Fire Chief or King

St. George Firefighters to Community: We’re Fighting for Fairness, Not Just Pay

ST GEORGE, LA — The St. George Professional Firefighters Local 4524 responds today to WBRZ’s coverage of the ongoing legal battle with the St. George Fire Department — a battle rooted in fairness, accountability, and respect for those who protect this community.

At the center of this case is a simple truth: firefighters with fewer years of service, sometimes with no municipal firefighting experience, were hired in at higher pay than dedicated St. George veterans with 15, 19, even 25 years of service.

As Local 4524 President Jason Turner put it, “The men and women just want to do their job. They want to move forward and be treated right, treated fair.”

Chief Tarleton claims that St. George firefighters are among the “highest paid in the South” — but if that were true, how is it possible that new hires with less time are making more than seasoned veterans?

The answer is simple: the department’s advertised payscale is broken. While the pay chart may look impressive on paper, it’s unachievable in practice because many firefighters are not placed on the correct step. That’s not just unfair — it’s a violation of trust and a betrayal of those who have dedicated their careers to this department.

To make matters worse, St. George has a chief-to-firefighter salary ratio of over 5 to 1 — meaning the chief makes more than five times what the average firefighter earns. Nationally, most departments operate with a 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ratio. If anyone in this department is “overpaid” by national standards, it’s not the firefighters — it’s the chief.

And while the department now threatens to claw back wages from frontline firefighters through a counterclaim, part-time administrative employees with personal ties to leadership continue to draw paychecks that outpace what our full-time firefighters earn working 56-hour weeks.

Let’s be clear:

• This case is not about greed — it’s about fairness.

• It’s about ensuring that a firefighter with 19 years of service isn’t making less than a new hire with seven years from another field.

• It’s about restoring the integrity of a broken payscale and holding leadership accountable for decades of mismanagement.

Our firefighters will always serve this community with pride and dedication. But they will also stand up for their rights — and for the fair treatment they’ve earned. We invite the Board of Commissioners to join us in resolving this dispute fairly, including serious discussions about leadership changes that can rebuild trust and move St. George Fire forward.