Marietta firefighters stage walk-in at city council to push for better wages

MARIETTA, Ga. - Dozens of Marietta firefighters took part in a staged walk-in of Wednesday’s city council meeting to bring attention to what they called unfair practices by the fire chief in giving promotions and raises. They’re calling on city leaders for more oversight into recent changes to the department’s pay scale.

"No formula, no chart, no spreadsheet, etc. is used to calculate individual salaries. Instead, the fire chief determines the salary for each individual. This approach is highly subjective inconsistent and unpredictable," retired firefighter Merv McDonald said.

While members of the department showed up in numbers, none spoke. Instead, retired members made statements on their behalf about growing frustration with the pay scale, which was approved following a pay study the city conducted.

One retired member of the department told the council he left making $18.40 an hour. Another said, as the most senior captain in the department, his salary capped out at $10,000 below the max salary at the time. The statement from members of the department described a sense of fear to even attempt negotiating salaries under Fire Chief Tim Milligan.

"The frustration is these folks love their job. They don’t do their job for the money," McDonald said.

The new starting pay for a Marietta firefighter ranges from $45,019.52 to $47,290.88 a year.

"Part of the problem is when you stay competitive at the baseline, everybody else needs to move up sequentially, or percentage wise, to even that out, and that’s not happening," McDonald explained.

The retired captain was with the Marietta Fire Department for almost 30 years. During the public comment’s portion of the meeting, he and others pointed to a lack of transparency about the pay scale from the top down and stated their concern with eligibility for promotions and raises being determined at the fire chief’s discretion. 

"They don’t want to be looked at as just asking for more money…they’re looking at a career path just like you or I, what to do next, next step when to promote, how to serve better and still provide a high level of service to those citizens," McDonald said.

Officials with the city of Marietta released the following statement in response:

"City Staff brought a pay study to City Council this year which was approved this spring and went into effect May 1st. These changes to our employees’ compensation, which totaled $2.1 million, are the largest salary increases in the City in the last 20 years. Take home pay for City employees is, on average, higher than other local governments in the metro area.

"The salary study was conducted by outside consultants. The City took the recommendations from the consultants and added another 3% increase to all eligible city employees. As of May 1st, starting pay for our Fire and Police departments increased over 9%. Additionally, a separate pay plan was put into place for Public Safety in May which definitively shows starting salaries for each grade. However, the City has utilized pay plans with pay grades for over 30 years."

Fire Chief Tim Milligan declined to comment on the accusations of favoritism and said he wasn’t aware that members of his department felt this way, but wished it hadn’t come to such a public display. In the statement from current members, they stated that numerous attempts to have discussion with Milligan about their concerns were unsuccessful. 

The starting salaries for a firefighter in Atlanta is between $40,000 and $46,491. The minimum starting salary for firefighters in Smyrna, a comparable size city to Marietta, is between $43,192 and $50,456. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average firefighter salary in the US is $54,650.