WILMINGTON — The Wilmington City Council will hold its first budget session next week; among topics of discussion are increased pay and benefits for the city’s police and fire departments.
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Council members have in recent months fielded requests from police officers to address what they see as inadequate pay. Council, in turn, has taken meetings with first responders, including Jordan Pettid, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 129.
“Everyone knows it’s an issue, and they’re recognizing and saying it’s a priority,” Pettid told Port City Daily in an interview last week. “Now we’re just hoping by educating the public, educating council and the city on why it’s so significant, especially for the fire department itself, that it’ll start to kind of get the ball rolling to fix the problem, at least be able to fix it for a significant time so we can move on to other issues.”
Pettid explained the fire department’s salary ranges have not been adjusted in several years, allowing Wilmington to slip to the bottom when compared with peer municipalities’ pay. The WFD base salary is $45,893, while nearby Kure Beach is $51,053, Asheville is $50,309, Savannah is $49,200, and Raleigh is $51,194.
As a result, the department has seen many firefighters leave its ranks for nearby towns, like Kure Beach or Surf City.
“People can stay in Wilmington and then commute 30 minutes,” Pettid said. “Like it takes me 30 minutes to go from downtown to over here [in the Mayfaire area] to one of the stations, so there’s really no difference.”
Pettid said there are around five firefighters he knows contemplating a departure due to pay benefits and around one or two people retiring. Their loss would bring this year’s attrition to around two dozen, on par with 24 departures in 2023 (17 resignations, five retirements).
Attrition data shared with PCD shows resignations dipped from 14 and 13 in 2017 and 2018, to five and eight in 2019 and 2020. It jumped to 16 the following year.
More turnover means constant attention on hiring, though Pettid says Wilmington’s pay isn’t competitive enough to attract workers. According to the department’s hiring data, it received 344 applications in 2017; last year it only got 174.
For successful recruits, potentially brought on only for a short period until they switch departments, the city is paying for their training.
“We’re spending a lot of money just to be able to train people and then retrain them,” Pettid said.
The Wilmington Fire Department currently has 27 recruits in its fire academy, offered every nine months and each is being paid $12,800. This is only for certifications, no salary, benefits or overtime.
“So once you start figuring out all that, then the numbers close to a million dollars,” Pettid said.
Perennial turnover also means there’s perennial understaffing, which leads to what Pettid said is a “ridiculous amount” of overtime; he said he gets paid for overtime on a daily basis. The WFD worked a total of 2,468 overtime hours in August.
Overworking can then lead to burnout, taking a toll on firefighters’ job performance, mental health and desire to stay with the WFD.
Conditions at the WFD have led to less firefighters seeking promotion within the department too. Since 2017, the delta between those eligible for promotion and those applying for it has grown. For example, 21 people were up for promotion in 2018 and almost half applied; last year, there were 25 eligibilities and only four applications.
Pettid shared an excerpt from a research paper completed by a Local 129 member, who was going through the Executive Fire Officer Program at the National Fire Academy. The student asked 13 WFD employees if a promotion at WFD would yield a meaningful pay increase to take on more responsibilities — all said no. Over half said the pay does not match the extra work they would take on and four said they were making pretty much the same amount as their promoted position.
Plus, with understaffing, people sometimes have to cover duties outside their assigned positions, further discouraging applicants.
“We can fix a lot of things at one time, fixing one thing,” Pettid said, referring to firefighter pay.
Pettid’s proposal shared with the city outlines base salaries for each position, along with expected increases with each year in the position. His pay plan would bring Wilmington at least to the middle of the pack, and thus competitive with peer cities.
The plan would have a base salary of $51,419 with the ability to raise up to $57,840. Engineer pay would range from $66,806 to $91,428, lieutenants would range from $72,844 to $99,200 and captains $75,987 to $112,479. Current funding for salaries is $13.75 million. Under the proposal, this would increase 16.92%, or $2.33 million.
The proposal just covers salary increase and does not address benefits, particularly health insurance.
Because of the dangerous nature of the job, firefighters risk physical injury with every call and deal with long-term health consequences due to things like smoke inhalation and exposure to PFAS.
“You’re essentially signing up to do a job that you know, more than likely, the chances are you’re gonna get cancer by the end of it,” Pettid said.Firefighters are 9% more likely to get cancer than the average person.
Since 2011, the city has not provided health insurance post-retirement, a reality particularly hard on working-class individuals who have to find independent insurance. This can be harder or more expensive to do with pre-existing conditions.
“After you retire and do a long career, you kind of get nothing out of it besides your state pension,” Pettid said. “So that’s something that people are very strongly opinionated about.”
City council is scheduled to discuss Pettid’s proposal at the Nov. 7 budget session, with some members from the Local 129 planning to attend. The session will be the first among several before the 2026 budget reaches final stages next spring.
“If, for some reason, they did come back and it wasn’t really close to something like this that is going to make us competitive, [we’ll] continue doing what we’re doing and educating them and fight to have that done,” Pettid said.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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