The fiscal year started Tuesday for the city of Columbus, but not without dispute.
A large group of people, many of them Columbus firefighters in uniform, turned out for Tuesday’s city council meeting, waiting for Ward 3 councilman Charlie Box to address an item he added to the otherwise mundane agenda at the beginning of the meeting.
After the council breezed through its routine business, Box said he believed the city should promote four firefighters, two of whom have been performing the duties of a higher rank for 10 months, despite an agreement in August that the promotions would be delayed until January.
Box, a member of the city’s budget committee, acknowledged the department heads had agreed to delay promotions as the city attempted to build its cash balance through the end of the year. In the FY 2020 budget approved by the council on Sept. 12, the city raised property taxes by 3.65 mills to fund a $23,928,258 budget, including a projected surplus of $439,517.
“The last time we met to discuss and finalize the budget, we talked about the fire department and it was suggested we hold off on the promotions,” Box said. “We discussed it with (Columbus Fire and Rescue Chief Martin Andrews) and we all agreed. Since then, it’s come to my attention that we have four firemen, two that I’m really concerned about, that have been working above their positions. They’re not actually promoted — they don’t call it promoted — but they are riding above their rank. Two of them have been doing this for 10 months. I don’t think it’s fair to them.”
Mayor Robert Smith questioned why the council would reverse course after agreeing to the delays in promotion during the August budget discussions. Smith said the public works department has three employees who are currently working above their pay grade. Also, in April, three Columbus police officers were promoted without pay raises due to the city’s budget crisis. Those officers have since received their pay raises.
“My thing is that I asked the department heads, the ones who made the recommendations, if they could hold off until January on the promotions,” Smith said. “They agreed to that. We were looking to build our cash flow. When I discussed this with department heads everybody agreed to that.”
Andrews said the four firefighters were working above their pay grade as part of CFR’s Ride Up policy.
“We send them to school and they agree that once they get the schooling and the necessary tools, they will ride up when we need them to,” Andrews said. “We recently changed the Ride Up policy. I did give them an opportunity to back out and I think of the 19, six of them backed out.”
Box said the Ride Up policy should not be used to ask firefighters to perform job duties on a permanent basis without the accompanying pay increase.
“I would like to suggest tonight that we go ahead and promote or do whatever we need to do to give those guys the proper pay for what they are doing,” Box said. “It’s just not fair to ask a man to work in a position he’s not getting paid for.”
Smith said he opposed promotions in one department but not in other departments who have similar situations.
“If we want to just go to spending, that’s fine,” Smith said. “But from a fairness standpoint, there’s no way we can approve to do that in one department and not the rest of them.”
Ward 4 councilman Pierre Beard moved the council table the motion until he could talk to all the department heads about any similar situations.
“I really want to know more about this from all the department heads,” he said.
Ward 2 councilman Joseph Mickens seconded Beard’s motion, asking that a special call meeting be held to settle the issue before the council’s next meeting.
“This isn’t doing anything to the fire department,” Mickens said.
Box asked city attorney Jeff Turnage if the city could be vulnerable to any wage-an-hour lawsuits by delaying the promotions.
“My understanding is that they have not been promoted and they don’t have that higher rank,” Turnage said. “I’d really rather research before I provide a definitive answer, but my gut tells me if they haven’t been promoted they would not have a claim for a higher wage. But I’d really like to research that and then come back with an answer.”
The council voted 4-1 to table the motion. Box was the dissenting vote.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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