Wilkes-Barre will rehire the 11 firefighters who were laid off in December, Mayor Tom Leighton said Thursday.
The announcement was an "absolute surprise" to Greg Freitas, vice president of the Wilkes-Barre Firefighters Association. The firefighters will return to work Feb. 8, according to the mayor.
"I don't know what to say, I'm speechless," Freitas said. "I'm just happy, very happy for these guys. Some for their families could really use that."
Last week, Leighton announced firefighters rejected a deal to forego a $1,500 training bonus that would have immediately brought back the firefighters. City spokesman Drew McLaughlin said Monday that the firefighters would return when the city began receiving its property tax revenue in the next few months.
But the city's financial outlook changed this week, Leighton said, when he learned it could receive nearly half of the $1 million believed to be owed from Centax, Luzerne County's former tax collector that has failed to turn over the city's income taxes.
"We were informed we could receive funding within two weeks," Leighton said. "I spoke with each and every firefighter who was temporarily laid off, and the majority of them were very understanding and very appreciative they'll be coming back to their job."
Pamela Heard, secretary of the Luzerne County Tax Collection Committee, confirmed Thursday that the city will soon receive around $500,000. That is money owed from the first half of 2012, when Centax was in charge of collecting and distributing wage taxes for Luzerne County.
The county terminated its contract with the now-defunct Centax after it failed to distribute tax revenue to Wilkes-Barre and other municipalities. Wilkes-Barre officials said that contributed toward an estimated $2 million budget deficit that forced them to lay off the 11 firefighters at the end of the year.
The city survived the budget crunch without further layoffs or missing any payments, officials later said.
Heard said it's still unclear exactly how much more the city is owed beyond the upcoming payment. Berkheimer Associates, the county's new income tax collector, still needs to sort out how much is owed to whom, Heard said.
"What they (Wilkes-Barre) say they're owed might not be right," Heard said. "There are so many components to this that if someone is not tracking along the entire time, it's hard to say what's missing."
Leighton said the $54,795 in overtime paid to the fire department in December did pressure the city to rehire the 11 laid off firefighters.
"There would be a cost saving if we kept them off (the entire year)," Leighton said when asked if the city achieved its desired savings with the layoffs. "But I made a commitment to them, and what I said both publicly and privately to the union, my goal was to bring them back as soon as we could financially."
Leighton said he's still hoping to receive some sort of concession from all the city's unions, and that he couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be another round of layoffs.
"There's never a guarantee of anyone working a full year," Leighton said.
Bill Wellock, staff writer, contributed to this story.
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