Firefighters take pay freeze

Firefighters are volunteering to take a pay freeze. It will leave hundreds without scheduled pay raises.

Firefighters like Jeff Lee suit up each day for emergencies, "It's a small sacrifice." He's not talking about his job, rather a pay freeze he took voluntarily. Lee says, "It's something we had to do and we knew we needed to do it." This fall new three year contracts are set to begin. The first year, Lee along with 400 other fellow St. Lucie County firefighters were supposed to receive a 7% pay raise. Now, they won't get a raise this year, and will have about a 6.5% increase over the following two years. Lee says, "I know automatically it's going to save the fire district $2.7 million." $2.7 million, a savings the president of the local fire union is excited about. Tim Munson says, "We realized with the situation the community is in and the taxpayers are in that taking that 7% pay raise my be less than correct." Munson hopes the savings will allow for new hires, something that hasn't happened for awhile. He also hopes others in the county will join in, "If this is something they can do then I would certainly hope everyone would follow suit."

For now, Jeff Lee and others will have to do without some planned expenses, "We're not taking a pay increase, so things we might have planned things we were hoping to purchase, things we are going to have to put on hold," but these guys know it's worth it, everyone is suffering.

County Commissioner Doug Coward commends the men and woman, and says not only will this help hire new firefighters, but also will allow the county to freeze the fire district tax rate. In all, 70% of the union voted "for" this pay freeze.