Houston City Council approved the $1.5 billion settlement and labor contract with the city firefighters union on Wednesday, a deal that now forces Mayor John Whitmire to quickly find new sources of revenue to help pay for it.
The unanimous vote achieved a core promise of Whitmire’s campaign last year, and ends a nearly eight-year dispute between the union and the city under previous Mayor Sylvester Turner.
“This was a long time coming,” Whitmire said. “It was always going to be a big number and I think we handled it as responsibly as you could expect.”
The firefighters’ new contract will remain in effect until fiscal 2029. Rank-and-file firefighters will see a total pay increase of 36 percent by the end of that period.
The new contract and the back-pay settlement are valued around $650 million, but interest and debt service is expected to drive the total cost to about $1.5 billion, city officials said.
“It’s a good deal for taxpayers, it’s obviously a good deal for the firefighters and the families that have gone without for so, so long,” said Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association. “We have ensured that we structured this in a way that was fiscally responsible.”
Tuesday’s approval came after Controller Chris Hollins certified the deal Monday evening, ending weeks of uncertainty about whether he would give his City Charter-mandated blessing to the agreement. The controller is required to certify funding is available for ordinances prior to a council vote committing the city to future financial obligations.
The five-year contract includes 10 percent base salary increases for the first year. Base salaries would continue to rise in the following four years, but the total increase would depend on whether the city is able to add new revenue.
Hollins and several council members raised concerns the raises after year one lack specific triggering clauses, something they say could lead to later disputes between the union and the city.
A vote on the collective bargaining agreement was scheduled for last week’s meeting, but Hollins declined to certify the deal in time for the meeting . He was seeking clarity on several sections tied to firefighter pay raises and the legal negotiations that produced the deal, refusing to certify it until his questions were answered by the mayor’s office.
Hollins also noted several non-financial aspects of the deal, including a controversial provision prohibiting random drug testing for union members that was dropped from the final contract.
The agreement also includes significant changes to the Civil Service Commission, the body of three members and three alternates who often serve as the final word on discipline. Under the contract, the union and mayor will each pick half of the commission’s members. Any termination or demotion will require unanimous approval by the commissioners, effectively giving the union a veto on the commission.
Without the controller’s certification, the council was unable to consider the agreement last week, but it did approve a bond of up to $650 million to pay for the settlement and accrued interest over 30 years.
Under the budget approved by council last week, the city will use nearly $200 million in its record $420 million balance from last year’s spending plan to help pay for the contract. The Whitmire administration also is looking for new sources of revenue. Options under consideration include a monthly garbage collection fee and a partial lift of the voter-approved property tax revenue cap.
After days of public back-and-forth, Hollins said he sat for a confidential briefing offered by the mayor’s staff in recent days before certifying the deal Monday evening.
“Just as my insistence on completing due diligence should not have been interpreted as opposition to the deal, my certification today should not be interpreted as a vote of confidence,” Hollins wrote.
In a news conference following the meeting, Whitmire said Houstonians should expect a rollout of revenue proposals around the beginning of next year’s legislative session in January. A former longtime state senator, Whitmire has said he expects state assistance to address the city’s budget shortfall but declined to provide further specifics.
“Going forward there will be a challenge to not only pay the firefighters’ settlement but the other incurred expenses,” Whitmire said.
He also said no proposal would be brought to the council before an audit of city departments intended to root out wasteful spending was completed.
Council debated the agreement for more than an hour before voting while dozens of firefighters watched from the audience.
District F Councilmember Tiffany D. Thomas, District J Councilmember Edward Pollard and District G Councilmember Mary Nan Huffman all voted in favor of the deal despite voting against the bond issuance last week.
The trio had raised concerns about the deal during Tuesday’s meeting prior to voting in favor of it.
Huffman said she voted against the bond last week because she was and still is unclear how the deal will be paid for and believes the bond should be approved by the voters.
“That being said, Mayor, I have confidence in you, I have confidence in your leadership that you’re going to identify these revenue sources to pay for this agreement,” Huffman said.
Pollard sought similar details from Whitmire in a testy back-and-forth during public discussion prior to the vote. While Pollard pressed the mayor for his plans to pay off the bond, Whitmire declined to provide specifics and accused Pollard of politicizing the debate to a roar of approval from the firefighters in the audience.
As Whitmire’s patience visibly waned toward the end of debate, Thomas noted the deal does nothing to improve aging firehouses and firefighter equipment around the city. She reiterated the need for the city to find new revenue to pay for maintenance and renovations.
After the final vote shortly after noon, the firefighters stood up and applauded while members of the council offered their own standing ovation in return. Several members of the audience hugged and cried.
“It’s good to see them doing the right thing,” said Dyan Thompson, the wife of a firefighter who was on shift during the vote. “He won’t have to work as much. He won’t have to have second jobs, third jobs, side jobs, he’ll be home more for our little boys who are growing up wanting to be firefighters.”
The city’s firefighters have been working without a contract since their last one expired in 2016, after a proposal under former Mayor Annise Parker’s administration was rejected by union membership.
After Turner took office, negotiations between the city and the union struck an impasse in 2017, and the union sued the city in hopes of getting a judge to force a deal.
The firefighters also took the issue to the ballot box, and voters in 2018 approved a charter amendment that would have given them pay parity with police officers of similar rank. That launched a separate legal battle, with the city and the police union arguing the amendment is unconstitutional.
The result was an increasingly sour and antagonistic relationship between the firefighters union and Turner, with Lancton regularly blaming the former mayor for the continued impasse.
While firefighters worked without a contract and the legal fight continued, Turner was able to pass 18 percent pay raises over three years in 2021.
A trial over the union’s long-running, 2017 lawsuit was set to begin in March, but the deal announced by Whitmire halted court proceedings.
Whitmire said the city faced a far larger liability if the conflict had been settled in court and the deal is saving the city money.
“No settlement is perfect,” Whitmire said. “No contract is perfect. You give and take, and you give and take as long as is reasonable.”
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