Link still being cut off. Go to www.metrovancouver.org then search firefighter's collective agreements. Scroll down to find District of North Vancouver.
All the information on Fire Departments which I have pasted on this blog come directly from the Dugal Smith report - if you have an issue with the information you should take it up with the authors of that report.
In terms of First Responders, it seems to me that the Provincial government drastically cut many parts of that program several years ago. Unfortunately I have to work over the next few days so I cannot due the proper research but this is what I found with a quick search:
Personally I think more money should be put into the ambulance program rather then into fire halls.
By the way what exactly do you think fire fighters should be earning - a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand? How big and detailed the benefit package? How long the vacations? Instead of going after reports why don't you tell us just what you want and what you are worth?
Sorry, my copy and past did not work but these are a few of the stats that I found on line regarding Paramedics in BC:
"There are 187 ambulance stations in British Colubia, including three seasonal stations and the transfer fleet.
Part Time Wage Scale starting at $19.29 per hour to $32.19 depending on the years of sevice. Full Time: starting at $22.48 to $39.00 (25 years)
Prospectove employees have to pay for their own traing which can cost around $1,410 and a $450.00 chage for the exam. PCP trainign costs $6,000.00 as well as the exam fee. When all is said and done it can cost between $20,000.00 to $30,000.00 $20,000 for the training involved to be a paramedic"
Sorry but this time around when the ecomony is wavering I want to see money go into our ambulance services because I think fire departments have more then enough.
Wow Sue, why are you so fixated on just the fire department? Sure, there can probably be some efficiencies made, especially with amalgamation, but you're coming off sounding a little 'off'.
Look Sue. In your haste to try to find boogeymen you've posed good questions and then carried on to unreasoned conjecture.
Stuff like who buys the food at the firehall? All civic employees bring their food to work as does anybody else. This type of wild-eyed paranoia looks over-the-top.
On the one hand you'd like to see an amalgamation of fire depts. to save money. Good idea.
At the same time you'd like to spend millions to add extra ambulances and hire more paramedics to serve the north shore instead of using the firefighters ALREADY TRAINED AND PAID FOR to respond to medical calls in their local communities until such time as the ambulances arrive. For what purpose? So the paid firefighters in the far flung neighbourhoods remote from the central ambulance station can sit in the fire hall and watch the ambulances drive by? Pehaps you'd like to build additional ambulance stations at the cost of millions next door to the firehalls too? Expensive duplication and completely illogical.
If we really want change that reduces administrative costs we'd be better off to merge the two services under a single management using existing resources and have the Fire/Paramedic model that has existed for years in most US cities.
You've got some good ideas and you're a tenacious investigator but in your zeal you destroy your own credibility through poorly reasoned accusations.
Jeopardizing any safety with the Fire Dept. would of course not be acceptable but, cost efficiencies need to be looked at when property taxes and living in North Van. keeps escalating. We need to be looking at the best efficient use of the taxpayers dollar.
Why was the CNV excluded from the study, and why is there not a referendum?
Both Smith and Coun. Michael Lewis agreed political opposition from the City of North Vancouver to amalgamation makes the task next to impossible. Smith suggested the question be put to referendum at the next municipal election in November.
Is it too late? What councillor will address it in the new Council?
Perhaps someone could please explain to me why I have seen a number of Fire Fighters shopping together at Safeway on 14th and Lonsdale, or Safeway at Lynn Valley. Are you that tied at the hip that you have to shop together for your individual food. If you are paying for the food individually then why aren't you buying it on your own time????
Staff and council members enjoy a free meal every Monday night before council meetings at the tax payers expense to the tune of $600.00 per. The only two with the decency to refrain from this meal are Pam Bookham and Rod Clark.
I still think the ambulance service needs to be expanded (perhaps at least 2 ambulances attached to each fire department on the North Shore)
Again, just how much will be enough for both the Fire Departments and CUPE members per year, how much time off, how much protection for jobs - how much bigger the void between union and non-union workers?
I will be waiting for the total salaries for the City of North Vancouver Fire Department but I am not holding my breath I will ever get it.
"Staff and council members enjoy a free meal every Monday night before council meetings at the tax payers expense to the tune of $600.00 per. The only two with the decency to refrain from this meal are Pam Bookham and Rod Clark."
I can understand that some council members have 'other lives'. Check out 'Family Vote' in Thursdays Outlook;
but, I do wonder about justifying this $600 cost to the taxpayer. I guess if you just can't attend to your councillor duties without compensation (except stipend) then perhaps you shouldn't be a councillor.
