MORGANTOWN – The Morgantown Civil Service Commission will conduct a public hearing about the city firefighters' recent pay reduction.
During an April 14 emergency meeting, the commission voted 3-0 to schedule the hearing for May 12 after 47 Morgantown firefighters filed a demand earlier this month seeking a mandatory public hearing about a $2,000 annual reduction in pay.
The hearing is scheduled for May 12. Both sides also agreed to work toward an agreement before then. That deadline is April 30. If no resolution is found by then, the hearing will take place.
“We are pleased to move forward immediately," attorney Teresa Toriseva, who is representing the firefighters, told The West Virginia Record. "The IAFF members are confident that once the evidence is presented, the illegal pay cut will be reversed.”
Earlier this month, the firefighters, all professional members of IAFF Local 313, filed the demand against Kim Haws, the new city manager. They say the pay cut is a retaliatory move after the union refused to accept the city’s offer to settle a holiday pay case in January.
In early March, Haws sent a memo to all city employees stating firefighters no longer would receive shift differential pay for working the afternoon and/or midnight shifts. Morgantown firefighters work 24-hour shifts. The loss of differential pay amounts to $2,000 per year for each firefighter.
Late last month, the firefighters issued a vote of no confidence in Haws.
“Never in the known history of the City of Morgantown has anyone ever reduced the pay of an entire department of employees, and only that department of employees, $2,000.00 per year,” the filing states. “Firefighting is one of the key pillars of safety for any community. The recruitment of new firefighters and retention of existing firefighters is the most important part of firefighting.
“It is so important there are state laws in place establishing safeguards for the hiring process, the firing process, the reduction in rank and the reduction in pay for all professional firefighters who work for a municipality.
“Not only do those laws, called civil service, protect the firefighters, but more importantly those rules prevent any city from endangering the public by taking adverse employment action against the firefighters without written reasons followed by a showing of showing of good cause at a public hearing.”
State code state no paid firefighter can be removed, discharged, suspended or reduced in rank or pay without just cause and without a written statement of the reasons for the action. It also says the civil service commission must grant a public hearing within 10 days if a member demands it. There, the removing officer – Haws, in this case – must show cause for the actions.
“If this reduction in pay is permitted, the recruitment of and retention of professional firefighters in the City of Morgantown will be negatively affected, thereby endangering public safety,” the filing states. “The failure of A. Kim Haws, the ‘removing officer,’ to provide a written statement of reasons for the reduction in pay is an attempt by the removing officer to prevent the firefighters from answering the reduction in pay in front of the Civil Service Commission.”
The city says it isn't an issue of pay reduction.
"As city administration has stated previously, the personnel rules state how shift differential should be applied," Communications Director Andrew Stacy previously told The Record. "This is not an issue of pay reduction. It is applying the personnel rules fairly to all city employees."
Toriseva earlier said the actions of the city manager are a danger to the community.
“Cutting the wages of an entire department threatens public safety by making it hard to recruit and retain professional firefighters,” Toriseva told The Record. “Civil Service state law protects firefighters from the misguided whims of ever-changing appointed and elected officials. It protects fire fighters from city government making their jobs intolerable.
“Civil service protects entire departments by honoring a system of rules that promote recruitment and retention of its members.”
Toriseva said firefighters can’t have pay reduced without the written statement of reasons from the Fire Civil Service Commission, a three-member panel with both the power and the duty to hold hearings and issue subpoenas for witness testimony.
“The city has the burden of proof and it’s a high burden,” she told The Record. “They must show good cause. By failing to submit the required written statement to the commission and sidestepping the civil service rules, the newly hired city manager has prevented the firefighters’ right to review of this decision.
“Today, the firefighters have yet again been forced to engage in litigation to protect their rights to be paid wages they deserve according to the law and to not be retaliated against for it.”