Well, good evening, everyone.

I would like to call the March 17th, Happy St.

Patrick's Day special meeting of the governing body to order and ask the clerk if she would take the role.

Mr.

Escabel.

Mr.

Labourne.

Here.

Mr.

Moody.

Here.

Dr.

Rennie.

Mr.

Seagrape.

Present.

Mr.

White.

Present.

Mr.

Wolf.

Dr.

Aldrich, present.

Mayor Collins.

Present.

Dr.

Emmons.

Present.

Two members are absent.

We do have a quorum.

Would you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Collective labor bargaining with Cheyenne Professional Firefighters, International Association of Firefighters, Local Number 279.

Did you want to start?

Did you have anything?

I've got a short thing to start off with if you're okay with that.

Yep, please.

So tonight I feel like we're stuck debating numbers and that has left us with little meaningful progress.

We came here to negotiate.

We'd like to refocus this process on moving the contract forward in a productive manner.

Right now we're willing to table wages and move forward on to other sections where progress can still be made.

We believe that is the best way to keep make this meeting constructive and keep negotiations moving forward.

And I think what I've come away from is it seems to me that you board's goal is to be the highest paid fire department in the state.

I mean, I think based on what I'm hearing from you guys, I think that's your goal.

And I think when I talk to our governing body, uh our goal is to this to be the best place to work as a firefighter in the state.

And that includes properly compensating firefighters, and we want our firefighters to thrive.

And so if I go back in history when I was elected mayor in and came into office in January of 2021, we had 89 firefighters.

And today that number is 103.

We've invested in staff.

But then we'll be spending about $950,000 a year in the in uh paying for our safer officers.

We've supported accreditation, you know, trying to make sure that the department is evolving and always working on best practices.

We have another one in the queue.

Um, and goals to um uh build one more after that.

Uh we have four new apparatus, three more on order.

Um all the small equipment that a person could ask for, including things like um a second set of bunker gear.

Um really it's important to us, I think firefighter safety.

You know, I read an article in the Cowboy State Daily this last week.

I don't know if you guys read that or not.

Um, there's a firefighter in Casper who has mantle cell lymphoma, stage three.

And um his wife talked about the fact that the uh the physical that they get there uh would not detect that that's different here.

You know, we spend another 40 or 50,000 a year on um physicals so that we don't have that happen so we can catch so we're investing in our firefighters, even our station designs now are designed to keep the carcinogens and the environmental uh challenges in the bay and allow those things to come into the firehouse.

Um, so I think we're doing a good job there.

And I think we've really changed this from a job to profession.

And it's been working that way for a long time, but I think it is today.

Um, and so I'm concerned that you know, we've worked really hard for the last five years to uh I think to come from a different perspective.

And um, you know, I'm just I'm nervous that what's happening over the last couple of meetings is going to set us back on that.

Um, but I would like to say I appreciate you guys making me aware of the best places and maybe think a little differently about uh salaries and uh and how to compare communities.

So I've spent all day today doing that.

Um and so when I when I look at our average wages and when I add a 3% wage, we are the top fire department in the state when you when you factor in cost of living.

That includes Jackson.

Um surprisingly, we're significantly higher than Jackson.

Um Cheyenne, it's cost of living index is 104.

Gillette and Casper's one or it's 99, Laramie's 101, Sheridan is 108.

Jackson is 170, which means that uh we get a 60 um 6% increase to to balance those things out.

Um, I also did the same thing.

I finally got a hold of Loveland today.

I got their numbers, and I was surprised to learn that uh while at the very beginning of our career, we are um a little bit behind.

But when you get to the lieutenant and um engineer salaries, we are within one or two percent when you factor in the cost of living changes that go along with that.

Um, and I think one of the challenges or one of the things I heard from you yesterday was that uh a company officer in Loveland does exactly the same thing that a company officer in Cheyenne does.

And um, so I I wanted to look into that a little bit.

And what I learned is Loveland has um 125 firefighters, professional firefighters.

Um we have 103.

Um they're in a city of 110,000 people.

We're in 66,000.

