Thursday, December 18, 2025, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
The Austin City Council held a special called meeting on December 18, 2025, to consider three items: a four-year collective bargaining agreement with the Austin Firefighters Association (AFA) and two companion items (a general fund budget amendment and an increase in authorized firefighter strength of 22 FTEs). Staff described the agreement as the first negotiated fire contract without arbitration since 2017; it includes wage increases, a reduced work week, a new 'Austin schedule' (1-3-2-3 shift) beginning in year three, and a commitment to maintain the four-person staffing ordinance in exchange for the AFA dropping its charter petition. Council members asked about overtime costs, the definition of 'severe financial crisis,' brownouts/blackouts of stations, parental leave, inspections, and recruitment. All three items were adopted without objection after supportive remarks from council members and testimony from AFA leaders Bob Nicks and David Gerard.
0:04 Good morning, everybody. It's nine o'clock in the morning on December 18th, 2025, and I will call to order this
0:10 special called meeting of the Austin City Council.
0:13 We have a quorum of the City Council present, and we are meeting in the City Council chambers.
0:17 It's located in City Hall at 3 0 1 west second street.
0:22 Uh, members, you're aware that we have three items on the agenda.
0:26 Uh, the way we'll go forward today is we will first have a, uh, presentation by our staff.
0:33 Then we will go to item number one.
0:36 We, we have a few people that have signed up to speak.
0:39 What we'll do is we will call the speakers up by the item.
0:42 Uh, we'll call 'em up the way we, the way we typically do at meetings, uh, each speaker
0:47 will have two minutes.
0:49 And, uh, we will then open it up for, uh, I'll, I'll take a motion and we will
0:53 then open it up for questions.
0:55 And actually, right after the presentation, we'll have questions, but we'll have discussion, uh, after a motion if
1:00 anybody has any discussion.
1:02 So, with that, and unless there's any questions or objections, I will turn it over to our city
1:06 manager. Thank you, Mayor, and good morning, Mayor City Council.
1:10 I'm pleased to bring forward today for your consideration, a four year collective bargaining agreement with the Austin
1:17 firefighter association. After returning, uh, to the negotiation table to resolve the issues raised, uh, in their proposed
1:25 charter amendment, I believe we have arrived at a true and complete agreement for the next four years,
1:32 contained within the city's agrees to maintain the mandatory four person staffing ordinance through mutual agreement with the
1:40 faa, the a fa, in exchange the a fa agrees to no longer pursue its charter petition, as
1:50 has always been our stated goal.
1:51 Uh, this agreement ensures the city continues to deploy resources to serve our residents in the most effective
1:57 manner, avoids excessive overtime to ensure our firefighters have time to rest and provides re a reduced work
2:05 week hours, uh, to improve firefighter work life balance so that they can benefit from the much needed
2:12 rest. With that, I will turn it over to roxy perez, stevens deputy labor relations officer to explain,
2:20 uh, the agreement in more detail.
2:23 Good morning, Mayor and council.
2:25 Thank you, city manager, broad nexts roxy stevens, a deputy labor relations officer.
2:30 I'm excited to be here, uh, because this means that we have been able to get back to
2:35 the table and resolve the outstanding issues that we already had.
2:39 As you recall, we already had a ta with resolved issues.
2:42 We were able to go back to the table with the a fa on the unresolved issues raised
2:46 by the petition for the charter amendment, and we are presenting to you today an agreement between both
2:53 the city and the a fa, um, after negotiations.
2:59 Uh, so after returning to the table, we negotiated this agreement.
3:03 Uh, this is the first fire agreement that we have actually negotiated and brought before the City Council
3:09 without going through another process such as arbitration since 2017.
3:14 So this is a, this, this is a good thing.
3:17 We are forging a new, uh, collaborative effort in working with the a fa to achieve, um, resolution
3:25 to difficult issues so that we can discuss them, discuss the real issues, and come up with reasonable,
3:31 effective and practical solutions.
