Independence firefighters worry about department exodus as contract talks drag on
.jpg "Independence firefighters evacuated several people from an Independence home today after a fire on a BBQ grill spread to the adjacent house. One woman was injured, sustaining burns to the face.")
As the union representing Independence firefighters works to secure its latest contract with the city, union leaders say the department is at risk of losing members — and institutional knowledge — over continuing pay scale disputes.
Michael Veit, the president of IAFF Local 781 — the union chapter representing Independence firefighters — said Independence firefighters’ median pay is less than what other firefighters make on average in multiple nearby fire districts of similar size.
According to city data obtained by The Star, IFD department salaries currently range from about $43,000 to about $158,000 annually. The median department salary is around $72,000 per year.
Within the larger department, union members’ salaries range from about $43,000 to about $89,000, Veit said.
The union keeps a list of salaries in comparable departments, Veit said, in which he said Independence fire salaries are currently lower than those in at least eight other districts.
“We don’t do this job to get rich,” Veit said. “But it is important to us that we are able to provide a livable wage to support our families.”
The union is actively in talks with city staff as of Thursday and is debating a recent offer.
“We’re kind of in a waiting period to see what’s going to happen,” Veit said. “... We’re close. I think we are. It’s just down to the fine details right now.”
Between half and two-thirds of the 175 employees on the IFD union roster have a second or third job outside of firefighting, Veit said.
Younger firefighters have approached Veit in the past with concerns about making rent for the month or covering food costs for their family, he said. At least one has applied for government assistance to supplement their municipal salary, Veit told The Star.
“They don’t make enough money to support[themselves], just living bare bones sometimes,” Veit said.
Meanwhile, city officials say the fire department already sees a high level of support from Independence and that additional pay raises would cause budget issues for the city.
“The city is doing everything it reasonably can to increase the pay for firefighters with the tax revenue that is available,” Rebecca Gannon, a spokesperson for the city of Independence, told The Star.
‘A mixed message’
Veit said that the department has received “a mixed message from the city” throughout contract negotiations.
The union sent its letter of intent to city staff in December 2024, but negotiations quickly slowed into a seven-month period of silence lasting until August 2025.
“That was pretty hurtful and pretty disrespectful,” Veit said. “And it kind of set the tone of where things were going to lead to when we were finally able to get back to the table.”
In a statement provided to The Star, Gannon said that the city considers the ongoing negotiations to be “in good faith.”
“The City has a long and strong tradition of working with all our employee labor groups, dating back decades,” Gannon said. “The City will continue its good faith negotiations with Local 781 and hope to reach an agreement soon,”
The union’s most recent contract expired in December. Veit said that union leaders had hoped to have secured the terms of their next contract by then, so that updated salaries could factor into the planning process for the 2026 city budget.
About 20 firefighters are actively considering leaving the department, Veit said — and that number continues to increase as contract negotiations drag on. At least one member has already left to another department, which Veit said he fears could start a trend.
“The momentum for them to leave is growing as application processes open up across the Kansas City metro,” Veit said.
Recruitment and retention
Wages are impeding both recruitment and retention within the department, Veit said. At one time, Veit said, firefighters expected they had to prove themselves at a smaller department before applying somewhere like IFD, which was a sort of regional hub for senior firefighters.
“Independence used to be one of the prime fire departments that everybody wanted to work for,” said Veit, who has been with IFD for about 16 years. “And to get on Independence, you had to have some experience.”
The department now relies heavily on hires straight out of the academy, Veit said.
Firefighters work on 24-hour shifts and can face extreme stress while on the clock, which can accelerate burnout within the department, Veit said. Some types of fires, he said, including those in schools, apartment complexes or public buildings, can be difficult to approach without a high level of institutional knowledge.
“We have that seniority and that experience to lean on to help guide those younger members to be good firefighters in the city,” Veit said. “If we lose that, that’s a danger.”
In the Central Jackson County fire protection district – which includes Blue Springs and Grain Valley - new hires make about $69,700 annually, with a tiered pay raise schedule going up to about $84,800 per year. In nearby Lee’s Summit, fire salaries start at $54,750 annually and go up to $70,750 by the time firefighters accrue eight years of service.
City response
City officials, however, say Independence has paid firefighters fairly and invested a significant amount of city resources into IFD, Gannon said.
“The City realizes that much of Local 781’s concerns relate to pay,” Gannon said.
Gannon said that while often overlooked in pay discussions, overtime is a significant part of the fire department’s budget, supplementing some firefighters’ salaries by more than $28,000 last year. IAFF union members logged about 43,450 hours of overtime last year, according to city data obtained by The Star.
About a third of the city’s general fund is already devoted to fire operations, Gannon said, along with revenue from Independence’s fire protection sales tax.
Though firefighters are on call 24 hours at a time, they are guaranteed 48 hours off directly after every call shift and are not required to drive ambulances — steps which Gannon said the city sees as proof of commitment to a high quality of life for firefighters.
In addition, the city is currently in the process of building three new fire stations at a total cost of about $50 million, the first of which is set to break ground next month, Gannon said.
Future steps
Once a tentative agreement is reached, Veit said, both the firefighters’ union and the Independence City Council will hold votes on whether to approve its contents.
Veit said he’s hopeful that relations between the two bodies will continue to improve without a contract actively under debate.
“Are we having a disagreement with the city?” Veit said. “Absolutely. But I don’t want this to reflect negatively…on city administration.
They’re working to drive economic prosperity within the city. We want to be a part of that… we want to see the city flourish.”
IFD is also continuing to pay attention to the ways that other public safety bodies engage with city leadership, particularly around financial issues. The Independence Police Department recently saw a wage increase for officers — a move that IFD doesn’t begrudge, but that the union certainly noted, Veit said.
“They deserve that raise,” Veit said. “There’s a lot of differences within our organizations, even though it’s public safety. So it’s hard to compare.”
Strikes and walkouts won’t be on the table even if negotiations do deteriorate again, Veit said.
“We won’t even consider that,” Veit said. “The citizens deserve so much more than that.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2026 at 12:34 PM.
