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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nFirefighters in the Lakeland Fire Department could soon see a pay raise as a result of union negotiations. The City of Lakeland and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 4173 (IAFF) have tentatively agreed on a new three-year contract after months of negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lakeland Fire Chief Doug Riley said the contract includes pay adjustments for department personnel ranging from 9% to 17%. An agreement so strong, he said, firefighters voted unanimously in favor of it.<\/p>\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cThis is the first time in my career that I\u2019ve seen something like this be voted at 100%,\u201d Riley said. \u201cThat really makes me feel good as a fire chief, and I feel like the city and the IAFF \u2014 we all did the right thing for the firefighters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now all that\u2019s left is a final vote from the Lakeland City Commission. Riley said he\u2019s confident it will pass because the contract offers the kind of pay and benefits that can compete in today\u2019s job market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we want here \u2026 we want an atmosphere where they love to come and work, they love what they\u2019re doing, they\u2019re being fairly compensated for what they\u2019re doing, and we\u2019re trying to make sure they don\u2019t have any reason to leave us to go elsewhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City commissioners plan to vote on the three-year contract Tuesday, Sept. 2. If approved, it would take effect Oct. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer \u2014 but it\u2019s also a time to honor the workers who keep the country running, and the unions that support them. Firefighters… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"7591","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDlcL2Rvd25sb2FkLndlYnA_Zml0PTI3NSUyQzE4MyZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ikxha2VsYW5kIENpdHkgQ29tbWlzc2lvbiB0byB2b3RlIG9uIHBheSByYWlzZSBmb3IgZmlyZWZpZ2h0ZXJzIFR1ZXNkYXksIFNlcHQuIDIiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.pVE0wnJ9a8RErNauX8ofabXAfe_-fQELvgT_EdKwNAYMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":57725,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/download.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[7591],"tags":[12129,12130],"class_list":["post-57724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-of-lakeland","tag-lakeland-city-commission-to-vote-on-pay-raise-for-firefighters-tuesday","tag-sept-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57727,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57724\/revisions\/57727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}