Pictured are Jamestown firefighters battling a fire last summer. P-J file photo

Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist believes that by hiring additional firefighters, the city could increase staffing levels and avoid continuing to pay impact pay for firefighters.

While Sundquist acknowledged that there is always the potential for firefighters to reopen the impact pay arbitration case with the city, he said the additional firefighters that could be hired through the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant program would bring the city to full staffing for the Jamestown Fire Department.

“Impact pay only occurs when we are below a certain number of staffing level,” he said. “With the additional eight firefighters, that would put us at or beyond what that staffing level is, so the city would no longer pay impact pay for our fire fighters.”

Asked if the case could be opened back up if the firefighters were approved and eventually the city was not able to obtain funding through the SAFER grant and the city had to lay off some of the staffing, Sundquist admitted that the case could potentially be reopened. However, he added that regardless of whether the City Council approves the hiring of eight additional firefighters, the city is required to provide impact pay under the current arbitration award to firefighters if the city is below the minimum staffing level.

Sundquist believes the hiring of additional firefighters would allow the city to either meet or exceed the required staffing level for the Jamestown Fire Department, preventing the city from being required to continue to pay impact compensation for its firefighters.

“There’s always the potential for the city to open that up as well to say when that award was issued we had much more population, we had different items,” he said. “The way it works currently is it’s based on a certain level, so if we exceed that level, there is no more impact pay. If we go underneath that level, it’s kind of prorated impact pay that we pay to our firefighters if we are going below that level. Regardless, there’s no need to reopen that. It’s just the award, so we have to follow that.”

Sundquist also explained that the impact pay arbitration award is the same thing as the city’s requirement for employee compensation regarding the Jamestown Police Department. Whenever Jamestown is below a “full force contingent,” the city is required to provide impact pay for the police officers; whenever, the city meets or exceeds the required minimum staffing numbers, the city no longer is required to pay impact compensation.

Asked whether he expects the resolution hiring the additional eight firefighters to move forward as the city council reconvenes next week, Sundquist said he cannot speak for members of the City Council.

While Sundquist said there have been additional discussions regarding the SAFER grant as a result of the City Council’s decision to table the resolution hiring additional firefighters, he said his administration has not yet received any “further requests for information” from members of the City Council.

“We stand ready to answer any additional questions regarding this,” he said. “The only thing that I would add is unfortunately with a lot of these federal grants, if you reject the grant, typically they won’t award you another grant for maybe 10 years, so it’s certainly a difficult situation and I know we don’t like having to look at layoffs down the line, but when we’ve received $2 million to help make our city safer, we should take it. We should move forward with it and then figure it out as we go.”