LINCOLN, Maine — Firefighters and Public Works Department employees will receive 1 percent raises under separate three-year contracts town leaders have accepted, Town Manager Lisa Goodwin said Wednesday.
The Town Council voted unanimously to approve the contracts during a meeting on Monday. Councilor Shaun Drinkwater thought the agreements were fair.
“I think everybody made out in the long run. I think it was good for them and good for the town,” Drinkwater said Wednesday. “They are going to ask whatever they are going to ask for. That’s their job. The way this economy is going everybody’s lucky to have a job. I would like to have a raise myself. … It wasn’t like we didn’t give them anything.”
Under the public works contract, foremen and workers will receive 1 percent raises in 2012 and 2013 and a 2 percent raise in 2014, Goodwin said.
That will bring a foreman’s base pay from $16.11 per hour to $16.27 per hour, or from about $33,500 to about $33,840 for a 40-hour week in the first year. A worker’s base salary will go from $15.53 per hour to $15.69 per hour, Goodwin said.
The firefighters’ contract will push their pay from $14.08 per hour to $14.22 per hour in the first year as the contract calls for a 1 percent raise in 2012. There will be increases of 1.5 percent in 2013 and 2 percent in 2014.
As part of the contract, firefighters will be prohibited from being paid for more than one two-hour call-in per every two hours, Goodwin said.
Town leaders pushed for the change when they noticed that firefighters could take a two-hour call-in to handle a large-scale or possible large-scale emergency, work far less than two hours depending on the nature of the call, such as whether it turned out to be a false alarm, then get paid for another two-hour call-in before the first call-in period had elapsed, Goodwin said.
As part of the firefighters’ contract, the department’s clothing allowance went from $300 per year to $300 as needed, and now Fire Chief Phil Dawson will approve clothing purchases before they are made, Goodwin and Drinkwater said.
The allowance used to be $500, Drinkwater said, and firefighters will have to turn in their uniforms and equipment when they leave the job.