A long-lasting negotiation between the City of Kitchener and its firefighters has come to an end.

After an 18-month arbitration process – and previous negotiations held without an arbitrator – a new deal between the two sides was finalized earlier this month, and announced publicly Monday.

Under the terms of the deal, members of the Kitchener Professional Firefighters’ Association (KPFFA) will receive retroactive pay increases of 3.04 per cent for 2012, 2.78 per cent for 2013 and 2.72 per cent for 2014, for a total increase of nearly 8.8 per cent over three years.

The deal also provides firefighters with more health and vacation benefits.

KPFFA president Stephen Jones called the wage increase “fair and reasonable” for the 220 firefighters covered under the agreement.

“I think the community respects the work the firefighters do. We provide that service 24/7,” he said.

The firefighters had been operating without a deal since 2011.

While the increase is more than city negotiators had been hoping for, city deputy CAO Michael May said it was previously budgeted for via estimates based on previous arbitration decisions.

“We feel that we’ve saved up enough money over the past several years that we should be able to pay,” he told CTV News.

Where May does take issue with the outcome is in the arbitration system itself – which he calls “clearly broken” die to firefighters receiving significantly larger increases than other city employees, who accepted new deals without going to an arbitrator.

“As long as municipalities are faced with these increases … we’re going to struggle to fund other services as the fire department becomes a larger part of our budget,” he said.

Coun. Scott Davey agrees, noting that while firefighters make up about 15 per cent of the city’s workforce, they account for “almost half” of its entries on the Sunshine List for public servants earning upward of $100,000 in a year.

“That’s the real problem, that this one group is getting so much more in settlements than other groups are freely accepting,” he said.

“If that doesn’t stand out as an issue, I’m not sure how much more clear we can be that we need to fix this problem.”

With the new deal set to expire in nine days’ time, Jones says the KPFFA hopes to be back at the bargaining table early in 2015.