By Chris Caraveo
Twitter: @ChrisCaraveo31

Arizona firefighters are middle of the pack when it comes to salaries across the nation, even when adjusted for cost of living.

According to a study by Frontpoint, Arizona pays their firefighters the 20th lowest in the nation, at $45,150 per year. When adjusted for cost of living, firefighters have a purchasing power of $46,836 — $22.43 per hour. That pales in comparison to firefighters in California, who on average earn the most in the U.S. with $81,580 — and still come in first when adjusted for cost of living, $71,063. Washington state is next with $69,408.

The annual mean career firefighter salary in the US is $53,240, according to the report.

Every day, more than 1 million U.S. firefighters put their lives on the line to protect citizens. Not only by putting out fires, but by responding to all types of emergencies — falls, collisions, heart attacks, etc.

Inspired by the heroism of firefighters, safety experts at Frontpoint examined the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most current Occupational Employment and Wages report to find how career firefighters’ salaries compare across the nation. The adjustment for cost of living in each area created a fairer comparison.

Analysts looked at Regional Price Parities, which determine adjusted salary by measuring the differences in price levels across states and metropolitan areas.

Frontpoint looked at “career firefighters” as opposed to a combination of those firefighters with volunteers. Across the nation, about 55% of firefighters are classified as volunteer firefighters. In Arizona, about 56.8% of firefighter departments consist of volunteer or mostly volunteer firefighters.

The lowest firefighter salaries were in Mississippi, with an annual mean income of $30,370. Ohio has the highest percentage of firefighters per capita with 3.546 of every 1,000 employed residents fighting fires for a living.

Hawaii has the largest ranking gap between actual salary (8th) and adjusted salary (19th), although California has the largest monetary gap.

In Surprise, a federal grant is helping take the burden off of the city in funding eight new firefighters. On Oct. 16, the Surprise Fire-Medical Department was awarded the eight new firefighters through a federal grant. The grant pays for the majority of the training costs and salaries for a period of two years and a little less than half of the costs for a third year.

In addition to the eight federally-funded firefighters, five new firefighters were funded through the city’s current budget. All 13 firefighters will have graduated from the fire academy and completed training by June of 2020.

That will make them tentatively available to staff Engine 305 at Greenway Road and Parkview Place, an apparatus that has been at the center of debate since early September (Surprise Independent, Sept. 11 and 25, 2019, page 1).

Twelve of those positions will eventually be assigned to Fire Station 308 when it opens in late 2021 or early 2022 in the city’s southeast section.

In September, Arizona Sen. Paul Boyer said he would introduce legislation that reduced city officials’ pay as a way to better cover the needs of injured or ailing firefighters. His support stems from months of dispute over whether Glendale should have bypassed the state industrial commission’s decision not to cover firefighter Kevin Thompson’s workplace compensation claim due to occupational cancer.

Last month, Mr. Boyer met with Glendale City Manager Kevin Phelps about covering firefighters, and the former didn’t appear to like what he heard from the latter.

“All he could talk about was how expensive it was to cover our true heroes who get cancer protecting us,” Mr. Boyer stated on Twitter.

“So I’ve found a way to realize some savings.”

The bill he is working on would ensure no city bureaucrat makes more than Gov. Doug Ducey, which is $95,000 — among the lowest for U.S. governors. However, Mr. Boyer said the bill would “be exempting our true heroes, cops and firefighters of course.”

Click here to read Frontpoint’s full report.