I have seen the District council hastily eating a meal before 7 PM workshops but, since the in-camera part of a reg. council meeting starts at 5 PM you would never see if they are doing the same then. That said, I would question justifying this 'dinner cost' if it exists to the DNV taxpayer as well.
Sue, you would "attach 2 ambulances to each fire station on the north shore."
There currently are 3-4 ambulances (depending) permanently assigned to the n. shore.
There are 10 fire stations.
Let me get this straight. So, Sue, you would like to increase the n. shore ambulances from 4 with 8 paramedics to 24 ambulances with 48 paramedics on duty 24 hours a day.
The effect of this multimillion dollar expenditure and ongoing associated operating costs exceeding more than a million dollars per year would be to spare the firefighters (who you disdain) from responding as medical first responders which they currently do at no additional salary costs. The firefighters could stay in the firestation while the 48 (instead of 8) ambulance paramedics share the medical responses.
The paramedic union must love you.
Aren't you the tax waste watchdog?
In your denigration of the fire dept you are proposing the most redundant and absurdly expensive possible alternative.
Just please give me the total salaries and expenses for those 66 fire fighters employed at the City Fire Hall for the year 2010 and the total cost of food (which I sure the public has paid for) and I will be more the pleased to move on.
There are many more issues going on in the City of North Vancouver that need to be debated and I am getting bored with this subjet, but not bored enough to give up before I get the answers.
I will do a better study on first responders when I have my days off and can put the proper time into my research.
I have asked again for the total of the Fire Fighers salaries, but I doubt I will ever get it.
Who exactly do the Fire Fighters want to protect = members of the public, or their own best interest even though they are paid at least $30,000.00 over the average wage of city dwellers?
Every one is so afraid of the Union members having a strike against the citizens, maybe it is time the citizens took a strike against them. What would they do if at least one half of the population in the City refused to pay their taxes?
Take power people - stop complaining and start taking action.
You're right. I also would very much like to know both the firefighters and the CUPE wage demands BEFORE the election. The Dist. fire union president is posting on this blog yet there isn't a peep of what the FF's wage demands are. What's the secret?
You're wrong. Yes a teacher typically has more university education than a firefighter but less vocational training and far less unpleasant and life-threatening work. The respective wages are about right.
Unpleasant and life threatening work - it seems to be that police are in that category. Believe it or not another unsafe place to work is in a seniors care home, a prison, a psych ward just to name a few. Unpleasant are those who work with the addicted, the mentally ill, in the emergency rooms and paramedics.
Look at the members of the search and rescue team who risk their lives on every call they go on and they are volunteers.
Lets have the total of the salaries for the fire department and the exact number of life threatening calls they have been on in the last 4 years.
There is a big difference with the Vocation and a University degree in accordance with the N.Van FF Why do you think there were over 700 applicants applying for the N.Van FF's. What is it 1 yr. for their Vocation, there are more people out there than Sue Cook, who want the budget
If there are more people than Sue who want the information, than perhaps you should organize yourselves and petition to get it, rather than complain about it on a message board.
Anon 4:02. No one's implying that other careers aren't also risky - the subject was firefighters.
Police and fire salaries are highly comparable with a slight edge to police over fire.
The ff's respond to the medical aid calls generally arriving before the paramedics. As part of their duties they retrieve the patients from highly unstable environments (fires, vehicle wrecks, hazardous materials spills, explosive atmospheres, confined spaces, rescue scenes, etc) and bring them to the safe zone to the waiting paramedics.
Re the risk levels in seniors care homes and psych wards goes I have no point of reference to compare it to fire/police resonders and I suspect that there are varying degrees of risk in many careers.
Volunteer rescue personnel face similar natural dangers in the remote wilderness as firefighters do in the wild parkland and interface areas, though the volunteers are not typcially trained, equipped or expecting to face fire, explosives, dangerous chemicals, confined space entry etc. Not sure what your point was here but the volunteers provide a wonderful service valued by all hikers and wildland lovers.
As far as demading the "exact number" of life threatening calls they've been on - you must be joking. Almost all except the most routine of medical assistance responses carry a degree of risk up to and including life threatening. You'd be better to ask for a list of the completely benign no-risk responses.
The salaries are already provided in the contract link attached so I fail to see the mystery as it's simply a matter of multiplying the monthly rate by 12.
What you probably are looking for is the annual overtime accrued and the reasons that such overtime was approved. Go for it.
