Following considerable back-and-forth during Tuesday night’s Cadiz City Council meeting, officials unanimously approved a rate of pay increase for volunteers of the Cadiz Fire Department.
Those with less than 150 certification hours, whether they’re new or current employees, will see a bump from $22.05 per run or training day to $25. And those with 150 or more certification hours will move to $30 per outing.
While the increase seems marginal to the casual eye, Cadiz Fire Chief Thomas Futrell brought the proposal before the city council Tuesday following conversations and tabulation alongside Cadiz City Clerk Barbie Johnson.
Come to find out, Cadiz volunteer fire fighters hadn’t seen any changes in their rates in at least 16 years. Futrell said he’d had this conversation with long-time volunteers Bro. John Mitchell and Bob Noel, the latter a current member of Cadiz City Council.
In some ways, Johnson said this rate lagged behind pay scales in surrounding municipalities.
Futrell originally proposed that all new and current volunteer fire fighters see an increase to $30 per run, but Cadiz Mayor Todd King noted that seemed unfair to long-time veterans of the unit who do have their certifications and their breadth of experience in the community.
Futrell noted that Princeton volunteers typically make around $30 per run, but also have different payments for other actions — such as vehicle extrication and structure fires — and that pay rates are broken down by specific assignments.
Futrell also noted that with more volunteers reaching 150 or more certification hours, it’s more likely he and future fire chiefs will receive consistent state aid funds and workplace grants for equipment and tools.
King reiterated that an across-the-board increase to $30 per run just didn’t seem feasible.
Noel, councilman Brian Futrell and councilwoman Susie Hendricks offered a compromise, then, for the increases to $25 and $30.
Futrell has reported more than once that the Cadiz Fire Department made more than 170 runs last year.
The Cadiz Fire Department meets for three-to-four hours every two weeks for training and discussion, then uses months with a fifth Tuesday for maintenance and reassessment.
Futrell said he expects his budget to increase from $64,000 annually to roughly $100,000, but that number will be reassessed in a future council meeting.
