By KENNETH LIPP/YachatsNews
YACHATS — The Yachats Rural Fire Protection District Board this week approved a cost-of-living raise and two months of back pay for employees.
During its first meeting of the year Monday, the fire board played catch up on an item typically resolved in December — an annual cost-of-living adjustment for its firefighters and assistant administrator. Seven eligible employees received a 6 percent adjustment in December 2021.
The board agreed during its December meeting that an adjustment was called for but deferred action until the new year. But it couldn’t do that in January because it twice did not have enough board members in attendance to reach a quorum.
Firefighters last got an 8 percent raise with the new 2022-23 fiscal year budget in July — assistant administrator Shelby Knife got a 5 percent bump — and a one-time 4.9 percent bonus based on their pay the first half of the year. Volunteer chief Frankie Petrick did not receive the raise or bonus.
Those two increases were different from the cost-of-living adjustment, treasurer Ed Hallahan noted Monday. The 4.9 percent bonus was an emergency measure to counteract dramatic inflation, Hallahan said, and the raise was to make the department’s salaries competitive with neighboring agencies.
“Was that a raise, yes, but it was different,” Hallahan said. “Our position was wrong. We were very, very wrong as far as our salaries.”
Board president Katherine Guenther said the problem was really with their entry-level pay, hurting their recruitment and retention of newer firefighters.
Hallahan said the purpose of the cost-of-living increase was to “keep their promise” to employees that they would be provided with certain buying power in exchange for their work.
Many employers, particularly public agencies, give cost-of-living raises on an annual basis using the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for their geographic region. The index is the average change in price over a given time for a selection of goods and services. Last month’s national index was 0.5 percent, and the rolling one-year national index is 6.3 percent from January 2022 to January 2023.
Board member Don Tucker moved to adopt a cost-of-living adjustment of 8.1 percent, the consumer price index in the U.S. West region for October 2021-22. The board unanimously approved the adjustment retroactive to Dec. 1. Employees will receive the back pay with their next check.
Total annual wages for the department increased by about $40,000 to approximately $620,000 with the adjustment, plus more than $10,000 in state retirement benefits and payroll taxes, Knife said.
Employee pay is the Yachats fire department’s largest single expense, eating up almost half of its current general fund budget. During the past decade, that increasing expense has pushed the once mostly volunteer district into operating in the red for several months of the year.
A new levy approved by voters last November will fill the gap and then some, temporarily, collecting at least $1 million each year through 2027-28, when it is set to expire if not renewed at the polls.
The district estimates it will have $1.58 million in revenue next fiscal year, with a cash carryover of $242,000. But even with the new levy, that cash carryover is expected to decline gradually until going negative in 2026-27.