PARMA, Ohio — First responders in Parma are speaking out after the city announced pay cuts for city employees across the board in an attempt to offset the City of Parma’s projected multi-million dollar budget deficit.
The President of the Parma Professional Firefighters Association said the adjustment is a technicality that stems from an extra paycheck bi-weekly employees receive approximately once every ten years.
Read the initial letter sent from a law firm representing the city to the firefighters association.
He broke it down for News 5 with simple mathematics: for 52 weeks in a year, employees paid bi-weekly receive 26 paychecks.
“So at the beginning of this year I got paid on January 2nd which was for work that I performed in 2019,” Anthony Hyatt said. “This year I am also getting paid on December 31st, which is the last day of the year.”
The 2020 calendar warrants an additional paycheck for employees paid every two weeks.
“So if you count it out on a calendar that ends up being 27 paychecks that I’m going to receive this year,” Hyatt said.
Hyatt told News 5 after months of negotiations, Parma firefighters just received notice of an adjustment to their pay for the next several months.
Read the official notice of adjustment from the city here.
“They are going to take one-thirteenth of my pay for the remainder of the year, which equates to roughly 200 a paycheck,” Hyatt said. “Four hundred dollars a month that I’m going to be losing from my pay.”
Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter said the city is left with few options to make up for a total budget deficit of $3.9 million for the 2020 calendar year.
“Most of our funding comes from income tax,” DeGeeter said. “Obviously there’s millions and millions out of work so we had a drastic reduction in our revenues.”
DeGeeter said the city has already taken other steps to make up for a percentage of that budget shortfall.
“We’ve made budget adjustments to the tune of like $1.2 million, and that includes reducing overtime and also not hiring in our service department,” DeGeeter said. “Currently we have 47 employees that are in a voluntary layoff situation. That’s about a $400,000 savings.”
However, DeGeeter said the City of Parma is still in the red at nearly $2.3 million and that firefighters are not the only employees on the receiving end of wage adjustments.
“We’ve already took the step and implemented this with elected officials, so we’ve all done that,” DeGeeter said.
According to the City of Parma, approximately 460 people employed by the city are affected to varying degrees.
“So this is across the board. This isn’t just singling out fire,” DeGeeter said. “This is trying to go across the board.”
DeGeeter said firefighters will receive the same pay listed on 2019 tax documents.
“We believe this is something that we are legally entitled to do and we did,” DeGeeter said. “And again, there’s the same amount of salary as they made last year on their W2.”
However, Hyatt argues firefighters are actually paid hourly and said he believes this is the City of Parma’s way to avoid the cost of the additional 27th paycheck employees paid bi-weekly would receive in 2020.
“Having that dropped in our lap was kind of a slap in the face,” Hyatt said. “And they asked our members, ‘Hey we need you to continue to come to work. You’re essential workers. We need you and we will support you.’ Well this is how they’re supporting us is now by taking $200 of pay from our checks.”
The Parma Professional Firefighters Association filed a grievance with the City of Parma early Wednesday morning.
Read the first page and the second page of the grievance letter sent to the city.
