MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown Fire Civil Service Commission hearing regarding claims that the city of Morgantown used new personnel rules to retaliate against its firefighters will stretch into a third day.
International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 313, representing 48 Morgantown firefighters, brought the complaint alleging firefighter pay and benefits were illegally reduced outside the provisions provided in state code as payback for previous legal and civil service challenges.
Those challenges include a 2019 lawsuit regarding holiday pay compensation. Monongalia County Circuit Court Judge Phillip Gaujot ruled in favor of the city in that case, which was appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia earlier this year.
Commissioners Wes Prince and Charlie Sims heard about four hours of testimony Wednesday in the Morgantown Public Safety Building. Commissioner Noel Hoffman was not present.
The commission heard from Assistant City Manager Emily Muzzarelli, Morgantown City Council members Bill Kawecki and Dave Harshbarger and Kathy Pineault, who handles payroll in the city’s human resources department.
Much of that conversation was spent parsing out the differences in 40-hour employees and firefighters, who work 56 hours weekly. A 40-hour employee works 2,080 hours annually while a 56-hour employee works 2,912 hours.
The city contends the new personnel rules that took effect July 1 based on a GovHR wage and benefit study were intended to ultimately raise employee pay and create a level playing field across all city departments.
The firefighters contend that’s not what’s happening.
For example, a firefighter’s paid time off is now capped at 360 hours, the same as a 40-hour employee, even though a firefighter would need to use more hours to get an equivalent amount of time off — say 40 hours compared to 56 in order to take a week’s vacation.
Further, a standard firefighter work week includes 40 hours of straight time and 16 hours of “built-in” overtime. But now all paid time off is paid as straight time.
That, IAFF Local 313 President Mitchell Beall explained, basically results in a penalty for firefighters that 40-hour employees don’t face.
Muzzarelli said the calculation used by the city to determine new hourly rates for firefighters took that change into consideration.
It was also pointed out that premiums like the master firefighter classification (gained at 10 years with the department), shift differential, longevity pay and hazard pay were used in calculating those base hourly rates.
Beall pointed out that firefighters have also had their holidays eliminated in exchange for premium pay.
“When you do away with our holiday time and give more holiday time to the 40-hour employees … Now we’re left with way less time off, but if we use the full amount of the time we do get, then we’re docked in pay,” he said.
Asked if he believed the testimony is showing a pattern of retaliation, he said he believes it does.
“That’s always going to be hard. Nobody is just going to openly admit, ‘I did this for X, Y, Z.’ However, when it all starts adding up and it affects the 56-hour firefighter more than anyone else in the city, it’s pretty telling that something’s not right.”
Harshbarger answered the question of retaliation directly during his testimony.
“Our goal is to try to have happy city employees. We’re not out to get anybody. We want to make fair pay practices and fair employee policies across the board. We’re here to support city administration in doing that,” Harshbarger said. “I can tell you, up and down city council, if anybody was aware or thought that was not the case we would not tolerate it.”
The hearing will resume at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 8 in a location to be determined.
