters, who endorsed Whitmire last year as he promised to put an end to a lengthy contract impasse. Administration officials said they had avoided the possibility of a much higher and more immediate financial blow, however.
“I think this deal is the best deal we feel we could have worked for the city,” said Melissa Dubowski, the city’s finance director.
Paying for the pact
The city’s proposed settlement with the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association Local 341 includes two parts: back-pay covering the seven years since the firefighters last had a contract, and a new contract covering the next five years.
At a joint meeting of City Council’s budget and labor committees, Dubowski explained the means and the method of paying for the settlement.
The city intends to issue bonds to pay for the $650 million back-pay settlement. Repayments could continue until 2052 under one scenario, leading some council members to emphasize the ongoing financial burden.
“In 2052, I’ll be 70 years old, so I hope I’ll be on this side of the earth to celebrate the payment,” District F Councilmember Tiffany Thomas said.
The firefighters’ new contract, meanwhile, would remain in effect until the 2029 fiscal year. Rank-and-file firefighters would see a total pay increase of 36 percent by the end of that period.
The five-year contract could cost $428 million. Like a new car that comes with a far higher cost than its sticker price thanks to interest, debt service could drive the back-pay deal north of $1 billion. Dubowski said under questioning that the pact’s total cost could come to “roughly” $1.5 billion.
The details of the forward-looking contract appeared to still be in flux, despite the Whitmire administration’s announcement of a settlement last month. The two sides also are negotiating over how raises will be doled out across five years, Dubowski said, and there could be additional costs for provisions such as education pay.
The lack of a final agreement on the new contract frustrated District C Councilmember Abbie Kamin, who chairs the Labor Committee.
“I’m not confident that we have the full picture yet of what those costs are,” Kamin said.
As the June budget season draws near, the administration believes it can pay for the first-year costs of the overall settlement by drawing down on a projected $468 million fund balance. In future years, however, it will have to pay for the settlement with a combination of cost-cutting and revenue increases.
The city has not detailed a firm plan. Dubowski said options include a roughly $20 monthly garbage fee, which would bring Houston in line with Texas’ other big cities. Some departments could see a hit to their budgets, although the city has not identified any specific bureaus. The city also could pursue the consolidation of “back-office” functions, such as information technology and human resources, Dubowski said.
Perhaps most controversially, the mayor’s office could seek an exception to city- and state-imposed property tax revenue caps. That could generate between $50 and $200 million per year depending on the new tax rate, Dubowski said.
The city could seek voter approval for what Dubowski called a “public safety add-on” as early as November, she said.
There is precedent for such a vote: In 2006, then-Mayor Bill White won voter approval for a $90 million annual exception to the tax cap aimed at paying for public safety services.
Council members repeatedly asked why the Whitmire administration had not sought to put the settlement itself before voters, however. Vice Mayor Pro Tem Amy Peck, who represents the conservative-leaning District A on the city’s west side, said she repeatedly had heard from concerned constituents.
“The general consensus seems to be, ‘I’m glad this is done, I’m glad this is getting paid, but this is a lot of money, and why can’t Houstonians vote on issuing this bond?’” she said.
City Attorney Arturo Michel said putting the deal up for voter approval would not have been possible before November, jeopardizing the agreement because it envisions raises kicking in July 1.
Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Firefighters Association, said the union had given up the potential of winning “hundreds of million” dollars more in court.
“This is absolutely a fair settlement for the taxpayers, for the firefighters,” Lancton said.
Who benefits?
Whitmire has cast the settlement as a legal and moral necessity given the relatively low firefighter pay in Houston compared to other big cities in Texas.
Dubowski said rank-and-file firefighters earn 15 percent less than their counterparts in Fort Worth, the city with the highest average pay. With a new contract in hand, the city would bump its hourly pay to $22.07 later this year, much closer to the $23.27 hourly pay in Fort Worth.
Thomas questioned whether the pay comparison is “apples-to-apples,” however, noting the fire department in Forth Worth does not handle the medical calls that make up the lion’s share of the workload in Houston.
Medical calls made up 86.4 percent of the department’s 911 calls in 2022, the most recent year for which it has posted statistics online. Fire Chief Samuel Pena said Tuesday that the rise in medical calls has led to increases in response times.
The Fire Department was not able to give specific statistics on Tuesday, however. The Fire Department’s website does not list response times after 2017. A spokesperson said the department was working to compile more recent numbers.
Whitmire has said the settlement will improve 911 response times by allowing the city to recruit and retain more firefighters. District J Councilmember Edward Pollard asked Peña, however, whether anything in the draft contract addresses the rising burden of medical calls.
“It does not directly speak to that,” Peña said. “And you are absolutely correct. Our response times, they’re not where they should be. They’re getting worse every year. The call volume keeps going up. I have been asking for additional ambulances, which is what we need in the system every year. But there is nothing in the contract that speaks to adding any additional service.”
Drug tests and discipline
The draft collective bargaining agreement also would cover workplace and discipline issues that extend far beyond pay.
The city has yet to release a draft of the proposed contract. Kamin said she had seen copies of one draft, calling it one of the worst-kept secrets in city government.
Michel said the draft that has been circulating is inaccurate. Under questioning from Kamin, however, he and Dubowski acknowledged several provisions in the most recent document.
The union would gain a say over the membership of the Civil Service Commission, which has the final word on discipline. Firefighters could not be fired or demoted without unanimous approval from the commission, effectively giving the union nominees veto power on the most severe discipline.
The city also would remain barred in many cases from launching investigations of misconduct 180 days after alleged wrongdoing — as opposed to the clock in effect at the Houston Police Department, which starts when the city discovers an allegation. Kamin raised concerns that provision could prevent the department from cracking down on sexual harassment, a longstanding problem for HFD.
The city also would be prevented from conducting random drug tests and would be required to pay the union president for time spent on union business.
Pointing to those provisions, Pollard questioned what the city had gained from the agreement's non-financial provisions.
“Generally, what the city was looking to obtain was to put an end to this, to have it with certainty and to have a manageable cost. Those were the big-picture items that we believe the city obtained,” Michel said.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article mischaracterized the fire department's existing “180-day rule.”
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