Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
As Elgin firefighters have voted to ratify a new contract — with the City Council set to vote on approving the deal Wednesday — Fire Chief John Fahy announced his retirement Friday. Fahy said that he would be leaving to take a job with the Elgin Community College.
Lt. Vince Rychtanek, International Association of Firefighters Local 439 President, said the union and the city avoided arbitration in coming to an agreement on the new contract. The last contract expired in 2013, and the new one covers 2014 to 2017. Per recession-related concessions, the old contract had no annual salary increases. The one up for council consideration has 2.5 percent annual pay hikes built into it.
Rychtanek said there were no other major changes, but that firefighters now will be able to bid on the station at which they would like to work after 20 years of service — something not in the old deal.
Fahy said firefighter starting pay is about $68,000 per year. Fahy retires from a job that paid him about $168,000 a year, and will he heading to Elgin Community College to become senior director of academic programming and public safety at the new ECC Center for Emergency Services in Burlington. The post pays $85,000.
Assistant Chief Dave Schmidt will be acting chief from late August through early October, Fahy said, during what’s left of his vacation time with the city. In August, current Assistant City Manager Rick Kozal becomes Elgin’s manager and eventually will name Fahy’s replacement.
Fahy worked as a firefighter in Aurora for six months before coming to the Elgin department in February 1987. He was named chief in late 2010 and took the post in January 2011. As chief, he was most proud of the department recently receiving a rating by the Insurance Services Office that places it among the top 2 percent of fire departments in the nation.
During his tenure as chief, Fahy said the department has upgraded technology; doubled available paramedic service to the community with a paramedic-engine concept; started a community outreach program with each station adopting a social service agency to support; upgraded its fleet with the purchase of several ambulances, ladder trucks, and fire engines; remodeled several aging fire stations; and began a Fire Explorer unit for youths.
The department is close to marking 150 years, Fahy said, and he was its 16th chief.
thanks Dan
