Ousted Keene, NH, Fire Captain Gets $300K from City

Keene recently settled with a former fire captain who’d alleged he was wrongfully terminated, an agreement between him and the city shows.

The city agreed to pay Steven J. Dumont Sr. more than $200,000 in lost wages, which covers two years of pay, and Dumont Sr. agreed to resign, the March 26 document shows.

A separate arbitration ruling in his favor from 2024 had ordered the city to reinstate him and pay him back wages. The settlement agreement says that amounted to almost $100,000.

The city fired Dumont Sr. in January 2024, according to the settlement agreement. The arbitration ruling, which Keene City Manager Elizabeth Ferland said came out in December 2024, says he had served as captain of fire prevention.

The payments, totaling more than $300,000, have already been made, according to Ferland. Dumont never returned to his role at the fire station after the arbitration hearing, she said.

In an April 28 email, Ferland declined to comment on the specifics of this case but said the city “feels it treated Mr. Dumont fairly.”

Dumont Sr. also declined to discuss the details. He told The Sentinel last week he planned to take additional legal action, but declined to elaborate.

“There’s a lot more that’s there,” he added.

State law allows unions and public employers to resolve disputes through arbitration. The N.H. Public Employee Labor Relations Board, the body that deals with employment disputes in the public sector, does not directly conduct the arbitration. Instead, it facilitates the process by maintaining a list of neutral arbitrators for these types of negotiations. Arbitration decisions are legally binding.

In his arbitration proceedings, Dumont Sr., represented by the local chapter of the firefighters union, alleged he was fired without cause. The city, by contrast, alleged he was fired for violating several provisions of his contract, including publicly reprimanding a subordinate, discussing fire department matters with unauthorized personnel and misusing the city’s electronic resources, among other violations, the arbitration ruling says.

In this ruling, Gary E. Hicks, a retired N.H. Supreme Court judge who served as the arbitrator, said there was no evidence Dumont Sr. reprimanded his subordinate publicly. The city’s complaint that Dumont Sr. had discussed department matters with unauthorized personnel stemmed from Dumont Sr. communicating with his lawyer, according to Hicks, who did not elaborate on why Dumont Sr. sought legal advice.

Hicks dismissed the city’s other allegations for lack of compelling evidence, and said the city had other avenues for corrective action that did not include firing Dumont Sr.

The ruling does not describe what evidence was submitted to Hicks, and though it mentions witnesses testifying “truthfully and occasionally with heart felt emotion,” does not name them.

Keene firefighter Rob Skrocki, who is president of the Local 3265 union chapter, said last week the union was pleased with Dumont Sr.’s reinstatement. Any time an employee is wrongfully terminated, he said, reinstatement is a good outcome.

Dumont Sr.’s dispute with the city is another chapter in a personnel issue that became public in April 2024 after then-Fire Chief Donald Farquhar’s abrupt resignation.

A city investigation completed that month found “credible evidence” that Farquhar had made derogatory comments about city staff and members of the public. The April 2024 report from that investigation, written for the city by attorney Thomas M. Closson of Nashua, said Farquhar had violated several fire department rules on language, civility and use of his city cellphone. This investigation was prompted by allegations Dumont Sr. made during an investigation into his own conduct, according to Closson’s report.

Farquhar denied the allegations.

Though the city argued in arbitration that the dispute with Farquhar was a separate issue, Hicks said in his ruling that it was, in fact, related, as Farquhar’s management caused the issues that led to Dumont Sr.’s employment dispute. Hicks wrote that Dumont Sr.’s friction with Farquhar began “almost immediately.”

Farquhar joined the department in October 2021 and was promoted to chief in April 2022, according to Ferland, who said Dumont Sr. began his tenure with the department in September 2022.

Sentinel reporter Abigail Ham contributed to this report.

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