Fire fighter deployed to Afghanistan for a year, paid for only weeks

As bad as it has been for Guardsmen coming home with the lack of support, we keep forgetting about the financial hardship they face while deployed. This is yet one more reminder of what they are up against.

Lancaster firefighter union says city owes money to firefighter serving in Afghanistan

Written by
RICK ROUAN
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News
Local News
LANCASTER -- The Lancaster firefighter union is likely to sue the city if it does not pay a balance the union says a firefighter serving in Afghanistan is owed, a union negotiator said.

The union thinks the city owes Darrell Wallace, a firefighter and paramedic serving a year-long tour of duty in Afghanistan, about $4,500 because of a change in state law, said K.J. Watts, a Lancaster firefighter and fifth district vice president for the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters.

In 2010, state lawmakers passed House Bill 449, which increased from 176 to 408 the number of hours a municipality must pay firefighters and emergency medical technicians per year.

But a 1980 Ohio Supreme Court ruling mandated a municipality's "constitutional home-rule authority regarding military leave of its employees prevails over conflicting state law," according to a Legislative Service Commission analysis of the bill, which took effect Sept. 17, 2001.

The city is pointing to that ruling as its reason for capping Wallace's pay under the new 408-hour standard. Of the 52 municipalities with which Watts negotiates, Lancaster is the only one using the case to exempt itself from the new state law, he said.

"Our position is we are currently following city policy," said Mike Courtney, the city's service safety director. "We've always supported our employees who do perform military service."

Wallace's 2011 military pay from the city ran out in January, Watts said. He was paid for 230 hours -- about $5,800 -- instead of 176 hours because the union bargained for more time for military leave in 2008. But Watts said the new state law should supercede the lower number of hours provided in the contract.
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Lancaster firefighter union