KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County, including Independence. Share your story idea with Tod.
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For more than a year, Independence and its local firefighters union have negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement, but they’ve yet to reach a new deal — and now the Professional Firefighters of Independence IAFF Local 781 fear it may lead to attrition within its ranks.
“My biggest concern is that the firefighters that we have now are going to leave,” IAFF Local 781 President Mike Veit said.
After a brief career in sales, Zach Graham wanted something less “mundane,” he said. Now a second-year firefighter with the Independence Fire Department, he feels like he found his calling.
“I take a lot of pride in this city, being from here and going to Truman High School,” Graham said. “I love this city. This is where I grew up. I'm at a station right down the road from where I went to elementary school.”
It’s a source of pride and fulfillment he didn’t get from sales.
“Now, I get to protect the people where my family lives, my friends live, and where I grew up and went to school,” he said. “It means a lot to me.”
Graham, 26, said he loves the culture of IFD — a “brotherhood,” he called it — but he’s also eager to advance his life in other ways now.
“I'm married, and have been married for about a year and a half,” he said. “Trying to figure out how to start a family and buy a home, it's been a struggle.”
When Graham initially joined IFD, he worked odd jobs and mowed lawns to help make ends meet. He and other firefighters started a business hanging Christmas lights and he’s still working other side jobs.
He’d love to stay in Independence, but other local fire departments offer better pay, especially for young firefighters.
A second-year firefighter in Lee’s Summit makes nearly $59,000, according to the city website, while the Overland Park Fire Department’s wage scale starts at nearly $58,000. Both are several thousand more than Graham made last year.
The base salary for a IFD firefighter is $47,000, the city said in a statement to KSHB, but they often make more with overtime — some of which, the union said, is mandatory.
“There's just really low morale at the stations in the morning whenever it's now going into March here soon, and we still don't have any raises,” Graham said. “... It's really impacted the firefighters here who are showing up to do their job, and they're not getting paid a livable wage.”
IFD continues to operate under terms of a collective bargaining agreement that expired Dec. 31, 2025.
Veit said the union informed the city in December 2024 that it planned to negotiate. He said initial conversations with former City Manager Zach Walker seemed promising.
“There were some things that we can fix in the contract that had presented problems — both to city administration, fire administration, but also to the union — so we had some really good ideas,” Veit said. “We thought we could get those done, get a contract done, and be merry and happy, and everybody continue to work together.”
Progress stalled after those initial conversations and, while both the city and union said negotiations continue in good faith, the impasse remains.
The city provided a statement to KSHB 41, but declined an on-camera interview request because the negotiations are ongoing: “The city’s goal is to engage in productive conversations that lead to fair labor contracts, while aligning our employees to our shared goal: to provide the best service and protection for the citizens of Independence. Our negotiations with IAFF local 781 (our firefighters' union) are ongoing, in good faith, and have lasted more than a year.”
IFD receives more than 30% of the city’s general fund and also receives funding from a separate sales tax, which voters approved in November 2021. The sales tax is helping fund infrastructure improvements, including new fire stations and new equipment.
“Given these existing commitments, the City is doing everything it reasonably can to increase the pay for firefighters with the tax revenue that is available,” the city said in a statement.
Veit said the union understands that money is tight.
“We know that they're trying to balance a budget with the confines that they have financially through the city,” he said. “But, it’s hard. It's hard because when you see everybody else growing around you, and we're not afforded that same opportunity.”
Veit said IAFF Local 781 doesn’t believe it has been “treated the same as what other union shops are within the city of Independence.”
“It's frustrating, it's disrespectful, and it really sends a message of what's thought of over the fire department, especially Local 781, and the 175 members that we represent,” he said.
But the city struck an optimistic tone.
“The City has a long and strong tradition of working with all our employee labor groups, dating back decades,” Independence said in a statement. “The City will continue its good faith negotiations with Local 781 and hope to reach an agreement soon.”
Veit said he’s hopeful, too.
“We're down to the very fine minute details,” he said. “We have a lot of the big stuff worked out. We're down to, I would say we're down to really one topic, and it's part of our pay package that we're trying to negotiate.”
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