Union and city negotiators at a Beaumont contract negotiation session continued a lengthy discussion of wages on Thursday, with union representatives pressing for a larger adjustment tied to fire-based EMS pay and the city warning of limits tied to the municipal budget.

The union said its firefighters now perform both fire and EMS duties after a merger and argued that local comparisons should focus on other fire-based EMS departments. “If you put all those together that are fire based CMS, you come out with us being 20.6% behind those departments,” said Mister Williams, a union negotiator, who asked the panel to consider changing the city’s offer. He and other union speakers also cited Baytown as a near-term competitor and said Baytown is roughly 27% ahead of Beaumont.

Why it matters: wages and staffing affect the department’s ability to recruit and retain trained personnel and can drive overtime spending. The union asked the city to reconsider a 16% offer and said its members would accept a revised request of 22% as a concession from earlier proposals.

City negotiators said comparisons must include market and internal equity. A city representative noted that an arbitrator would likely use private-sector benchmarks in a dispute and that Beaumont must weigh cost-of-living differences when comparing to Dallas and Austin suburbs. “We have to look at equity throughout the organization,” a city negotiator said, adding that the city’s recent salary survey informed the budget.

The union further framed its ask as a way to reduce overtime spending. Union negotiators pointed to overtime figures the bargaining team had compiled: roughly $4 million in overtime last budget year, about $3 million the previous fiscal year and $2 million the year before that. “What we're trying to do is find a place that attracts people to come here,” Mister Williams said, noting the overtime totals in arguing for higher base pay.

City negotiators acknowledged overtime as a factor but cautioned that overtime has multiple drivers, including sick leave and staffing patterns. The city said staff had produced vacancy and budget documents and that the fire department’s total authorized positions are published in the municipal budget; available reports showed different vacancy counts at different times. City negotiators also said response-time data they reviewed remain within typical national measures and urged the parties to consider internal equity across all city departments.

Quotations in context: union negotiators used the Firebase EMS status to explain higher comps in other jurisdictions; city negotiators repeatedly raised the need to balance firefighter pay against other city services and to avoid creating inequities for non-fire city employees.

Next steps: wage discussions will continue at scheduled sessions late in December and in January. The parties indicated they want to avoid arbitration or mediation but said mediation through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) remains an option if talks reach impasse.

Ending: Negotiators did not reach agreement on wages during the session; both sides agreed to continue negotiations and to provide the comparator and payroll calculations requested before the next meeting.