Mayor Kirk Watson and Selena Xie, president of the Austin EMS Association, sign the new four-year contract for ATCEMS medics. (City of Austin)
AUSTIN, Texas - A new four-year EMS contract has been approved by the City of Austin and the Austin EMS Association.
The contract brings ATCEMS to an all-time high wage increase aimed at improving recruitment and retention.
The contract gives 4-year terms to new employees, with wholescale pay adjustments in the first year, an across-the-board wage increase of 4 percent in the second year and 3 percent in the final two years of the contract.
The first-year adjustments address entry-level medic pay with over a 10 percent increase and retention adjustments near the end of an employee's career.
Current employees will see a minimum increase of 4 percent with the majority seeing 6 percent.
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Austin fire fighters have a new contract
The deal was hammered out by an arbitration panel involving the city and the Austin Firefighters Association. The contract runs through September 2025 and includes base wage increases of four percent a year.
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This contract builds on the 2022 one-year contract extension that gave the average employee an increase of over 6 percent at that time.
These comprehensive changes are part of a concerted effort to recognize ATCEMS as an integral part of Austin's public safety sector and bring them closer in pay to the fire and police departments, says the City.
Separately, the City has added pay incentives for employees assigned to integrated services, expanded special operations pay incentives, and added certification pay to the most highly-trained paramedics.
The new contract also expands eligibility for promotional testing, creates an easier promotable path to cross between various divisions within the department, modifies the promotional process working toward diversity best practices outcomes, authorizes the chief to hire employees directly into the clinical specialist communications position, and allows the chief to appoint his executive staff.