I'd rather have the wage demand increase amounts from Fire and CUPE right now than engage in some useless rehash of arbitrator awarded current salaries.
Are they above CPI and, if so, by how much and why??!!
Big Thank you to Chief Penman and Isobel Gordon (Director of Finace for the City of North Vancouver)
Total salaries for the City of North Vancouver Fire Department for the year 2011:
$7,007,700.00
This is for 66 Firefighters. The questions are- does this include benefits and/or overtime?
Apparantly tax payers do NOT pay for food, but I still question all the fire pick up trucks which I see running around the City. Most say they are for education but I know they are taken home. Is there a reason for this, and how many of these trucks are there?
OK, great. You have a total figure with no idea of the breakdown of overtime or benefits which proves absolutely nothing.
As you have already be told, the FD salaries were awarded by an arbitrator so who are you going to blame now? Neither management or council can overturn an arbitrator's salary decision.
You were wrong about taxpayers paying for FD food. How much more useless staff time expenditure are you going to waste to learn nothing?
Real question. Are the current wage demands within CPI or not?
The irony of all this is that the time our city staff has to waste with Sue's ridiculous questions is being payed for by the tax payers. Sue, stop wasting our money!
If Sue could concentrate her efforts on where the money is really being wasted she might get some respect.
The City is not what one would see as a highly mobile workforce. i.e most employees work within city hall. Why not find out the number of PDA’s the city has distributed and what the annual costs are? Find out if the city has a policy for PDA justification and what it is. i.e do you get a PDA as a job perk or do you really need it to do your job?
31 comments:
The DNV online agreement is at:
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/labour/Agreements/NVD_Fire_IAFF_1183_2007-09.pdf
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/labour/Agreements/NVD_Fire_IAFF_1183_2007-09.pdf
Some of the link above was cut-off. Try again.
Link still being cut off. Go to www.metrovancouver.org then search firefighter's collective agreements. Scroll down to find District of North Vancouver.
The links work, just copy and paste.
While were at it, here is the DNV CUPE link:
http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/labour/Agreements/NVD_CUPE_389_2007-11.pdf
Are they in arbitration? What are the two pay numbers each side was proposing?
All the information on Fire Departments which I have pasted on this blog come directly from the Dugal Smith report - if you have an issue with the information you should take it up with the authors of that report.
In terms of First Responders, it seems to me that the Provincial government drastically cut many parts of that program several years ago. Unfortunately I have to work over the next few days so I cannot due the proper research but this is what I found with a quick search:
Personally I think more money should be put into the ambulance program rather then into fire halls.
By the way what exactly do you think fire fighters should be earning - a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand? How big and detailed the benefit package? How long the vacations? Instead of going after reports why don't you tell us just what you want and what you are worth?
sue lakes cook
Sorry, my copy and past did not work but these are a few of the stats that I found on line regarding Paramedics in BC:
"There are 187 ambulance stations in British Colubia, including three seasonal stations and the transfer fleet.
Part Time Wage Scale starting at $19.29 per hour to $32.19 depending on the years of sevice.
Full Time: starting at $22.48 to $39.00 (25 years)
Prospectove employees have to pay for their own traing which can cost
around $1,410 and a $450.00 chage for the exam. PCP trainign costs $6,000.00 as well as the exam fee.
When all is said and done it can cost between $20,000.00 to $30,000.00 $20,000 for the training involved to be a paramedic"
Sorry but this time around when the ecomony is wavering I want to see money go into our ambulance services because I think fire departments have more then enough.
sue lakes cook
Wow Sue, why are you so fixated on just the fire department? Sure, there can probably be some efficiencies made, especially with amalgamation, but you're coming off sounding a little 'off'.
Look Sue. In your haste to try to find boogeymen you've posed good questions and then carried on to unreasoned conjecture.
Stuff like who buys the food at the firehall? All civic employees bring their food to work as does anybody else. This type of wild-eyed paranoia looks over-the-top.
On the one hand you'd like to see an amalgamation of fire depts. to save money. Good idea.
At the same time you'd like to spend millions to add extra ambulances and hire more paramedics to serve the north shore instead of using the firefighters ALREADY TRAINED AND PAID FOR to respond to medical calls in their local communities until such time as the ambulances arrive. For what purpose? So the paid firefighters in the far flung neighbourhoods remote from the central ambulance station can sit in the fire hall and watch the ambulances drive by? Pehaps you'd like to build additional ambulance stations at the cost of millions next door to the firehalls too? Expensive duplication and completely illogical.
