IAFF WAGE INCREASE - SUSTAINABLE?

WORKLOAD UP A LITTLE – FIRE STAFF AND WAGES UP A LOT

Sustainable? Only if your own income is jumping 5% a year.

The City of Nanaimo has just signed off on another quiet hit to taxpayers.

On Nov. 27, the City announced a new two-year rollover deal with IAFF Local 905, the firefighters’ union. The agreement gives firefighters a 5.0% wage increase in 2025 and 4.5% in 2026, and City Hall proudly notes it follows the “provincial pattern” and is “fair and sustainable.” (Nanaimo)

Let’s talk about what that actually means for you.

Plain talk: what council just did

Plain Talk:
City council has approved a two-year deal that gives Nanaimo firefighters about a 10% wage increase over 2025 and 2026.

That one decision alone is worth about a 1% increase in your property taxes – and not just for those two years. From then on, that 1% is permanently baked into the base. Once it’s in the payroll, it doesn’t come back out.

City Hall will tell you this is “consistent with other municipal settlements” and “sustainable.” Maybe it is — for them.

More firefighters, not many more calls

Here’s the other piece you won’t see in the press release:

In recent years, council has approved roughly 40 extra full-time firefighters – about a 50% increase in staffing.
Over roughly the last decade, average calls for service have only gone up by about one extra call per day.

So we now have:

About 50% more firefighters,
Handling roughly one more call per day,
Now getting about a 10% wage bump over the next two years.

That’s a great deal for the system. It’s a much harder sell for the people paying the bill.

“Sustainable” for who?

The City’s line is that this new IAFF deal is “fair and sustainable compensation.” (Nanaimo)

From the 30,000-foot view, here’s what “sustainable” really looks like:

Firefighter wages jump about 10% in two years.
That alone works out to roughly a 1% permanent tax increase.
CUPE and other city unions have been getting steady annual raises as well.

For this to be “sustainable” in any meaningful way, your own income would need to be going up by about 5% every year just to keep pace with what council is locking in at City Hall.

Be honest: is your income going up 5% a year? For most Nanaimo households, the answer is no.

So when City Hall talks about “sustainability,” they’re not talking about your household budget. They’re talking about the internal comfort of the organization.

The five-year plan vs. your paycheque

On top of all this, the City’s latest financial plan projects tax increases of:

7.1%, 5.1%, 2.9%, 2.7%, 2.3%

Those last three numbers — 2.9, 2.7, 2.3 — are the “sub-3%” years they like to wave around as proof that things will calm down later.

But remember:

The firefighter wage hike is permanent.
That ~1% tax hit from the IAFF deal is there every single year from 2026 onward, before you pay for anything else.
CUPE and other unions are also expecting their share.

By the time you cover just the firefighter deal and keep CUPE more or less happy, most of that 2–3% “gentle” increase is already spoken for. There’s almost nothing honest left in that envelope for rising fuel, materials, debt, or new staff — unless they cut services or fiddle with definitions.

On paper, the numbers can be made to look tidy. In real life, those “sub-3%” projections only work as a political talking point, not as a serious picture of what it costs to run the city.

The bottom line

You don’t need a calculator to follow this:

Workload has crept up a little.
Fire staffing has shot up a lot.
Wages are now getting another big bump.
The tax hit from this IAFF deal — about 1% — is permanent.

City Hall calls that “sustainable.”

It might be, if your income is reliably jumping 5% a year.

If it isn’t, then the system is being made sustainable for itself, while ordinary taxpayers are expected to quietly absorb the difference, year after year.

That’s the real story behind this “pattern” agreement — and why you should pay close attention every time council says the words “fair and sustainable” with a straight face.

VOICE of NANAIMO