I say this as the son of 15 year rural volunteer fire dept volunteer- I think the danger faced and skills required in the average day of a patrol officer vs. firefighter justify a pay disparity in favor of law enforcement. Though I recognize structure fires and high-density housing of an urban setting carry greater risks than rural volunteer service.

Change their pension to a 401k plan and then pay them enough to keep people in the job positions (a market rate). If they can make more elsewhere, let them go and hire someone else. If we can't get anyone, then raise the pay until we do. To many cities are all racing each other to bankruptcy by continuing to pay city employees more and more, especially expensive pension benefits that are way out of date.

My brother works for HPD, I work for HFD. We are pretty much same rank and same time. He makes more about $28,000 to $30,000 more than me.

Pensions were stripped down bc Turner and the city played some dirty politics. We don't get social security so pension is our only form of retirement. Now that the city jacked up the FFs pension, with no pay increases FFs are leaving in droves. If surrounding cities and towns are paying $20,000 more for less work, what do you think they'll do?

Don't FF's sit around, work out, and cook 98% of the time?

So what I hear is in the event of medical emergency, go to the nearby city that's not Houston?

Not going to lie. There are some apparatuses that are slow and make a few runs a day. They're typically the specialized units like towers, ladder trucks, hazmat, rescue. But some days they are busy. HFD runs all the EMS calls too. So some stations and units are constantly running. I know when I was on the squad (ALS) unit on SW side, we ran none stop. We would be lucky to be at the station 4 hours in a 24 hour shift. 15 min here, 20 min there, 5 min here. Took me about 10 years to get to a slower station to actually relax a little.

It used to be Willowbrook and Kingwood were the retirement stations, but population increased out there so they are getting busy too. We don't have janitors or yards guys, so we clean our own stations and units everyday. Every week we do yard day.

Everyday during the week HFD so busy we go into "resource management". Basically mean 80% of the EMS units are out of service due to run volume.

City has neglected the fire dept fleet maintenance and front line units for years. Most fire apparatus do not have functioning ACs or have major oil leaks. Instead of fixing the leak, Maintenace guys just give us gallons of oil to take to the station to refill.

Houston's population has increased drastically over the years since I've been in but the size of the dept has pretty much stayed the same. The city and dept head has been trying to do more with less but it's wearing and tearing down the units and fleet cannot keep up with the maintenance.

The city also cut $24 million from HFD budget, but increased HPD $6 million+ for 2018.

When I got in about 13 years ago, thousands applied and took the civil service test for the HFD. Recently only ~230 took the civil service test and not all are candidates for an academy class. I was told by an assistant chief, for every 3 candidate, one person makes the class.

All I can say is you get what the city pays for.

Just a comparison between in numbers.

Quote:

---

We don't get social security

---

Do you pay into social security?

To be honest, I think it is silly to compare to hpd. Those are two completely different jobs. However, comparing to fire departments that don't run EMS, medstar (like in Fort Worth who only does EMS) and other cities that do the combo is completely reasonable and still gives yall plenty of reason to have beef.

Why compare to police when you have more apples to apples comparisons?

My hunch is that it is easier to go to the voters with the strategy of equal pay with hpd (lots of low information voters out there) vs trying to talk about other cities' fire/Ems pay structure.

Quote:

---

Now HFD is a stepping stone. Free training by CoH and once your certified, they are leaving and applying to better paying fire depts.

---

Right. So if the city is showing you and all the other firefighters that they don't want you anymore and there are lots of other options available, why are you still working for them? And why are you working to get a petition signed to change all that? Leave like everyone else for the better opportunities.


You don't owe the City your loyalty. In fact, by remaining employed by the City while their pay sucks is only making the problem worse. Pay won't rise until there isn't enough labor supply to satisfy their demand. If you really want to solve the problem, go work at a suburb department and convince all your buddies to do the same. Nothing will change at the City until houses start burning down and insurance rates skyrocket accordingly.