Layoffs Loom: Houston To Cut 220 Firefighters From Payroll

HOUSTON — The Houston City Council approved a measure Wednesday that could result in more than 200 firefighters being laid off. The city council voted 10-6 to give Mayor Sylvester Turner the power to cut 220 firefighters from the city payroll in order to implement Proposition B.

The passage of this measures comes as the Houston Professional Firefighters Association, the Houston Police Officer’s Union and city hall are locked in mediation.

“Unless the court steps in, or unless this measure can be successfully resolved through mediation, we have to move forward in implementing Proposition B and at the same time balancing our budget. Those two things are happening at the same time,” Turner said after the meeting.

Mayor Turner points out the City saved $8 million as the number of city employees declined over the last six months in preparation for footing part of the soaring bill from Proposition B, which requires a 29% pay hike for firefighters without a new funding source. $$$
— City of Houston (@HoustonTX) April 24, 2019

Proposition B, which gives firefighters a pay increase of 29 percent to achieve pay parity with police, passed overwhelmingly with voters in November 2018.

Turner said unless the increase was phased in over five years, layoffs would not be avoidable. However, the Houston Professional Firefighters Association is asking for Prop B to be phased in over three years.

Layoff notices have already be sent to 67 firefighters and 47 municipal employees. Their last day with the city will come June 7.

Meanwhile, Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Firefighters Association, called the 10-6 vote one of the most reckless stunts in the city’s history and chastised those on the council who sided with Turner.

“In one of the most reckless political stunts in Houston history, the Houston City Council has gutlessly voted, 10-6, with Mayor Sylvester Turner to lay off hundreds of firefighters. We are grateful to Council Members Boykins, Laster, Knox, Kubosh, Le, and Stardig for their courageous resistance against the political pressure of the mayor. The other City Council members that voted with the mayor are more focused on protecting their pet projects and political cronies than on protecting citizens. Having manufactured a city fiscal crisis in a tantrum of Proposition B, the mayor has become an out-of-control, unaccountable political fraud. His failed leadership and relentless political and legal attacks on firefighter families will now put the communities we serve at risk. From his Prop B lies to the phony fiscal crisis and city hiring ‘freeze,’ during which he hired hundreds of police and municipal employees, Sylvester Turner’s legacy will be spending secretly hundreds of millions of dollars on his pay-to-play political cronies, friends and family while ignoring his most basic responsibilities as mayor. Contrary to what the mayor and fire chief say, reduced fire and EMS coverage will endanger Houstonians. Now, we also will lose hundreds of taxpayer-funded, HFD-trained firefighters. Third-rate politicians are destroying our world-class fire department. Our association is now focused on helping firefighter families that will be affected by the mayor’s vindictive layoffs and on raising awareness of the public safety risks imposed upon Houston by the mayor’s complicit city council members. We will help community leaders hold them accountable for their failed leadership.”

Mayoral Candidate Bill King also weighed in on the Prop B fight and released a statement that called Turner's handling of the situation disgraceful.

"Sylvester Turner's manufactured crisis has reached a new low with his decision to lay off 220 firefighters. I cannot recall an occasion when any mayor of Houston has ever laid off any public safety workers - even in the depths of the financial crisis when Mayor Parker had to lay off 700 municipal workers, she protected public safety," King said in his statement.

"What's more disturbing is these layoffs come on the heels of an explosive Houston Chronicle story reporting that Sylvester Turner has hired nearly 900 new employees, including three communications executives in the mayor's office. His reactions to Proposition B are a disgrace and clearly disqualify him from re-election."

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