At tonight’s Ypsilanti City Council meeting on a vote of 7-0, Council voted to approve a new contract for the Ypsilanti Fire Department that guaranteed no staffing cuts for fiscal years 2011 and 2012 in exchange for wage concessions.

Let me repeat that. For the two-year budget we are currently working on, there will be no staffing cuts in the Fire Department for this two-year budget cycle.

That’s pretty huge when you consider what has been going on around us. Earlier this week, Ypsilanti Township voted to offer buy-outs to members of its fire department and reduce the minimum staffing level from eight to six firefighters as they hope to reduce their force from 34 to 26. Over in Ann Arbor, they are going through their budget process and looking at the possiblity of laying off 20 firefighters in July.

This has been a significant task over the past four months. I’m glad we were able to finally come to an agreement and vote on it. I give a lot of credit to City Staff and the members of the Ypsilanti Fire Department for making this happen. This is incredibly good news for the entire community.