New labor contract under review for Grand Island Fire Department

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by Josh Egbert

It's been a wild year for the Grand Island Fire Department - a new ambulance, a new fire chief and Tuesday night, a new labor contract.
The Grand Island City Council will be holding a special meeting to approve the new two-year deal.

Under the new contract, firefighters, paramedics and fire captains will all get a two percent pay increase that will be retroactive to October first.

They will then receive a two-and-a-half percent increase during their second year.

The labor contract was only agreed upon for two years because the city's population is growing making the city an automatic metropolitan statistical area which changes wages and benefits.

"It feels like we're kind of at that place where we may be getting ready to step in that, but we're not there yet and so to come up with a 2 year contract that gave us time to let that all shake out made really good sense, again for both sides," said Brenda Sutherland.

Captain Scott Kuehl, who serves as president of the International Association of Firefighters Local Number 647, who represent GI firefighters, says he's satisfied with the new contract.

He says it's not perfect, but that it's better than having the salaries of firefighters frozen.

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