Fire Rescue collective bargaining agreement
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
It is a stretch of the recording that this archive identified as a separate matter — a call to order, a recess, or something taken up that the agenda does not list. There is no official title, no staff recommendation and no disposition, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 5, 2023
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 5, 2023
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 12m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 59% of 51 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
All right. Good afternoon. Uh believe it or not, one year ago I was hired as your assistant county administrator for public safety. Little did I know what stood in front of me. Uh with Mike's unwavering support. We tackled significant morale issues, a two-year mass exodus of fire personnel, recruiting challenges. internal fiscal challenges and a leadership change. Today I stand Unified with our lead negotiator, our HR Director, Barbara
Hitzman, our Assistant Fire Chief Ryan Gwynn, and the IFF Union President John Michael, representing the County Administrator, the Fire Administration, and the Union. We're presenting a three-year contract reflective of our explosive growth community. There are many highlights in this contract. The substantive points in the first two years being salaries in line with the area market. The third year brings in the transformational move to a D shift.
The contract and the D Shift will allow us to address many items, including recruiting and retention, employee health and wellness, positive management initiatives. three year cost certainty for the county and the employees. This collaborative effort led to a favorable vote of over eighty percent of the union members. On behalf of uh Chief Perez, I would like to introduce Assistant Fire Chief Ryan Gwynn to go over our presentation.
Okay. Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, thank you for your time.
Quick to do that.
So, as you're well aware, the explosive growth that we've had over the last few years, actually within the last decade, in Pasco County, has increased our work stress uh environment that we have with our men and women in Pasco County Fire Rescue. Since 2020, if we continue pace like we are as of this morning, we're looking at close to a 30% increase in call volume just since. the last three years. That's really put a toll on our men and women because of some of the retention issues we're working. Fire service kind of changed over
the last you know, decade or so we're we're working twenty four hours non stop. Not to mention we're working overtime more and more and more. We're having difficulties keeping people in the seats, and it's really elevated our our uh issues within fire rescue. One of the major things that we're focusing on is the mental health, as you can see. Um our own Rob Chalmers during his uh doctoral studies did an internal study of just fire rescue employees and um The um Corrections
Institute. Out of all those employees that he studied, 44.5% have either sought or considered treatment for depression. Forty percent have either sought or considered treatment for anxiety. Thirty seven point seven of SOP or consider treatment for post stress uh for PTSD But more than that. Almost a full percent of them have sought or Consider treatment for suicide.
So Some of the contributing factors to that, of course, are the long work hours, the sleep deprivation, the mandatory overtime. the high stress work environment, as you know, we don't need to go over to we don't need to readdress what kind of calls the men and women are running every day. It's some of the most horrific things that we could see, especially over a 30-year career. We've had some previous barriers to some of the mental health treatments that we need. And also um you know some of the other drivers. We're currently working 2704 hours. So If
you guys came to work every day, just a forty hour work. 40 hour work week all week long. Our men and women currently are working about an extra three and a half months more than you guys are. We're trying to bring that balance down a little more relative to where they to where they need to be. That's where the D shift comes in. So in FY26, we're gonna reduce that down to 2184 from 2704, which is a very significant reduction in work hours. I was hoping that balance is gonna allow us to level out the stress. versus you know mental preparedness uh um
re-reset and then um that transitions of course from a fifty six hour work week down to a forty two hour work week. So
We've done a little bit of give and take with this contract, of course. We're eliminating some of the uh excesses that cause some of the overtime, some of the internal problems. We went through, reset, and fixed some of those issues. You know, over the last year we've spent a significant amount of money, as you can see, on overtime itself. We're hoping to eliminate that drastically. And of course, the other issue is the employee retention. We've been kind of the training ground for other departments around us. We've spent millions
and millions of dollars training, educating, equipping, and mentoring employees just to turn around and watch them leave. We've hired a lot of people. lot of people over the last couple of years, but we've almost lost just as many as we've hired. So we're looking to reset that. And that's what this contract's gonna do. And in all honesty, Um this contract, you know, it's it's a It's a commitment from all of you. All five of you have continuously committed to support fire rescue and public safety.
It goes to show how much you care about the men and women of Pasco County Fire Rescue. It also goes to show how much you care about the safety of your citizens in Pasco County. And This contract and your vote, you know, goes a long way to show how much you do support everybody within this organization. So, any questions?
I got one question. Okay. Gary. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman Mariano. How did you Get a union president to agree to this. So whatever magic you use, I want some of it in my office.
