Agreement waits between Santa Rosa and it's firefighters

Sonoma County’s largest city agreed to new contracts with a variety of municipal employee unions in July.

The one group still out of contract: Santa Rosa Firefighters.

Santa Rosa city officials said their goal is to reach an agreement that is fair, equitable, and sustainable for firefighters and the city’s taxpayers.

Santa Rosa’s rank-and-file firefighters simply want to stick to the formula that’s worked before, according to Stephan Dalporto.

"We have historically always used a comparable list of cities that we survey against," Dalporto said. "It's liked size cities, and we've always asked to just be at the median of that. We always just want to be in the middle of that group."

Dalporto is director of Santa Rosa Firefighters Local 1401, that's a sub-unit of the local 1401 firefighters union.

Dalporto said this time around city officials are not using the comparable list.

"For what I would guess would be an obvious reason," Dalporto said. "We're dead last, we're tenth out of ten, on that comparable list. Our overall package is lower than everyone, which is hurting our recruitment and everything moving forward."

Dalporto said talks between firefighters and the city have stalled for the time being, and that has left them operating out of contract since the start of July.

"There was a couple back and forth[s] with the city and the labor group," Dalporto said. "Then the city got to their sticking point and have not come off that one bit."

That sticking point according to Dalporto: the pay rise Santa Rosa officials have agreed with other employee unions, like the city’s maintenance crews, police officers, and transit workers.

City documents show many municipal employees will see raises between 3% and 7% over the next three years thanks to the new contracts.

Dalporto declined to share the exact numbers at play for potential pay rises for firefighters, citing the sensitivity of the ongoing negotiations, but he said the department is already short about a dozen firefighters, and struggling to find new recruits.

"It's a lot more competitive now than it was five to ten years ago," Dalporto said. "Now the firefighter-paramedics are choosing where they want to go, so they're looking at that job classification, they're looking at the salary and when they look at ours...we're tenth, out of tenth on our comparables."

"That's just on our comparables, not compared to the entire Bay Area," Dalporto said. "We're we're lower than a vast majority of everyone."

Despite the stalled talks, Santa Rosa city administrators and elected officials maintain they are committed to reaching an agreement that meets the firefighters needs and is fiscally responsible at a time when the city is struggling to balance it's budget.

Dalporto said he feels hopeful a new contract will be agreed to at the city council meeting on August 20th.