Two GA Firefighters Resign, Alleging Toxic Work Environment and Unfair Pay

.“Proverbs 3:27 reads ‘do not withhold good from those who it is due whenever it is in your power to act.’ With these words I give you my resignation from the Marietta Fire Department,” Firefighter Dylan Guest told city council members at a public meeting Wednesday night. 

Guest claims there’s been retaliation, impulsive discipline, targeting, wrongful termination and lies from fire department leadership over the last several years, ANFreported. 

Guest is not the only firefighter to hang up his gear after months of salary negotiations stalled. Last week Webb Smith turned in his notice after 15 years of serving the city.

Smith presented the council with part of a 90-page document compiled by more than 30 Marietta firefighters. It’s full of e-mails and testimonies documenting alleged unfair pay and unfair treatment,

“I hope you ask yourself what kind of fire department you want, because this one is headed in the wrong direction,” Smith said.

The city's pay study recently revealed salary discrepancies across the fire department.

Chief Tim Mulligan told a reporter after the meeting he was “taken aback” and that it was unfortunate to lost a “solid firefighter” like Guest.

“I do feel blindsided in that probably 3 weeks ago I had my command staff go out and talk to the department about what are some of the top concerns that they may have. And we had a town hall meeting subsequent to those. I pulled in the whole leadership team and met with the entire department and we kind of talked through those concerns,” Chief Mulligan said. “We had the biggest pay increase in my 25 year career here in the city at 2.1 million dollars. And over the last 36 months the average increase for the fire employee salary has been over 24 percent. So yeah, we’ve been working on it and the city has been giving us the funds that we need to move those along. Is there still some work to do? There always will be. Because the markets are changing, the dynamics of everything within the pay system are changing and the dynamics of public safety are changing.”