City to finalize public safety contracts

FORT MADISON – The Fort Madison City Council will meet in an exempt session prior to Tuesday’s City Council meeting to finalize contract details with the city’s fire and police departments.
According to original proposals received by the city in January, the Fort Madison Fire Department union asked for a three-year contract with a 10% increase the first year, 8% in the second year, and 6% in the third year of the contract for an average 8% increase over three years.
The proposal from Fort Madison Professional Fire Fighters IAFF Local 607 also added holidays for Christmas Eve and for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the third Monday in January.
The union proposal also included the following:
• a fitness incentive for a family gym membership reimbursement for each firefighter.
• a $25 cellphone reimbursement
• supplemental pay for college credit earned at a rate of $1.50 per semester hour earned to a max of $75 per month. That would climb to $90 with an Associate's degree and $150 per month with a Bachelor’s degree in a fire-related major.
• certification pay of $50 for each certification earned through the Fire Bureau Training Services.
• a rewrite of vacation to provide one week after one year of service; two weeks for two years to five years; three weeks for six to 12 years; four weeks for 12 to 20 years; and five weeks for any service 20 years and more.
The city, on the other hand, offered an accountability-based contract that equates to about a 3% increase in wages during the contract, but no across-the-board increases were part of the proposal. Instead, the city is offering step increases based on time and performance.
Negotiations since that time have generated a a 5% across-the-board increase that was discussed at the last City Council budget session during negotiations for non-union city employees across all departments.
The police union, PPME Local 2003, proposed a 25% wage increase in their initial proposal and that has been preliminarily negotiated down to a 9% increase in a two-year agreement.  The union produced a wage comparison summary that showed 20 other community and county law enforcement officers hourly rates. FMPD average wage is $31.16 with a population of 10,031 in 2023. Spencer Iowa’s PD comparative hourly rate is $41 on the high end. Nearby communities including Burlington ($37.36) and Keokuk ($34.43) were also included in the survey. The city’s initial proposal was a 2% across-the-board increase in the department.
At last week’s two budget workshops, Councilors voted to approve a 5% across-the-board increase for non-union staff in the budget, which is still yet to be approved pending the ratification of agreements with the two unions.
Following the exempt session, the council is set to go into regular session where there is an agenda item to ratify the contracts.
Other agenda items include discussion and possible action on setting a public hearing for March 17 on issuing a $950,000 general obligation bond to reimburse work on the city’s new Public Works building. The project cost is listed at $1.85 million with the rest of the funds coming from the public works department’s funds.