By JOSEPH B. NADEAU
 
WOONSOCKET — The city and its fire department appear headed for resolution of an ongoing staffing controversy through a contract settlement given ratification by the City Council Tuesday night.

The seven member panel voted unanimously to approve the settlement proposal said to provide the city with $2.1 million in savings over its three-year term. The pact features no pay increases for firefighters in each of the first two years and a range of between 2.75 percent and 4.75 percent for a salary increase to be worked out for the third year.
If the sides do not reach agreement on a pay hike within the range, only the salary increase would be forwarded to arbitration for settlement. The 2.75 percent and 4.75 percent range would set the limits for any award to be rendered through that process, according to officials.
The agreement would restructure the department from 134 union members to 123 and also establish a co-payment on medical benefits mirroring the concession members of the police department accepted while recently settling their contract with the city.
But while reducing the overall size of the department, the pact would also result in the rehiring of all members laid off under the city’s bid to cover a looming deficit in this year’s budget.
The members Local 732 of the International Association of Firefighters will take up ratification votes of the agreement Wednesday evening and on Saturday, according to Lt. Steven Reilly, local president.
“Right now I’m waiting for my ratification vote,” Reilly said while declining to predict the outcome of the membership poll.
The membership voting will be tabulated Saturday night after firefighters on that shift have a chance to participate, according to Reilly.
Reilly indicated the issue of job security had been a factor in the renewed attempt to reach a resolution.
“With nine faces out of work, we are looking at all our options,” Reilly said.
 The contract settlement does offer department members a no-layoff clause through its final year that would protect department members brought back from this spring’s layoffs under its terms and covered under the 124-member department staff limit. All currently laid-off firefighters would be brought back as soon as the pact is fully ratified.
Fire Chief Gary Lataille and Christopher Lambert, the city’s special legal counsel on the fire department contract, pointed to the department restructuring included in the agreement as providing the city with savings not only in the current fiscal year but also in future years.
The first year of the pact, retroactive to 2008-2009 would generate a projected savings of $185,092 through the zero-percent pay raise, pay savings resulting from unfilled retiree posts, a $36,350 reduction in the department members’ clothing allowance, and $12,400 through the addition of the new co-payment on medical insurance.
In the second year, according to Lataille, the department would save $769,270 through the permanent reduction of staffing from 135 to 124 and an additional savings from the transfer of a fire clerk to municipal employment.
The department would realize another $180,544 in savings from the co-payment on medical benefits in the second year and see that amount of savings also in the third year of the agreement.
The plan to restructure the department and drop the per-shift level of staffing from 28 and 29 to a new minimum of 26 is expected to save the department $90,000 in overtime costs in the second and third years of the pact, according Lataille and Lambert.
Prior to voting on the pact, members of the City Council allowed public comment from those attending in the second floor conference room at Harris Hall.
Roland Michaud, a local taxpayer and businessman, said that while offering savings the pact did not go far enough in helping to alleviate the city’s financial crunch.
Before settling on a contract of that size, Michaud said the city should have hired an “efficiency expert” to study exactly how many firefighters the city should retain on its employment rolls.
He also called for the contract to mirror efforts at state pension reform. Lataille, however, noted that the local department is down to just ten members remaining under the city’s old pension system and the rest are all subject to the provisions of the state system.
“If the General Assembly passes pension reforms, 114 of the 124 department members would be affected by those reforms,” Lataille said.
Another local taxpayer in attendance, James Cournoyer credited both the city’s administration and the firefighters for coming up with change in the agreement.
“There are clearly some steps forward in this contract,” he said.
Retired city police detective Todd Brien said he was pleased to see the sides had come to a mutual agreement on minimum manning. The agreement retains the three-firefighter staffing requirement for engines and ladder trucks and the two-member rule for rescues while addressing safety concerns raised during negotiations, he noted.
As the council took up the proposal, members of the panel also voiced praise for the efforts put in by both sides to reach the agreement.
While allowing for a reduction in department staffing the pact will also provide for the addition of a third rescue in the city to meet a growing number of rescue calls.
 The rescue service operated by the city brings in payments from insurance coverage for runs and actually offers a source of revenues for the city.
 City Councilman William D. Schneck said he viewed the contract agreement as good for both the city and the firefighters. “There are some savings and there are some concessions,” he said while voicing support for its ratification.
 Councilwomen Stella Brien and Suzanne Vadenais also had words of praise for the effort to reach the agreement and related their own past experiences of being assisted by the department for emergencies.
 Brien said she had not expected the settlement given the outcome of the last meeting the council had over the unresolved contract and she was pleased it had been worked out.
 Her own family had been assisted by the department when they first moved into their home in the city and fire broke out, she said. “It’s very scary and unfortunately all this had to be put on paper to allow you to do what you do,” she said.
 Vadenais said she recently had to have her mother taken to the hospital by rescue and she was impressed by how helpful and compassionate the crew members had been while helping her family.
 “Hopefully the contract will be passed and that will be good for the fire department and good for the city,” she said.
 City Council President Leo T. Fontaine saw the proposed contract as addressing several concerns raised by the city during negotiations and also as providing savings to help the city in its financial crisis.
 “It certainly doesn’t eliminate minimum manning but it reduces it and I think that is a good start,” he said.
  The changes in staffing will allow the city to move forward with plans to close one fire station in the city and that will also provide savings, Fontaine said.
 It also resolves a period of friction between the city and firefighters that had spilled into city council meetings and statewide coverage of the ongoing budget crisis.
 “I don’t think any of us liked any of the things that happened in the last six months but I think this is a way for us to move forward,” Fontaine said.