ATLANTA — Atlanta firefighters are accusing the city of manipulating data in a salary study in order to reduce raises for firefighters. Their union warns it will worsen staffing issues if the city doesn’t make it right.
The issue emerged at a city council meeting Tuesday, which was well-attended by angry firefighters.
Firefighters told city council members that the administration promised salary increases based on a study of firefighter salaries across the country.
But fire union leaders said they recently learned the city manipulated the study data to exclude salaries from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia—four of America’s largest cities.
"When they pulled those four cities out, they essentially manipulated the data and drove the salaries way down and cut the cost by about five million dollars," said Nate Bailey of the firefighters union.
Bailey said it will all but eliminate raises in some job categories and greatly reduce the raises that he says firefighters had been expecting based on the original study.
"Two cents per hour? That’s an insult," David Riedlinger of Fire Station 21 told council members.
One city council member said he was sympathetic to the aggrieved firefighters, adding the city can’t afford to lose firefighters to cities that pay better than Atlanta.
"If we are a labor-friendly city, if we are a progressive city, this is easy," said Councilman Antonio Lewis.
In a statement, a spokesman for Mayor Andre Dickens said:
- Under the Dickens Administration, the City of Atlanta has invested more than $105 million in AFRD facilities and equipment.
- Since 2022, the City has increased starting salaries for critical positions in AFRD by 15% to 37%.
- Regarding the AFRD Mercer study, the only change to the final class and compensation recommendations was to ensure that each firefighter and every employee received at least a 2% compensation increase in January 2025.
The statement also stated that "we did not use other comparable cities such as Augusta, Columbus and Albany, which would have decreased the recommended AFRD salary increase."
The statement did not dispute that the larger cities were stricken from the study.
Bailey said the bottom line is that the city should be motivated to keep firefighters on the job.
"Currently, Atlanta has one of the highest vacancy rates in the country. Citizens want us to have a competitive wage because they want a fully staffed fire department. If we don’t have a competitive salary, our firefighters are going to seek employment elsewhere."