3:35 So the agreement that, uh, I'm bringing forth today before the Mayor and the council resolves all the
3:41 issues we've, and, and in resolving all the issues we've been able to achieve a lot, um, if
3:46 you look across the state, maybe, uh, maybe they're able to achieve wage increases or maybe they're able
3:52 to achieve a reduced work week in just that, or a new shift schedule.
3:57 And the agreement that we're bringing forth today, we're able to achieve all of those.
4:01 We've been able to fi to achieve increased wages for all our fi our hardworking firefighters reduce work
4:07 week hours to address the health and safety of the firefighters themselves.
4:12 Uh, we've committed to four person staffing levels and solidifying the quality of the services that we're able
4:19 to provide our community.
4:21 Uh, and we also discuss when hard issues come up, how are we gonna deal with them.
4:26 We have formed collaborative processes in order to be able to address those issues in collaboration with the
4:33 a fa and which May at times, um, allow the city to consider, uh, taking apparatus and fire
4:40 stations out of service, but only in critical moments and only in certain, um, circumstances.
4:46 The agreement that I'm bringing forth today, uh, has been approved by the a fa by 72% of
4:52 their membership. They voted in favor, and that's a strong vote.
4:58 Uh, there is a powerpoint presentation included in the public backup documents that I have uploaded for this
5:04 particular agenda item that outlines all the details of the complete tentative agreement.
5:09 If I went through all the de through all the details.
5:12 Um, as you see, the, the agreement itself is about 110 pages.
5:17 It is very, uh, complex and there's a lot of details.
5:20 So I've included that powerpoint presentation that outlines all of those for everyone's reference.
5:25 The Mayor, the council, the public, anybody who wants to look at it.
5:29 Um, so I'm not gonna go through each slide there, but I'm gonna highlight the major key points
5:34 that we've been able to achieve in this agreement.
5:38 This agreement is a four year agreement, uh, being, becoming effective today, in ending in September, 2029.
5:46 It includes an an enhanced hiring process where the chief gets to set the hiring standards and has
5:52 more flexibility to hold continuous hiring processes and be able to focus on certain geographical areas, meaning that,
5:59 uh, we can have multiple tests happening at the same time in different locations rather than just one
6:05 test. It opens it up to a lot more applicants than we have had before.
6:10 Uh, the chief will also be able to utilize modified hiring to hire quickly, uh, and hire already
6:17 certified firefighters, uh, from other jurisdictions.
6:20 It also offers a streamlined promotional process, uh, for the firefighters that are within the rank and file
6:26 to be able to move up within and promote within their ranks.
6:32 The, uh, contract that we're presenting today allows a chief to utilize non-sworn employees in certain sections of
6:38 the department, including recruiting public information and air shop.
6:42 And it continues to allow, uh, the use of civilian engineers and fire prevention.
6:49 A big component of this, which is very transformative, is something that we have negotiated called the Austin
6:55 schedule, beginning the third year of the contract.
6:57 And the reason that it's in the third year of the contract is because the firefighters, uh, or
7:02 the a fa membership has collaborated with us to understand that it, it's gonna take some work to
7:07 get to be able to implement that, uh, schedule that there's two distinct items in the Austin schedule.
7:15 One is the actual shift schedule itself, which, which goes from a 24 48, uh, and transforms into a
7:22 1 3, 2, 3, meaning there's a three days in between each shift.
7:26 So a firefighter will have time to rest and spend time with their family.
7:30 Uh, and that would be one day on, three days off, two days on, three days off, and
7:34 continuous such as that in addition to the new shift schedule.
7:39 Oh, and before I move on to that, there will be a, uh, an alternative shift schedule of
7:43 the 24 48 that would be, uh, available for people with hardships, such as taking care of children or
7:49 family members or other hardships.
7:51 And that would be on an as request basis and as approved by the fire chief.
7:58 Uh, in addition to the new shift schedule, there's also gonna be reduced work week hours, um, throughout
8:04 the course of this contract, the reduced work week will go from an average of 52, uh, down
8:10 to 49.8 there, uh, in year three of the contract.
