City council plans to negotiate with International Association of Firefighters Local 114 to make changes to the union's current bargaining agreement with the city.

The changes would be made to allow the Butler City Fire Department to hire part-time firefighters, according to Councilman Kathy Kline, who also is the director of public safety.

Kline was asked by other members of council at Tuesday's forum meeting to pursue the changes, which includes wording regarding the number of full-time firefighters needed before regular part-time firefighters could be hired.

Page 5 of the contract states that “there shall be a four-man minimum complement per shift,” with a minimum of one officer, two full-time firefighters and either one full-time or one regular part-time firefighter.

It also states that “any reductions from the current staffing of 18 full-time firefighters shall be achieved only through attrition.”

The contract took effect in 2015, when the department was staffed with 18 full-time firefighters. Since then, two firefighters have left the department.

Page 19 of the contract states that for part-time firefighters to be used, the city must “at all times maintain an active complement of not less than 18 full-time professional firefighters.”

“It was just an oversight of not omitting that language from the previous agreement because what is stated on page 5 for the department complement supersedes what is shown on page 19 in the part-time program,” Kline said.

Union president and Butler Fire Capt. Jim Kaufman said a memorandum of understanding, which is an amendment to the current contract, would disregard the aforementioned wording on page 19.

Another talking point is the potential lowering of the probationary period for firefighters new to the department, which is currently 750 hours.

Kline said she would only be receptive to lowering the probationary period if all of the department's captains agreed that a given firefighter is ready before the 750 hours.

“Can you imagine if you've got four guys on a team, and (one is) two weeks on the job but he's counting as your fourth guy?” Kline said. “You'd have to stand there as the building is burning behind him and give him instructions.”

Kaufman is opposed to lowering the probationary period. He noted that the period was at one time six months, which equaled about 1,500 hours. It was dropped to 1,250 hours, and then to 750.

“We've given into that year after year after year,” he said. “Why are we second-class citizens? Why do we have to open our probationary period when other departments don't?”

Kline and Kaufman are in favor of having full-time floaters instead of part-time firefighters.

Kaufman said that since the department has the four-man minimum complement, any time someone needs to call off or take off work, it costs the city overtime dollars.

He said that full-time floaters would save money on overtime because they would work their maximum hours by filling in when someone were to call off or take time off work.

“They would work whenever the need was there,” Kaufman said.

Mayor Tom Donaldson weighed in on the four-man minimum complement.

“I say schedule four men,” he said. “If they show up, great. If they don't, it's not a management problem. We schedule. It's a union problem.”

Kaufman and Kline also said they prefer the full-time floater option over the part-time option, because full-time floaters would work more hours than part-time firefighters so they would finish their probationary period more quickly.