They have calls per staff of a 156 to our 50 or 100.

So they're they're doing 56 more percent calls per staff member than we are.

But if we look at calls on the duty, because they do have more firefighters than we do, it's 44%.

So their officers, their firefighters are doing 44% more calls for officer than we are doing that.

Um, their costs per station are uh 46% higher than ours.

Um there they have 70 uh 70% more calls than we do.

They have one more fire station, um, and they have one BC.

So they have all of that happening under one BC.

We have one BC.

And so as I compare to all of those things, and then we put in the uh the 121, which is the index for Loveland.

Um, and when we look at Cheyenne at a lieutenant level, we're 1.1% difference.

They are higher by 1.1%, but they're making 44% more calls.

Um when I read the the project, they said that when you live there, it actually feels higher than 21% or a 121 because the cost of buy a house there is so high, but medical is a little lower.

And so it actually feels higher than that.

And so the reason I've been so reluctant to move on from this is I think this is the biggest sticking point we have, and we've got to figure this out.

And um, so I did this for the same thing for every fire department in in Wyoming, professional fire service.

And I can share those numbers with you.

But what I found was at every rank, except for one rank, and that is Lieutenant and Jit.

We are the highest paid fire department in the state.

They are um we are higher in gross salary than they are, but uh when you add in that 5%, they're like 11 or 1,200.

Um excuse me, um, four and a half, five percent difference uh doing that.

I also learned that Loveland um is non-union because it's uh is a regional fire department and they have a 401A, which is a uh like a 401k, but it's for uh fire departments.

And I asked Chat GBT um to do the math for us.

So we looked at the math in in Loveland, and they are required to put 10% of their salary into this.

The city matches that 10%.

So I asked it to look at the uh retirement for a Loveland firefighter, um, taking the retirement at 50, which they can do uh for 30 years, and we're 17,000 a year higher in um in our retirement.

And ours is a is a pension, it's guaranteed.

It's not does the stock market work, you know.

Did you get lucky in the way that that all works?

Ours is a guaranteed pension, theirs is a 401, meaning that it's it's a little bit, well, it's not a little bit, it's it's up to the but I asked it to use the historical value of the of the SP, thinking the best case scenario going forward.

Um, there's a there's a real difference.

And so I think even when we compare ourselves to the what you asked us to do, I think we're right where we need to be.

And so I'm still comfortable doing a three percent raise.

And um, you know, and if you're willing to accept that, I think we can move on to those other things.

But the math I think shows that uh even if without a raise, we would still be the highest except for Gillette.

At this time, I'd have to take a look specifically at the numbers you have as well as some of the responsibilities, because I don't believe Loveland is an ALS paramedic fire department too, which does change things slightly without going down the rabbit hole of that.

Um I want to focus more on some of these other things so we can see actually how close we are on this contract, uh, so we could try and move forward and and change the tone and shift it from focusing on wages and debating it.

And Chris, I will tell you you can't have it both ways.

Um, you know, saying that they're not uh ALS, and then you know, one yesterday you're telling us that that's not fair, and and now you're saying it's not fair to compare them because they're not.

We can't have it both ways, right?

We are what we are.

We're an ALS fire department.

We and we pay our people handsomely to be um an ALS fire department.

Okay.

Are you willing to look forward at the two these other sections and move forward on those tonight?

Or do you feel like we are in any place where we could talk about uh uh wages and and and to try to get at least an understanding on that?

Uh at this point, I I don't want to continue debating that.

I do want to focus on the rest of the contract a little bit and then we can here's my fear.

We're gonna agree on those things, and we're not gonna agree on wages.

And I don't think I'm willing to do that.

I think we need to figure this out.

This is the is your number one goal.

It's uh obviously the biggest elephant in this room.

I think we need to fix this and figure that out.

So I would prefer to, I prefer to move on that.

The the problem that I think we have is that we cannot agree on the data sets that that we're comparing with.

Um because of that, we can't really move forward on that.

My goal was to try and get 90% of this contract buttoned up tonight, and then we could discuss wages um either at the end of that, see how close we are, or move to the next meeting to to handle that.

