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As part of a tentative deal to help the county close its projected budget gap, the county's firefighters agreed to a series of pay concessions over the next two years, including deferring raises and forgoing holiday pay.

The plan does not eliminate cost-of-living increases for employees as expected, but meets the requested goal by other means, said union President John Sparks.

Under the plan, announced Thursday, members would defer a scheduled 4 percent cost-of-living adjustment increase for three months, from July to October, for $5 million in savings. Members would not be reimbursed the money they lost during the three-month period. They also would give up negotiated holiday pay benefits, totaling $1 million.

The savings would go toward fiscal 2010, which begins in July, and help close the county's $450 million projected budget deficit for that year.

Last year, the three teachers unions agreed to forgo their COLA increases for fiscal 2010. County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) is still in negotiations with the county's employees union and the police union. He has recommended that the county unions also forgo COLAs for their members.

"[County officials] came to us and said they were looking for help in the next fiscal year by saving $5 million, which would have been the total cost of our COLAs," Sparks said. "We were the only union to make concessions for all three years of our negotiated contract."

The fire union is in the second year of a three-year negotiated contract.

The tentative plan with the county also includes a six-month deferral of a scheduled 3.5 percent COLA increase for fiscal 2011. The deferral would save the county about $2 million, Sparks said.

For the union's members, the pay concessions equate to an $8,000 to $9,000 loss in pay per firefighter, he said.

The union completed negotiations with the county's human resources director Jan. 16, but Leggett has not signed off on the deal.

Leggett sees the concession plan as "a step in the right direction," but says the deal is not complete.

"The point of it is to come up with overall savings, and there is a variety of ways to do that," said Leggett (D). "We have some questions about all these things and are not fully signed off on it."

For his part, the union is finished, Sparks said.

"We've been talking about the subject matter for a long time, and as far as we're concerned, it's a finished product," he said.

Like Leggett, Council President Philip M. Andrews has outstanding questions about the plan.

"There's a big difference in this plan and the plan agreed to by the teachers unions," said Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg. "I'm concerned that this does not have the same long-lasting impact on reducing costs that eliminating COLAs would have. It's a one-time savings, and we need both."

The fire union represents about 1,025 bargaining unit firefighters and paramedics.