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Bryant council changes appeal policies |
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
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By Matt Burks
Courier Staff Bryant City Council updated fire department policies at Monday’s meeting, but the president of the city’s newly formed fire union questions why a committee was not informed of the proposed changes.
“There was an agreement between the mayor, the fire chief and [firefighters] to form a labor management committee,” Lt. Daniel Weger, president of Firefighters Local 4606, said.
“Looking at all the policy changes, as I am aware of, nobody other than the chief has seen these [changes]. They didn’t ask for any help from the committee.”
During a Feb. 13 meeting, Weger, Mayor Larry Mitchell and Bryant Fire Chief Randy Cox agreed to install the Labor Management Review Committee to ensure that federal laws were known and enforced.
The meeting was held after two firefighters, terminated on Feb. 6 for allegedly falsifying their time sheets, were reinstated on Feb. 14. The firefighters were reinstated because their actions were found to be legal under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The committee was to be formed to “review any laws that we may not be aware of and make immediate changes” and “to keep laws intact and add any additional policies as needed,” according to Cox, who said that Weger, two firefighters and a battalion chief would sit on that committee.
Cox and Mitchell then explained that any policy changes will have to be submitted to and approved by the City Council.
“We were asked by a council member a couple of weeks ago why we haven’t formed a committee, but what’s the point when they don’t even ask for our input on it?” Weger said.
“They told us [policy changes] can only be submitted to the council by the fire chief and he hasn’t been here in a month and half ... they lied to the citizens and to the firefighters saying they we were going to form a committee and we haven’t formed one.”
Cox, who is under investigation by the city, returned to work Tuesday after taking a medical leave of absence that lasted about a month and a half.
City Attorney Nga Starzewski said the fire department policy changes are necessary to keep in compliance with state law.
“I discovered that the fire department has some directives, standard operating guidelines and policies, which ... have not been approved by council,” Starzewski said.
“The reason this is coming forth before council is because the council has a statutory duty to establish rules and regulations for the fire department. There is a specific Arkansas statute [14-53-101] that requires the council to do that and it is my understanding that it hasn’t been done.”
One of the changes in question was the deletion of an appeals process for any disciplinary action within fire department. Formerly, a firefighter would appeal any disciplinary action to a committee consisting of fire officers.
Both the city attorney and mayor said the change in policy was necessary to keep the fire department in standards with other departments.
Starzewski said the council had not been aware that the fire department had a separate set of polices from other city workers and that those polices were never approved by the council. Starzewski said all city employees, including firefighters, still have a voice to challenge disciplinary actions.
“We don’t have this policy anywhere else in the city,” Mitchell said. “We just didn’t think it was right for [firefighters] to have [an appeal process] when nobody else does. We just want to have everyone at an equal level.”
Mitchell said any employee with a disciplinary complaint goes through the human resources department.
“If someone has an issue they can bring that before council and ask them to reconsider the action,” Starzewski said. “The council just wasn’t aware that the fire department had its own appeal process that other departments don’t have ... that is different from the city employee guidelines.”
Other changes include deleting any clauses stating firefighters have a one-year probationary period and deleting the statement that any firefighter injured while performing a job duty will be covered by city workers compensation insurance. |
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