We are aware of the District reports that firefighters are “demanding an 11% pay raise.”  These reports are false and are being propagated by an ill managed Fire District and the Public Relations firm they have hired.

The facts: Menlo Park Firefighters are asking for less than the Fire District’s original offer; and, a smaller allotment to health care than the District initially proposed.   In reality we are only asking to be compensated pursuant with the District Boards own compensation philosophy which was unanimously adopted by Board Resolution and found in their own Staff Report dated January 15th, 2008. This philosophy stated Fire District Employees were to be compensated five percent (5%) above the average of our counterparts in our comparable agencies. 

Money is not at issue in our current situation, we are currently asking for less than what the District originally offered us.  The issues are related to contract language and the District engaging in regressive and bad faith bargaining.  That is why Menlo Park Firefighters filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge with the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) in June of 2009 and the reason why PERB issued a Complaint against the Fire District in February of 2010.

This type of regression would be legal and understandable if the District was under financial hardship, but it is not.  Menlo Park firefighters have not received a salary increase since July 1, 2007. Yet, according to the Menlo Park Fire District’s official Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, for the two-year period from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2009, the District has recieved more money than they have spent in the total amount of $8,681,790.

• The fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, the District had a surplus of revenues in the amount of $2,578,532 (District CAFR, p. 56)
• The fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, the District had a surplus of revenues in the amount of $6,103,258 (District CAFR, p. 56)
• The District has 110 employees (District CAFR, p. 63)

The District’s surplus of revenues for this two-year period was thus $78,925 per District employee. The District cannot claim a financial hardship.

These current actions being taken by the Fire District are in the views of its Firefighters, despicable.  The District has broken the law and has bargained with us both regressively and in bad faith.  The Fire District has clearly regressively bargained with us and then slammed us, their Firefighters, in the media for the past two years utilizing a professional Public Relations Firm, and they plan on imposing a contract on us on 4-19-2011 by Board Resolution.  They are calling this resolution their “Last, Last Best and Final Offer” which is worse than there “Last Best and Final Offer” that was dated 11-29-2010. 

We have made it clear several times, that as long as the District keeps repeating these unlawful acts the Association has no reason to resume negotiations with the District and will not do so until either the District voluntarily starts negotiating with the Association in good faith or the Public Employment Relations Board makes it do so.

Furthermore, since the District Board seems to be taking steps to unilaterally implements it’s April 19th, 2011, resolution  on the Association, the Association is requesting that the Public Employment Relations Board not only rule that such unilateral implementation was unlawful but also impose appropriate remedies on the District including, but not limited to, an order requiring the District to submit a contract offer to the Association that does not constitute regressive bargaining. Disobedience of this order would be punishable by contempt of court penalties.

Menlo Park Firefighters have simply shouldered the negative media for the last two years, patiently awaiting our day in front of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).  This ALJ is scheduled to settle our dispute in just a month, on May 23rd, 2011.  We have accepted this negative press because we have been confident since June of 2009 that PERB is going to rule in our favor and it would not matter what our Fire Chief claimed, what the Districts Public Relations Firm stated, or what certain local politicians asserted, in the end out contract dispute is going to be taken out of their hands.  This is because they have so grossly mismanaged our situation.

This implementation of the District’s “Last, Last Best and Final Offer” will have an adverse effect on some of our members by up to a $450 cut in take home pay a month due to the changes to the flexible benefit plan. These members who will be affected are amongst the worst off in our bargaining group.  Many of these members are Firefighters who have either gone bankrupt, had their houses foreclosed on or have had to short-sale their homes.  This is due in part to the compounding effect of no increase to our medical benefit since 2005 and no increase in pay since 2007 combined with a general increase to the cost of living and the major cost of the increase in Health Care coverage. 

Our last increase to flexible benefits (medical) came in 2005 when we received $750 a month.  In 2005, a firefighter with a family paid $922.20 a month for Kaiser Family Health and came out of pocket $172.20 a month.  Today, in 2011 that same firefighter pays $1,255.74 for that same coverage with fewer covered benefits and comes out of pocket $505.74 a month, this is an increase of $333.54 a month.  The Districts plan to increase the flexible benefits (medical) is from the 2005 amount of $750.00 a month to $1,100.00 is a $350.00 increase per month compared to the $333.54 increase of premiums since our last increase to medical six years ago, this is a net increase of $16.26.  This has all happened while our Fire Chief has enjoyed over a 12% increase in his compensation since our last raise and he openly brags to Firefighters who have lost their homes how much of his free money he is investing in gold.

This latest insult in the long line of spiteful maneuvers made by our Administrators has forced the hand of your Firefighters.  While these spiteful administrators spend over a half a million dollars ($500,000) a year on attorneys to attack their employees and thousands for a Public Relations Firm for the same purpose, Menlo Park Firefighters have patiently waited for the “rule of law” to come to our aid.

However, it looks like it will be a while for us to see this to full fruition.   We ask that you contact the Fire District at 170 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, to stop the insanity and let the Administrative Law Judge at PERB render his decision.  In a show of faith in the community we serve we have chronicled the last three years of correspondence for you.  Menlo Park Firefighters do not have a half of a million dollars a year of your tax dollars to fight legal battles or a Public Relations Firm to slam the Fire District, what we have is far more effective, we have the truth.