So walk me through what your challenge is with the data set.

Uh like I said, how I got there.

You you did tell me already, and we are coming from different data sets.

So um I've presented, I've handed over our copies of our data sets to you already, and you you don't want to accept them.

They're from multiple departments, not specifying pulling out one specific department.

I think the challenge I have is that when we look at compensation, um in most of the departments that we talk about, there is no they don't have any added pays.

So their pay is what is on the paper.

So if we look at um wrong pile.

When we look at Loveland, all they have is when you're acting in a higher rank, you get two percent for that for that shift.

When we look at Gillette, you can earn 200 a month maximum for um for added pays.

Um $50 per month, maximum of four.

Sheridan has a quite a few.

Um they have uh car seat technician, has met technician, eman team media intermediate paramedic, fire investigator, um, and they have an acting pay.

Um so there is some there.

Casper has nothing other than acting.

Uh Rock Springs has nothing except acting.

And so I think in order to be fair, we have to acknowledge that in Cheyenne, a lot of our pay comes from all the other things that we do, which is um education.

If you have a bachelor's or a um an associates, it's 1109 and 60 cents a year.

If you're an EMT basic, and I've already included that, but it's 1548.

EMT advanced is $3,124 and 40 cents a year.

Paramedic is 7,767 and 20 cents.

Shift trainers 3883.60, special operations trainer, same number.

Special operations team lead is 1956.40.

Special operations team members, 1,284.80 cents and acting pay.

If you're an actor, you get $1,284 a month, or excuse me, a year.

It's not while you're in the or you're acting in the job, it's 44 cents an hour as part of your pay.

And so I don't know how we can compare those where these other people don't have those acting uh pays in a large percentage, I think, of of our pay comes from these specialty pays.

And um, if we can't include those, then you're right, we can't agree on on that.

And somehow we have to be able to do that because we're not comparing apples and apples.

It's the total compensation at the end of the year for a Cheyenne firefighter versus these other places.

Would you agree to that?

Uh potentially.

Once again, there's there are limitations on specialty pays because you are limited to an EMS and two specialty pays.

So not everyone is getting all those specialty pays.

I completely agree with that.

And when we uh we had the um the spreadsheet, we looked at every firefighter and what they would actually make in a year, and then we did an average of all those.

So half of the firefighters would make more, half would make less.

And that's what I used when I did the comparison.

So, like when I compare Jackson, um, an engineer in Jackson um in Cheyenne, when you add all that up and we take the average, so half in, half out, higher, half lower, we make 102,011.

In Jackson, they make 116,000 or 116,247.

That's the maximum an engineer can make.

Um, but when you add in the uh difference, the 170 versus uh 104.

Um, actually a Cheyenne firefighter makes 51,005 more uh a year, 43.9% more of actual take home money than a firefighter in Jackson doing the same thing.

And it's the same as it with the lieutenant, it's 37% as BC, it's 19%.

As a firefighter, it's 53.77%.

So I took the very max you could make in the other departments off of their their spreadsheet.

And they took the average of our firefighters in every rank.

So like again, like I say, half are making more, half are making less.

And um, and that's how we came with those numbers.

And I did that for every department based on the consumer price index for all of those departments.

And I can share with you all of those.

I mean, Casper, uh, a firefighter, we make 2% more doing that because we have the 5% that goes against us on that one.

Engineers make 9.7% more, lieutenants make 7% more, and a BC makes 12.7% more.

Um when we look at uh Gillette, uh, our firefighters make 3.4% more.

Our engineers make 2.2% more.

Their lieutenants make 4.7% more, and our battalion chiefs are are us uh a wash.

They actually make $500 more than ours do, but statistically, it's 0.00 something.

So there's no no percentage difference.

That's the only uh city that I could find that that makes more.

Sheridan, we're at 16.9% more.

Um, lieutenant, they don't have engineers, by the way.

They're their firefighters drive and um and fight fires.

Um, our lieutenants are 31.4% more than Sheridan's, and our BCs are 35.5.