If we really want change that reduces administrative costs we'd be better off to merge the two services under a single management using existing resources and have the Fire/Paramedic model that has existed for years in most US cities.
You've got some good ideas and you're a tenacious investigator but in your zeal you destroy your own credibility through poorly reasoned accusations.
Jeopardizing any safety with the Fire Dept. would of course not be acceptable but, cost efficiencies need to be looked at when property taxes and living in North Van. keeps escalating. We need to be looking at the best efficient use of the taxpayers dollar.
Article in the Outlook regarding the Dugal Smith study:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vancouver/northshoreoutlook/news/117677158.html?mobile=true
Why was the CNV excluded from the study, and why is there not a referendum?
Both Smith and Coun. Michael Lewis agreed political opposition from the City of North Vancouver to amalgamation makes the task next to impossible. Smith suggested the question be put to referendum at the next municipal election in November.
Is it too late? What councillor will address it in the new Council?
For anyone interested in the oppportunities in the Dugal Smith report link:
http://westvancouver.ca/uploadedFiles/Your_Government/Agendas_and_Minutes/2011/March/11mar7-13.pdf
Perhaps someone could please explain to me why I have seen a number of Fire Fighters shopping together at Safeway on 14th and Lonsdale, or Safeway at Lynn Valley. Are you that tied at the hip that you have to shop together for your individual food. If you are paying for the food individually then why aren't you buying it on your own time????
Staff and council members enjoy a free meal every Monday night before council meetings at the tax payers expense to the tune of $600.00 per. The only two with the decency to refrain from this meal are Pam Bookham and Rod Clark.
I still think the ambulance service needs to be expanded (perhaps at least 2 ambulances attached to each fire department on the North Shore)
Again, just how much will be enough for both the Fire Departments and CUPE members per year, how much time off, how much protection for jobs - how much bigger the void between union and non-union workers?
I will be waiting for the total salaries for the City of North Vancouver Fire Department but I am not holding my breath I will ever get it.
sue lakes cook
Sue, your obsession with the fire department is making you look a little ridiculous.
"Staff and council members enjoy a free meal every Monday night before council meetings at the tax payers expense to the tune of $600.00 per. The only two with the decency to refrain from this meal are Pam Bookham and Rod Clark."
I can understand that some council members have 'other lives'. Check out 'Family Vote' in Thursdays Outlook;
http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vancouver/northshoreoutlook/news/132177003.html
but, I do wonder about justifying this $600 cost to the taxpayer. I guess if you just can't attend to your councillor duties without compensation (except stipend) then perhaps you shouldn't be a councillor.
I have seen the District council hastily eating a meal before 7 PM workshops but, since the in-camera part of a reg. council meeting starts at 5 PM you would never see if they are doing the same then. That said, I would question justifying this 'dinner cost' if it exists to the DNV taxpayer as well.
Sue, you would "attach 2 ambulances to each fire station on the north shore."
There currently are 3-4 ambulances (depending) permanently assigned to the n. shore.
There are 10 fire stations.
Let me get this straight. So, Sue, you would like to increase the n. shore ambulances from 4 with 8 paramedics to 24 ambulances with 48 paramedics on duty 24 hours a day.
The effect of this multimillion dollar expenditure and ongoing associated operating costs exceeding more than a million dollars per year would be to spare the firefighters (who you disdain) from responding as medical first responders which they currently do at no additional salary costs. The firefighters could stay in the firestation while the 48 (instead of 8) ambulance paramedics share the medical responses.
The paramedic union must love you.
Aren't you the tax waste watchdog?
In your denigration of the fire dept you are proposing the most redundant and absurdly expensive possible alternative.
Just please give me the total salaries and expenses for those 66 fire fighters employed at the City Fire Hall for the year 2010 and the total cost of food (which I sure the public has paid for) and I will be more the pleased to move on.
There are many more issues going on in the City of North Vancouver that need to be debated and I am getting bored with this subjet, but not bored enough to give up before I get the answers.
I will do a better study on first responders when I have my days off and can put the proper time into my research.
sue lakes cook
Just keep asking for the salaries.
Taxpayers are not paying for their food.
How come any of the FF bargaining
issues are not in the limelight?
What is the wage increase demand?
Teachers with 5 yrs. university
are not paid $ 76,000.00 and
would make $90,000 with Masters
degree, more education!!
I would like to see the total
budget for North Van City F.F.
Also a wage freeze
I have asked again for the total of the Fire Fighers salaries, but I doubt I will ever get it.
