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Many of the employees of our city Police and Fire Departments are seeking several changes to the departmental structure of our city.
We have reviewed many of these proposals and want to make my positions on these issues clear to the public and to the employees of these two departments.
We consider the needs of these two departments critical since they play such an important role in protecting Kingsport and her citizens in the event of an emergency.
The proposals and our positions on each include:
--- Proposal to create a separate Public Safety Department-
We believe the Police and Fire Departments should be treated separately and quite differently from other city departments.
These departments often find themselves in sudden need of funds for such items as new equipment to replace items which fail inspections (or, in extreme cases, when equipment is damaged or desrtoyed in use),to take advantage of new equipment coming on the market which will enhance the safety of the employees in question, the community, or both, and for many other, quite unique needs.
In recent years these departments have also been faced with higher than expected training costs due to loss of personnel to better paying jurisdictions.
A separate department would allow these two forces to make their needs known in a clearer format on an as needed basis.
We fully support the formation of this new department and the formulation of new guidelines for the management of this department which will allow for it's unique needs to be successfully and quickly met.
--- A proposal for a Public Safety Board to address Public Safety Department issues and make recommendations to the Mayor's office and BMA. Request is that rank and file members be represented on this board in order to give them a voice in running the department.
We support this proposal and will work to estabish such a board. Our employees have the right to be a part of the decisionmaking process !
--- A proposal for an overall Employee Relations board to help address employment related issues and help workers in our city have an avenue to make suggestions and recomendations to the Mayor's office and the BMA which they feel will improve every part of life as a city employee, from employee safety to pay to benefits and beyond.
NOTE: The three proposals above are very important to different segments of our employee population because they have, in effect, been denied citizenship rights under the present administration and they need to be able to have concrete ways to work with the new city administration to reassert these rights.
These are vehicles to get us to that goal, not goals in themselves !
--- Proposal for collective bargaining rights (which would need to be granted through state legislation)and a voice in Kingsport city government.
We support the right of all groups of employees, including public safety employees, to use the collective bargaining process.
The only caveat in this regard is that no one could support legislation which allows public safety officers to strike. We believe our public safety officers are simply too vital to our community for us to risk going without their services, even for a short period of time !
We also support the right of every individual citizen to participate fully in the political process and encourage everyone to come to any meeting or hearing in which they have an interest, feel free to speak out at meetings (see Citizens Voce Page for more information on ways we want to get the community more involved in city government), volunteer your time to help guide the city in an area you know about, volunteer to serve on committees and commissions, and, most importantly, get out and vote your conscience.
--- Proposal to raise Public Safety Department salaries to or above the national average for comparable jobs.
There was a time when our city met this standard. At that time, we had many qualified applicants for available jobs and a lower rate of turnover, resulting in a very well-trained, stable workforce. Today our turnover rate is higher and we are constantly training new people.
We believe paying our employees at this standard will result, once again, in a lower turnover, which will give us a more experienced force overall.
We support the goal of getting this department up to the national average pay for each position.
We propose to accomplish this in three stages:
* by first fully funding the existing pay plan for ALL city employees
* seeking Council review of positions in the new Public Safety Department to see if the pay plan has met the above goal
* asking for a plan of action to bring these employees up to the national average
Our public safety officers put their lives on the line to protect us, Kingsport's citizens, on a daily basis and they desrve fair compensation for that !
--- A proposal to increase retirement benefits to 75% of pay and reduce service requirement to 25 years for retirement eligibility.
--- A proposal to change our employee health insurance to a plan endorsed by the FOP and represented to have both better benefits and a lower cost to both employees and the city.
---- These employees wish to be represented in hearings, boards, commissions, etc. which deal with issues concerning them.
--- A proposal for firefighter strength to be brought up to the national safety requirements (4 persons per vehicle sent out).
Over the past 25 years call volume for the firefighters has gone up over 500%, they have been asked to do more and more things to protect us (They do EMS duty, swift water rescue, hazardous materials containment, enclosed space rescues, are having to be more and more prepared for the posibility of a call for response to a terror attack -either here or- if they are needed, in support of our neighbors, should one of them be overwhemed by an attack, fire prevention education, and many more services in addition to the basic fire suppression and lifeasing services they perform at a fire site !, and the area of ground they have to cover has approximately doubled in the recent past due to annexations, but the staffing has remained belw the standard which will assure the safety of both the community and the firefighters.
To make matters worse, it has been the practice of city government, in recent years to not replace line officers who are promoted to administrative positions.
We feel our firefighters need our support on this issue.
Public and employee comment on this and all city issues is invited by e-mail, staring or adding to a thread in the guestbook, or by phone. wE would love to hear from you !!
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Position on Public Safety Department
