City agrees to pay $20 grievance that caused nearly $2K legal bill

LACONIA — The city has agreed to pay a firefighter $20 to settle a grievance after it spent $1,937.50 in legal fees fighting the issue, City Manager Scott Myers said Monday.

On July 24, 2015, Myers denied the firefighter’s request for $20 to cover a co-payment for a doctor’s visit.

The city manager said it wasn’t the $20, but the principle of the matter that was important. If the city agreed to cover a firefighter’s co-payment on a doctor’s visit, it would set a precedent and many more $20 charges could be expected in the future.

For its part, the union said the city should be responsible for the co-pay. It arose from a visit to an eye doctor that became necessary because the physician handling the firefighter’s required medical exam could not handle a vision check needed for a Department of Transportation certification.

That certification is no longer a requirement of employment. The union has agreed to standard operating procedures specifying that firefighters and their health insurance programs pay medical expenses.

The legal bill on the grievance accumulated after city attorneys tried to work with the union to resolve the matter, according to city records.

A tentative solution, calling for the city to pay the $20 to the firefighter and for the union to agree to the new operating procedures, had been in the works for some time, but there was never any final resolution, and the matter continued to be listed in the City Council packet under “pending grievances.”

Mayor Ed Engler questioned Myers about the grievance at the May 14 City Council meeting.