In August, Fayetteville became the first city in Arkansas to adopt a Firefighters Bill of Rights. The ordinance is designed to provide protections that guarantee fairness in workplace investigations and safeguard firefighters’ civil liberties.
Now, just over a month after its implementation, firefighters, legislators, and advocates are reflecting on the ordinance’s creation and impact. During the state legislative session earlier this year, lawmakers gave cities the option to adopt their own Firefighters Bill of Rights.
Andrew Collins, a Democratic representative from Little Rock who co-sponsored the legislation, says it gives cities a framework to follow.
“Yeah, so this was a bill that we passed this past session that basically gives municipalities a blueprint for passing a Firefighters Bill of Rights, should they so choose to do so.”
He says it’s meant to mirror existing protections guaranteed to law enforcement officers throughout the state.
“We felt like this would both make things parallel between firefighters and law enforcement, as they often are, and also it would be a useful tool for municipalities that wanted to have some employment protections in place for firefighters but maybe would like to have a framework to know how to do that.”
Fayetteville Fire Captain Jimmie Vinyard says the Bill of Rights is similar to policy that was already in place in Fayetteville, but the implementation of the ordinance guarantees permanent protections.
“It just wasn’t required from each administration to the next administration that they would follow. It is the difference in making it an ordinance versus it just being a policy. A policy can change with an administration change.”
Vinyard also says the ordinance provides a simple and credible way of handling complaints against firefighters.
“It’s going to notify them if they’ve been implemented in something that needs to be investigated or something like that. And it allows them to have off-duty protection for any kind of political activity or involvement that they might be involved in.”
He says this guaranteed investigation procedure allows firefighters to focus on their often risky and high-pressure job.
“So if they can be a little bit more freer to feel like that they would be protected and they could represent their decision process better, they can act faster and more efficient.”
This peace of mind, Collins says, can help attract the best people possible into public safety positions.
“That’s obviously a huge priority for everybody. Cities especially — one of the ways you can do that is by saying, well, we’re going to make sure that your job will be a place that you’re respected, you have certain rights. Obviously, you need to conduct yourself professionally and do all that you’re expected to do. But at the same time, we have this framework in place that’s going to make sure that things are not abused and that you’re respected as a professional.”
The Bill of Rights doesn’t only protect firefighters, though.
Vinyard says having set guidelines in place for investigations guarantees that cities don’t waste financial resources by inappropriately investigating and punishing a firefighter for something that was within their civil rights.
“I’ve seen multiple ones where firefighters have been wrongfully terminated or disciplined, where the cities have had to pay upwards of half a million dollars in back wages, lawyers’ fees, and just the fact that they have violated that person’s rights with how they conducted their investigation or their punishment for the action. And that’s from denial of promotions for certain things or demotions for people, or firings for people talking to their city council members — not while they were at work, but while they were off.”
The bill was drafted at the state level with the help of the Arkansas Professional Firefighters Association. Matthew Stallings, the organization’s legislative advocate and an active firefighter in Little Rock, says the bill is really about employee and employer cooperation.
“We just wanted to provide a framework for cities to adopt so that they can make sure that if they do have to conduct some sort of investigation, the firefighters are treated fairly. And then the employer — it’s basically employer and employee cooperation.”
He added that making the bill optional helped it pass at the state level.
“And so, you know, now it’s just on us to lobby the cities to adopt it. And so far, Fayetteville has, and I think other cities are working on some version of it. That’s kind of the way we intended for it to work — we just need one city to sort of step out there and do it, and then hopefully other cities would follow suit.”
Collins agrees that in adopting the bill, Fayetteville could help push other cities to do the same.
“Well, in the city of Fayetteville, they were very quick to adopt this language in their ordinance, and I think that passed unanimously. My understanding is that there’s a lot of appreciation by firefighters about the enthusiasm with which Fayetteville adopted this. I do expect other cities and towns will adopt similar language as we go forward.”
And Collins was right. The city of Mayflower indeed adopted its own Firefighters Bill of Rights on Sept. 23.
For firefighters, the Bill of Rights means guaranteed investigation procedures and stronger civil rights. For Fayetteville residents, it’s a safeguard against costly mistakes. And for Arkansas, it may just be the beginning of a statewide trend.
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