Uh it's it's been a long, year-long process, and it's not just unfortunately not just all of us standing up here. I mean Amy Lee and Mindy and her team in the back, I and obviously under the direction of uh Mike Carbala, we have been fighting through this
eighty percent approval rate. That's eighty
percent, yes.
That's just unheard of.
And the magic is is the fight was to get this done, you know, fiscally responsible to where it was as least of an impact to the citizens as we could Uh possibly make this, but this contract is essentially going to make Pasco County Fire Rescue the premier fire department within the state of Florida. It's that's great. It is.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman Mariano. Anybody else?
Well, I I would just say um thank thank you all of you for working together and our county administrator and our new fire chief. Uh I was telling someone the other day, I don't think I've ever really driven far in the county and not seen our uh fire rescue out on the road. It's crazy. Crazy. Um so um I'm looking forward to hiring more and and uh I'm just really grateful for all of you and
that we've got this good co contract going forward.
Oh and on beh uh on behalf of Fire Chief Tiny Perez who would love m nothing more than to be here trust Trust me, but um he appreciates every all the support you guys have given as well. So I believe uh the local president John Michael would like to say something. I promise it'll be
it'll be quick. But thank you to Mr. Murphy, Director Hitzman, Chief Gwen, of course Chief Perez and his predecessor, Chief Casson, uh for their understanding and and collaboration. Uh this forward-looking approach will propel our agency to the forefront and make Pasco County Fire Rescue an employment destination in the years to come. I'd like to recognize my negotiating team members for their tireless efforts over the last year. I owe them all the credit for making sure that we navigated this process with the best interests of our members as the top priority. There are my two vice presidents, Kyle
Patton and JJ Martinez, Local Secretary Sabrina Kobler, and District 5 Station Rep Paul Totten. Without them none of this would have been possible. As we travel the state, we're fielding an overwhelming amount of interest in what we're doing here in Pasco County, and we're super proud to share our accomplishments. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of the board. And for that we're extremely grateful. Again, by your affirmative ratification, you are putting your firefighters first and sending the very clear message that you take an effective and efficient public safety
enterprise seriously. It was a long summer. But I'm excited to stand before you today to take part in this presentation, providing the highlights of a collective bargaining bargaining agreement. that propels Pasco County towards becoming Florida's premier county and puts people first. And once again, thank you in advance for your support of the courageous men and women of Pasco County Fire Rescue. Mr. Marion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say to the team, to our firefighters, negotiating team, et cetera. Thanks for working together. Uh we told you from the get-go, as we heard your problems, it took time to get to where we're at right now. But as far as getting to the fire stations built, listening to what we can do for scheduling, looking what we do to make it a better life for all your people, helping them get themselves the the protection they want, the the help they need. Uh this board has never wavered from any board I've served on. Um And with the f extreme growth
and COVID kind of slowed us down a little bit from getting stuff done. But I want to say the new leadership Working with what's going what's going together made this happen because this has been Similar things have been talked about before, how we can make this work better. But you guys brought it to fruition. You you listened, you made it happen and creatively, uh bringing this all together is amazing. So Mr. Carbell, I want to thank you again for bringing the right people together in the teams.
It's a great team effort here. Save it up.
Okay.
Can I just uh close with uh for years governments have asked public safety employees to do more with less. By your actions today. they'll be able to do more with more. And that's the definition of a Premier County. Yeah. We appreciate your
thank you for that. I'd like to say uh thank you for working together with our team and your team. We're all the same team when you get right down to it. So we all work as a team throughout the county. And we want the best for our uh firefighters and the MS and everyone involved in the county, no matter what their job is. So I certainly appreciate what y'all are doing and coming together with this proposal and doing this is the right thing for being a Premier County. So Okay, with that um
Move to approve the contract. Second.
Got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed like that? There's Five zero passes. Okay. Great job. I believe we need to take a picture.
If y'all y'all will stay up here and uh I'll go down below. Mr. Bala, come up. Sure.
Ryan.
I sent you the complaint and just raise
the qualifying.
But I can't believe it.
true.
Is everybody gonna yell at JG for being too tall?
Yeah, Commissioner Weightman. I like to switch spots.
I got it going on here between me and Seth, so I think mine's worse than yours. It's split up in red boy. Thank you so much.
Great job.
My
pleasure.
Exciting. How how long will it take to implement it wonderful? Excellent. Hey, yeah. Good job. Enjoy
the
rest of the meeting.