About 100 paramedics with the D.C. fire department are suing the District for $100 million, claiming the city has gone back on its promise of giving them retirement pensions they say they earned.
For generations, D.C. firefighters and paramedics earned different pay and retirement benefits.
About 20 years ago, the department and the city changed that policy. If the paramedics became certified as firefighters, they would be given credit for the years they served as solo paramedics before becoming dual role firefighter and paramedics.
Now, in a class action lawsuit, paramedics allege they’re being told they won’t get credit for those years as just paramedics.
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“It’s heartbreaking; it’s frustrating,” said Melissa Turner, a 20-year veteran of D.C. Fire and EMS who took advantage of the offer. “We give everything to D.C. to serve the citizens, the visitors. We give it all 24 hours a day. We give it all only to be told by our employer that that time means absolutely nothing.”
Ricardo Clark, who has been a paramedic with D.C. Fire and EMS for 34 years, would like to retire but recently found out he doesn’t qualify for a pension yet.
“It hurts to work in the city all these years and to be a Washingtonian and to be treated like this,” he said. “It hurts that I can’t retire, that I will have to give this department 53.”
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“My 28 years was taken away from me,” he said.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson helped craft the original legislation that was supposed to fund the increased pensions.
“I’m concerned if everything that they were supposed to do was done, that they’re not getting in return what they were promised,” he said.
City Administrator Kevin Donahue was restricted on what he could say because of the pending lawsuit.
“They are among our most committed, essential civil servants that we have,” he said. “There’s, I think, a good faith agreement right now on what the legal parameters are around retirement, and I think we’ve started processing what the legal basis for their claim is and seeing what the fair thing to do is moving forward.”
According to the paramedics, the fire chief told them if they want credit for the years as single-role paramedics, they would have to pay the city out of their 401(k)s.
D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly declined to comment.
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