Police, fire fighters get big raises

The unions representing the New Smyrna Beach fire fighters and police officers followed divergent strategies in their negotiations with city officials over pay and benefits, but arrived at roughly similar agreements.

The police union took the quiet route, with City Manager Kevin Cowper saying at last night’s City Commission meeting that the union was “very cooperative throughout” the talks that started in May. Under this approach, the police union agreed to an average pay increase of 22% for existing members of the department, and an increase of 14.2% for starting salaries.

The fire fighters, by contrast, sought to jolt their negotiations forward last month by packing the commission chambers with supporters. They came away with similar numbers: a 19% average pay increase, and an increase of 14.8% for starting salaries.

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In addition to those increases, each agreement includes a commitment to give employees a predictable annual raise of 2.25% over the next 20 years. This “step plan” is an effort to avoid pay compression between existing employees and new hires, explained Cowper and Heather Kidd, the director of human resources.

Compression happens when attracting new employees requires paying them more than current longtime employees. “We had significant compression in the organization and frankly a lot of our long tenured officers, our experienced officers, were significantly underpaid,” Cowper said, referencing the Police Department, although he made a similar statement later about the Fire Department. “And we are correcting that, and I’m proud that we can do that,” he said.

The agreements with the International Union of Police Associations Local 6057 and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2271 were ratified unanimously by the City Commission last night. The contracts will run from Oct. 1 through September 30, 2026.

Brandon Carroll, a fire fighter/paramedic and the representative for Local 2271, expressed no regrets about the union’s approach but offered “sincere gratitude” to the city for reaching the agreement.

“After a year of thoughtful and sometimes difficult negotiations, we were able to reach a contract that reflects not only fair compensation for our fire fighters, but also the value the city places on public safety and the people who provide it,” Carroll said before the vote.

With a one year agreement, more talks with the fire fighters won’t be far off. After the meeting, Mayor Fred Cleveland told Beat that the fire fighters should now know that they can trust Cowper, who came to New Smyrna Beach in September 2024 and had not negotiated with them before.

The talks began last December, and Cowper soon asked the fire fighters to be patient and await the results of a comparative pay study in which salaries across city departments, including those of the fire fighters, would be compared to those in other cities.

By August, the fire fighters had lost patience. Carroll came to an otherwise quiet budget workshop at the Sams Avenue chambers and complained about the fire fighter pay and the slow pace of negotiations. “Right now, 32% of the department has applied for other fire departments, and that includes me,” Carroll said. “We're not doing this because we want to leave New Smyrna Beach. We're doing it because our pay does not reflect the level of work, responsibility and sacrifice this job demands.”

The next week, the union packed the Aug. 12 commission meeting with supporters.

Last night, with an agreement in hand, Cowper and Cleveland expressed disappointment at the fire fighters’ strategy, even as they sought to look forward.

“There was obviously some anxious times which were on display publicly -- certainly not something  that I like to see, and I think was regrettable. But when all is said and done, we did exactly what we said we were going to do,” Cowper said, referring to the pay study.

Cleveland added: “You did exactly what you said you were going to do. I did not appreciate the theatrics that took place in this room on behalf of the union, blindsiding the fire chief and those of us up here. But I’m delighted you came to a conclusion.”

The city gave specific guidance to Evergreen Solutions, the Tallahassee firm that conducted the $35,500 study. “We wanted to look at cities that were destination cities, just like New Smyrna who have a higher population on weekends and holidays. We wanted to look at beachside communities who have to deal with the same kind of issues that we have. And we wanted to look at cities that have a cost of living equal to or greater than New Smyrna Beach,” said Kidd, the human resources director.

A group of 22 communities was chosen. The city began running numbers to figure out what it could afford. The agreements will bring the pay for police officers and fire fighters up to the 95th percentile in the study group.

“The citizens can feel good about this,” Cowper said, referring to the fire fighters agreement. “We will be very competitive in our pay, and I believe we’ll be able to grow and flourish in our Fire Department and provide the services that our citizens are looking for.”

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