Now they can make some specialty pays, and I don't know those numbers.

So to be fair, uh, it's gonna lower that number a little bit, but it's not gonna lower it, you know, 15 or 20 percent.

Laramie's firefighters, um, their their wage, uh, we're a 104, they're a 101.

So we have to give them 3% more.

So we have to lower our salaries.

Our firefighters make 15.5% more.

Our engineers make 17.7% more.

Our lieutenants make 13.4% more.

Our BCs make 13% more after we do a cost of living analysis and do that back.

Rock Springs, our firefighters make 5.2% more.

They don't have engineers because they're firefighters drive.

Uh, so that really makes our firefighters look good.

Our lieutenants make 11.3%, and our BCs make 7.1% more than theirs do.

And um, and then Loveland, the uh the numbers are their firefighters make 17% more um at that entry level rank.

Their engineers are 2.2% more, and their lieutenants are 1.1% more.

So we're right there on on those.

And again, I have the cost of livings and and I'm like I say I spent eight or 10 hours in the last couple of uh trying to understand you brought up the the concept of cost of living.

Um I ran with it.

Yeah.

And I'd have to look at what your sources are for that and compare it to the sources that we have.

Um once again, I want to reiterate we are here to negotiate.

We're not here to debate tonight.

We want to change the tone from the previous meetings.

Is that something you're interested in tonight?

I'm interested in agreeing on um how we move forward on salaries.

You tell me it's your number one goal.

It's my number one goal to fix that.

It is.

And we've we've spent several meetings now debating different sources of data.

We don't seem to either one of us wants to accept the other one's uh data set, which is fine.

We have to agree to disagree at this point on that.

We're wishing to move forward on other uh other parts of the contract and negotiate those.

You asked about how I came up with those numbers.

It was best places website.

Um that was one of them.

And then there's another one, it's a C2 ER.

And I was just trying to find out if I could get the what the name of that was.

Welcome back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So while we do agree that wages are our number one concern, because of that, we have to do our due diligence and review the data that you have that you said you're willing to provide to us so we can review that and make sure that the math maths, if that makes sense.

That being said, we still want to move forward and negotiate in good faith and move on to these other items tonight.

Can't do that.

We have to fix this one first.

So at this point, then we need to review your data before we can move forward.

So I don't know if if uh you don't want to negotiate any of those items tonight, then I'm I don't know if there's anything further we can do here tonight.

We could take a break and go sit down at a table and I can show you how I got there.

If that would help you.

I I need the whole data set and time to review it.

I can't do it in a short time like that.

You said it took all day for you to do it.

We we need that time to review it too.

Okay.

Sorry to hear that.

Okay.

Um the twenty-fifth is the only day I'm not available.

I have full availability until then.

And I'm leaving on I'm leaving on Thursday morning.

I'll be back if God willing.

The airplanes fly.

I'll be back Sunday night.

Um we have council on Monday.

Okay.

So I don't know what the the agenda looks like, gentlemen.

Um is the uh Monday nights after the city council meeting with our what's our uh I I miss public service.

I don't know how long it's gonna take.

Public services quick.

There was three items on finance today.

That they took no time at all.

So we could maybe try to meet Monday after the city council meeting.

Okay, do you know about what the time frame would be for that?

Seven thirty.

Okay.

It might might be seven o'clock, you know, in in that range.

Okay.

I'm just want to know the approximation.

My guess is it take an hour to an hour and a half.

Um, I hope not.

So we'll notice it that way.

We'll do our very best to uh move the meeting along and uh and we could meet on Monday.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

And can we meet after this and I can show you how I got where I did?

Um can you just give us the data sets that you have and so we can review it?

It's all handwritten, so okay.

Let's just go just meet for five minutes after this, and I'll I'll kind of show you how I got there and see if it helps you.

Okay, fair enough.

Motion to adjourn, please.

I would move to adjourn.

Moved by Mr.

Seagraf, seconded by Dr.

Aldrich, all in favor.

All in favor?

Aye.

Those opposed?

We are adjourned.