Study Reveals How Chattanooga Firefighters Pay Compare to Other Cities

Last November the Chattanooga Fire Department received the final word from a payroll study.

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Last november the chattanooga fire department received the final word from a payroll study.

News 12's brian armstrong joins us live in the studio with the details.

That study found --- the chattanooga fire department is paid--- significantly less than cities like huntsville --- memphis--- and nashville.

We spoke with the fire department --- to find out why --- the starting wage of a firefighter in chattanooga is less than 11 dollars an hour.

All genuine firefighters have a sense to serve the city and serve the citizens in it and it feels like we're not allowed to do that chattanooga fire fighters association's president jack thompson says to chattanooga firefighters starting salary is just over 33 thousand dollars a year --- the fire department works 3,120 hours per year --- which works out to 10 58 cents an hour.

Everybody who came to this job came to this job for a sense of giving back to the community to be able to take care of their community and serve their city we believe that a proper wage should be for that we have course we're not able to offer pay raises to our employees this year due to the extreme tax restrictions of covid chattanooga city officials could have a pay raise to 12.60 an hour due to the federal poverty rate, but firefighters are not included.

And i certainly understand why any employee of the city government would feel that way but we also know our tax revenues are down and we have to live within our budget we have lost since 20 1543 firefighters we have lost firefighters to the city of memphis cities like nashville and a red bank just up the road from us those extreme more money than we do c-f-d starting salary is 18 thousand dollars less than memphis and and 13 thousand less than nashville.

Thompson says even though the pay study was completed almost a year ago--- the c-f-d has been waiting to bring the up issue due to the pandemic and tornado damage.

News 12 now brian armstrong thompson says his biggest frustration is he often doesn't hear back from the city when he mentions talks of a pay increase.

In the studio, brain