City's Appeal in NY Fire Department Staffing Dispute Rejected

A State Supreme Court justice has rejected the city's appeal of an arbitration ruling that compels the city to raise minimum shift manning at Lockport Fire Department to nine firefighters from six.

City attorney David Haylett said oral arguments were presented to State Supreme Court Justice Frank Caruso on Thursday, and Caruso ruled against the city's appeal without offering a reason.

"He just denied it," Haylett said.

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That wasn't surprising, he added, since "arbitrators' decisions are hard to overturn."

In light of Caruso's decision, the city is now faced with a choice: either comply with the arbitrator's ruling and add three firefighters to each of LFD's four platoons or appeal the ruling at the appellate level.

Mayor Michelle Roman noted the Common Council will have to make the choice but said her administration will plan for either scenario. She was not optimistic about winning at the appellate level, saying it would be "a miracle" if Caruso's ruling is overturned.

"I’m not surprised, but I agreed to do this because I wanted everybody to see that we (did) everything we could," Roman said.

The city is planning to apply for an equipment grant and a staffing grant, she added.

First Ward Alderman Joseph Oates, who chairs the council's finance committee, said city leaders need to discuss how to proceed.

"Is there another appeal? I don't know," he said.

The 2020 city budget does not contain the funding for 12 new firefighter posts, but there are some contingency plans that can be explored, Oates said.

Haylett said if the council decides to comply with the arbitrator's decision now, hiring would have to be immediate and within the guidelines of civil service.

In the city's appeal, filed in December, outside counsel Bryan Goldberger called arbitrator Michael Lewandowski's opinion and award "totally irrational," arguing several reasons why the city should not be forced to increase the fire department's minimum manning level.

Goldberger argued that the city did not violate its contract with the Lockport Professional Firefighters Association because its elimination of one ambulance and then elimination of the city fire department's ambulance service in 2014 constituted a change in "apparatus or other relevant circumstance."

In addition, Goldberger argued that the remedy imposed by Lewandowski is "violative of strong public policy" and the city's reason for reducing staffing in 2014 — fiscal stress — should be taken into consideration.

In 2014, mayor Anne McCaffrey's administration ordered LFD's ambulance service shut down amid the city's fiscal crisis and cut the department's minimum staffing level from nine to six firefighters per shift. The firefighters union sued to restore the staffing level to nine per shift and, after an administrative law judge ruled against the city, it was determined that the city and the union had to negotiate the staffing issue — which they did by seeking arbitration.

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