Who exactly do the Fire Fighters want to protect = members of the public, or their own best interest even though they are paid at least $30,000.00 over the average wage of city dwellers?
Every one is so afraid of the Union members having a strike against the citizens, maybe it is time the citizens took a strike against them. What would they do if at least one half of the population in the City refused to pay their taxes?
Take power people - stop complaining and start taking action.
sue lakes cook
Sounds like you're the only one complaining, Sue.
Anon 6:15.
You're right. I also would very much like to know both the firefighters and the CUPE wage demands BEFORE the election. The Dist. fire union president is posting on this blog yet there isn't a peep of what the FF's wage demands are. What's the secret?
You're wrong. Yes a teacher typically has more university education than a firefighter but less vocational training and far less unpleasant and life-threatening work. The respective wages are about right.
Unpleasant and life threatening work - it seems to be that police are in that category. Believe it or not another unsafe place to work is in a seniors care home, a prison, a psych ward just to name a few.
Unpleasant are those who work with the addicted, the mentally ill, in the emergency rooms and paramedics.
Look at the members of the search and rescue team who risk their lives on every call they go on and they are volunteers.
Lets have the total of the salaries for the fire department and the exact number of life threatening calls they have been on in the last 4 years.
There is a big difference with
the Vocation and a University degree
in accordance with the N.Van FF
Why do you think there were over 700 applicants applying for the N.Van
FF's. What is it 1 yr. for their Vocation, there are more people out there than Sue Cook, who want the
budget
If there are more people than Sue who want the information, than perhaps you should organize yourselves and petition to get it, rather than complain about it on a message board.
Anon 4:02. No one's implying that other careers aren't also risky - the subject was firefighters.
Police and fire salaries are highly comparable with a slight edge to police over fire.
The ff's respond to the medical aid calls generally arriving before the paramedics. As part of their duties they retrieve the patients from highly unstable environments (fires, vehicle wrecks, hazardous materials spills, explosive atmospheres, confined spaces, rescue scenes, etc) and bring them to the safe zone to the waiting paramedics.
Re the risk levels in seniors care homes and psych wards goes I have no point of reference to compare it to fire/police resonders and
I suspect that there are varying degrees of risk in many careers.
Volunteer rescue personnel face similar natural dangers in the remote wilderness as firefighters do in the wild parkland and interface areas, though the volunteers are not typcially trained, equipped or expecting to face fire, explosives, dangerous chemicals, confined space entry etc. Not sure what your point was here but the volunteers provide a wonderful service valued by all hikers and wildland lovers.
As far as demading the "exact number" of life threatening calls they've been on - you must be joking. Almost all except the most routine of medical assistance responses carry a degree of risk up to and including life threatening. You'd be better to ask for a list of the completely benign no-risk responses.
The salaries are already provided in the contract link attached so I fail to see the mystery as it's simply a matter of multiplying the monthly rate by 12.
What you probably are looking for is the annual overtime accrued and the reasons that such overtime was approved. Go for it.
I'd rather have the wage demand increase amounts from Fire and CUPE right now than engage in some useless rehash of arbitrator awarded current salaries.
Are they above CPI and, if so, by how much and why??!!
Big Thank you to Chief Penman and Isobel Gordon (Director of Finace for the City of North Vancouver)
Total salaries for the City of North Vancouver Fire Department for the year 2011:
$7,007,700.00
This is for 66 Firefighters. The questions are- does this include benefits and/or overtime?
Apparantly tax payers do NOT pay for food, but I still question all the fire pick up trucks which I see running around the City. Most say they are for education but I know they are taken home. Is there a reason for this, and how many of these trucks are there?
Thanks again for giving me the information.
sue lakes cook
OK, great. You have a total figure with no idea of the breakdown of overtime or benefits which proves absolutely nothing.
As you have already be told, the FD salaries were awarded by an arbitrator so who are you going to blame now? Neither management or council can overturn an arbitrator's salary decision.
You were wrong about taxpayers paying for FD food. How much more useless staff time expenditure are you going to waste to learn nothing?
Real question. Are the current wage demands within CPI or not?
The irony of all this is that the time our city staff has to waste with Sue's ridiculous questions is being payed for by the tax payers. Sue, stop wasting our money!
If Sue could concentrate her efforts on where the money is really being wasted she might get some respect.
The City is not what one would see as a highly mobile workforce. i.e most employees work within city hall. Why not find out the number of PDA’s the city has distributed and what the annual costs are? Find out if the city has a policy for PDA justification and what it is. i.e do you get a PDA as a job perk or do you really need it to do your job?
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