8:15 There is a, a point in the contract in March of 2026, uh, where the firefighters have agreed
8:21 as a cost sharing measure to give back the two kelly days that they, they were awarded in
8:26 the last contract award in order to be able to use those savings to fund additional ftes to
8:32 implement the reduced work work week schedule.
8:37 Uh, when, when they do implement the 49.8 hour work schedule in the 30 year of the contract,
8:43 that actually, uh, increases the hourly wage by 6.43%, meaning they're gonna be making more hourly, but making
8:51 the same annual rate.
8:53 And then the raises that we did negotiate go on top of that, the 54 oh part of
9:01 the cost sharing, uh, pro that the a fa has agreed to participate in is to add 54
9:08 additional ftes into the authorized strength of firefighters in order to be able to implement the reduced work
9:15 schedule. That would be, uh, the city would increase authorized strength in year one by 22 firefighters and
9:21 year two by 32 firefighters that way.
9:23 In the third year of the contract, we have hired, uh, or we are, we have increased, uh,
9:29 authorized strength up to 54 additional firefighters.
9:38 Part of the cost sharing.
9:39 Also, the firefighters have also agreed to give up the sick leave buyback program, and that savings was
9:44 also attributed to the, um, sharing in the cost of, of hiring those additional firefighters.
9:52 Now for wage increases, we're also able to, uh, adjust the pay scale in year one.
9:59 We had noticed in our compensation study and in discussions with the a fa, that the entry level
10:04 firefighter steps were the ones that, uh, were a little lagging behind and needed a little bit more,
10:10 um, a little bit more attention.
10:14 So what we did was we took the pay scale and we adjusted it accordingly throughout the, uh,
10:19 different steps in the ranks.
10:21 So there is a graduated, uh, increase, uh, as the steps go forward, the entry level step of
10:29 zero or the, which is the step in which firefighters who are coming in from probation and what
10:34 attracts firefighters to apply to the city of Austin is being raised by 6.21%.
10:41 The step one, which is one year experience is increased by 5.5 per 5.55%.
10:48 And the step two, which is two years experience, is increased by 5.06%.
10:53 All other, uh, firefighters will experience a nine, a 3.96% increase in the first year, and the battalion
11:00 chiefs and division chiefs will, will get a 3% increase.
11:04 One of the things we also did was we, um, made all rank rank differentials, meaning the differences
11:10 between the ranks, uh, and we made 'em a stable 8% for years two, three, and four of
11:17 the contract. We were also able to achieve increases.
11:19 Year two would be an across the board increase of 3%, year three would be 3.5%, and year
11:26 four would be 4%.
11:29 The projected cost of the agreement over the four years is $63 million with a year, one cost of
11:35 $5,913,706. The contract also includes guardrail provisions regarding funding and the availability of funding.
11:46 Now, the outstanding issues that we added to the tentative agreement here in the last, um, month that
11:52 we, uh, took to negotiate the contract or the outstanding issues of, with the issues being raised by
11:59 the petition for the charter amendment are the foreperson staffing.
12:06 The reason that gave rise was because the a fa had filed a petition to seek to have
12:11 the four-person staffing solidified in the charter amendment by including it in the contract.
12:17 The a fa has agreed not to pursue or support directly or indirectly any charter amendment and or
12:22 law that addresses, um, the four-person staffing ordinance, the fire department staffing levels, minimum staffing for apparatuses or,
12:31 um, apparatuses in service and out of service or fire stations in service or out of service in
12:37 return, the city has agreed in the contract that it will not amend, revised, or rescind the four-person
12:43 staffing ordinance requiring four-person staffing.
12:47 Uh, there is also an additional provision, uh, that if any outside party or any law or charter
12:54 amendment is enacted during the term of the agreement that the City Council May vote to expire the
13:01 contract if it impacts the ability to fund or, or manage or op or administer the contract.
13:07 And then the contract would be required to be renegotiated
13:15 with foreperson staffing. It mirrors the ordinance, it references the ordinance, but there were some clarifications and misunderstanding,
13:22 uh, rather clarifications and under mutual understandings that we had to include in the contract.