The city’s second-highest paid employee in 2017 will soon be without union protection if the City Council approves a new contract Thursday with the Uniform Fire Chiefs Association.
The tentative agreement signed by Mayor Patrick Madden and Deputy Fire Chief Dave Paul, president of the UFCA, would remove Fire Chief Thomas Garrett from the union. Garrett would have to reach his own contract agreement with Madden’s administration after he leaves the UFCA on Feb. 8, 2019. Garrett, who has been chief since 1996, would become a management employee and no longer covered by the contract’s overtime provisions. This would put the fire chief in the same category as the police chief – relying on an individual contract.