FF Staffing: Will NY Officials Appeal or Implement Increase?
By Connor Hoffman
Source Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
Members of the Common Council are set to debate whether the city should appeal or implement the arbitrator's award requiring Lockport increase minimum staffing on Lockport Fire Department shifts from six to nine.
A resolution to appeal the arbitrators award is on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting.
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City Attorney David Haylett has said previously that the deadline for a notice to appeal, not the actual appeal, was 30 days from the formal written order of Judge Frank Caruso and that would have been April 6, but with the essential halting of courts by COVID-19 it would be April 19.
On Friday, Haylett said he thinks the vote will be close on Wednesday.
Common Council President and Third Ward Alderman Mark Devine, a former firefighter, has been staunchly against appealing the award and voted against the recent appeal in October. Devine reiterated his opposition to appealing the decision on Friday in a phone interview.
"How many times has it been defeated in court," Devine asked, adding that he doesn't want to continue spending money appealing a case that the city's attorney has told the council has little chance of winning.
Fifth Ward Alderman Rick Abbott said he is undecided as of Friday and is thinking about how to vote.
Fourth Ward Alderman Kelly Van De Mark said she asked Mayor Michelle Roman and Second Ward Alderman Luke Kantor to share what communication they have had with LFD and what alternative methods could be explored if the Council decides against appealing the decision.
"So really, I’m going to be using next week’s meeting’s to see what was gathered," Van De Mark said, adding some alternative methods could be if a certain amount could be hired for the next few years to lighten the financial burden or if grants are available.
On Feb. 6, Caruso had ruled against the city's appeal of the arbitrator's decision without offering any reasoning.
The 2020 city budget does not contain funding for 12 additional firefighter posts, but there are some contingency plans that can be explored, 1st Ward Alderman Joseph Oates, finance committee chair, said previously.
In the city's appeal, filed in December, outside counsel Bryan Goldberger called arbitrator Michael Lewandowski's opinion and award "totally irrational," offering several reasons why the city should not be forced to increase LFD's minimum manning level.
He argued that the city did not violate its contract with 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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