As the Concord City Council approved contract adjustments for three of its four emergency service unions Monday night, members of its fire officers’ union looked up from the audience, still without a deal.
“We are extremely close in our numbers,” said Jim Duckworth, president of the Concord Fire Officers Association. “But the city is unwilling to budge.”
When the council accepted the results of a wage study in February, its two police and two fire unions agreed to reopen their current contracts to accept more money outside of the traditional bargaining process. The city has yet to reach an agreement with the fire officers, who have demonstrated outside city buildings and in council meetings for several months.
“I’m hoping we’re closer to resolution,” Mayor Byron Champlin said Tuesday.
Police officers landed on the smallest change among the four unions from their current deal: a one-time $500 bonus. It carries a just under $40,000 price tag.
Firefighters will receive an extra .5% annual raise, carrying a roughly $60,000 cost into next year, on top of the wage increases already included in their contract. All fire contracts are set to expire in June 2028.
Police sergeants and lieutenants will receive an additional 2% raise for each of the next two years under the new deal, bringing their annual raise amount to 7%. It means a projected $35,000 in additional wages for each of the next two fiscal years. The city’s police contracts, currently negotiated on a calendar-year basis, are both set to expire at the end of 2027, so this would stretch into their new deal.
These adjustments broadly follow the findings of the wage study. Commissioned in 2024, finished in 2025 and released early this year, it found that city employees as a whole were about three percentage points behind the median of their peers in 27 comparable cities. Notably, all city unions have renegotiated new contracts since the study. Though, presumably, many of their peers in other cities have, too.
Rank-and-file police officers’ and firefighters’ pay was relatively competitive, falling a few percentage points above the median pay in the study. Police supervisors in general were a few points behind the median.
Fire officers, especially captains, were further behind. That’s part of why, Duckworth said, it’s been tougher for them to land on an agreement.
Duckworth described the current impasse as a timing issue. All of the new deals for other unions take effect in July, at the start of the next fiscal year. Fire Officers want to see changes sooner than that.
“I hope employees understand that the city is trying to balance being a competitive employer and fair to employees with our responsibilities to taxpayers,” Champlin said. While he declined to discuss the substance of negotiations, he added that the goal has been to respond to the findings of the study reasonably and responsibly, and without raising the tax rate further this year.
Duckworth reiterated the firefighters’ position that Concord should not be targeting a middle position for pay competitiveness among its peers.
“We’re below the 50th percentile,” he said over the wail of a siren, “in the busiest fire department in the state of New Hampshire.”
In their current contract, fire officers receive at least a 5% raise annually with additional increases if they hold certifications – which many do. Police union members also get 5%. Firefighters get between 3.5% and 4%. The new adjustments add to those.
