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By Buzz Trexler
Star Correspondent

Entry-level pay for firefighters at the Elizabethton Fire Department lags other East Tennessee municipalities, but an increase and restructuring that is in the proposed 2025-26 city budget could help recruitment and retention, City Council members were told Monday during a budget workshop.

Human Resources and Risk Management Director Angie Lyons and Fire Chief Barry Carrier presented the study that shows the city has a current entry-level rate of $35,139. According to the survey of four other East Tennessee municipalities, Greeneville is at the top with an entry-level pay of $47,327, followed by Johnson City, $42,432; Bristol, $39,000; and Kingsport, $38,470. Council members and city staff were told Bristol has just completed a similar study and Kingsport has one underway.

“You can see where our entry level … is significantly below the other neighboring departments,” Lyons said, pointing to a chart.

The department’s proposed budget includes a 15 percent increase to $40,409.85 for entry-level employees.

Lyons said the department of 33 employees works out of three fire stations and is currently short four certified firefighters, with two vacancies in fire suppression and two employees in rookie school. All three shifts are short in fire suppression, she said, explaining that it takes 10 certified firefighters to fully man a shift, and one shift is at the minimum staffing level of eight. The rookie school takes place twice a year, and the department is not expected to be fully staffed until mid-November at the earliest.

“In my tenure here, which is 30 years, I’ve not had us with four people short in the Fire Department, ever,” Lyons said.

The budget plan also calls for a restructuring of the pay scale in the lower positions. It would combine the Firefighter 1 rank (current starting pay of $36,847.72) and Firefighter 2 (starting pay of $40,568.32) into a single rank of Firefighter, with a proposed pay of $43,002.42. The combination would result in an effective increase of 17 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Entry-level firefighters are on the payroll, but they cannot fight a fire until they complete rookie school and are certified. “Now what’ll happen when they get out of that four-month rookie school, they’ll be certified. They’ll get certified when they take the exam. But we won’t increase their rank (to Firefighter) until they’ve passed this exam in rookie school and they’ve been with us and had an annual evaluation and it’s satisfactory,” she explained.

The restructuring and salary adjustments would result in a significant increase in pay after an entry-level employee becomes certified. “Now, I want to say that in our study of the other departments, nobody else has a Firefighter 1 and 2. So it’s consistent with what all the other departments were,” Lyons said, maintaining it would be a significant improvement when a potential employee considers Elizabethton in terms of pay scale and advancement.

Lyons said there is a similar restructuring of the lower levels proposed for the Police Department, which underwent a similar salary study a few years ago.

The Fire Department proposal also includes increasing the following pay rates: Engineer 1, from $44,592.08 to $47,267.60, a 6 percent hike; Engineer 2, from $46,824.44 to $48,697.42, a 4 percent hike; Fire Sergeant, $51,564.76 to $53,111.70, 3 percent; Fire Lieutenant, $56,663.36 to $58,363.26, 3 percent; Fire Marshal, $59,508.80 to $62,484.24, 5 percent; Battalion Chief, $62,368.28 to $65,486.69, 5 percent; and Fire Deputy Chief, $70,054.40 to $74,089.60. There is no increase proposed for Fire Chief.

The proposal is part of the department’s $2,863,034 budget plan for 2025-26 and would cost the city $86,208 to implement. City Manager Daniel Estes pointed out that if there is an across-the-board cost-of-living increase, the department pay rates will further increase accordingly.