After more than four years of negotiations, the union representing Disney World’s first responders says it has reached a tentative contract agreement with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

The proposed contract increases staffing at the Reedy Creek Fire Department, addressing a longstanding safety concern for the union, and includes a significant boost to firefighter pay and benefits, Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters President Jon Shirey said Monday.

He credits the district’s new board of supervisors appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis for accelerating contract negotiations that stalled to an impasse in November under the board’s Disney-appointed members. During the new leadership’s first meeting on March 9, members promised to get “involved personally in the contract negotiations.”

The current board did not attend bargaining meetings but made it a priority to hear both the district and union’s concerns, Shirey said. As a result, they reached a tentative agreement on all 44 articles of the contract in less than two weeks.

“With the feud between Disney and the board, and with the governor, I think that there was a little extra incentive for the board to want to get this thing off their plate,” Shirey said. “… The other big difference is that this new board isn’t a single-interest board like they were before.”

Union members will vote on the contract the week of May 15. If they approve the agreement, it will go before the board on May 24 for ratification, Shirey said.

Though he is confident the union’s first responders will back the contract, Shirey said members are concerned Disney’s lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis and the board, in addition to the board’s likely countersuit, over Disney’s development agreements could affect the new contract’s approval.

“To have a major setback like that would be pretty devastating for our members,” Shirey said.

District spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions on the tentative agreement Monday. Disney did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent years, union leadership has spoken publicly about a persistent staffing shortage at the department that officers said could endanger Disney staff and guests. Union leadership contended the department was increasingly relying on outside agencies to respond to incidents on Disney property and was later limited in their ability to request that assistance.

Disney and district officials have denied the union’s staffing and safety allegations.

The tentative agreement will add approximately 50 total firefighter and paramedic positions to the fire department within a year, increasing the roughly 200-employee agency’s staffing by about 25%, Shirey said.

As it hires more first responders, the fire department has promised to similarly increase the minimum number of these employees on shift at a time, Shirey said.

This change better equips the agency to respond to emergencies across Disney’s 40-square-mile property. Thanks to personnel changes, it will have two more ambulances staffed to respond to incidents and could reach four by the end of the year, he said.

“That’s a game-changer,” Shirey said. “Not only for us working but also just for everybody coming to visit. The odds of there not being a unit available to run those emergency calls are going to be almost eliminated at that point.”

The fire department’s minimum staffing will start at 32 firefighters and 18 EMS personnel under the contract, Shirey said. That firefighter number is the same as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the agency has agreed to increase it to 44 firefighters during the contract’s term as more people are hired.

The proposal would also create a dedicated special operations team responsible for evacuating riders from Disney’s rides and transportation systems, like the Monorail and Skyliner gondolas, when they break down. The team’s current cross-staffing structure means trained firefighters have to switch from other assignments to the special unit when called, causing potential delays in response, Shirey said.

The contract agreement includes a significant pay bump for first responders and increases the department’s firefighter starting pay by about $10,000, Shirey said. That amount brings the department’s starting wage to the same level as that of neighboring agencies.

“That was a direct result of the struggle that we’ve been having with recruitment,” Shirey said. “We did a very broad comparison of the greater Central Florida area, going all the way up to Tampa on the West Coast and then looking at different departments on the East Coast, and we found that we were significantly lower than a lot of the competitors in our market.”

Shirey declined to discuss details on pay rates, citing the union’s upcoming contract vote. An April 18 job posting by the district advertises a $55,000 annual salary for firefighters and paramedics.

Another benefit included in the proposal is the restoration of health care benefits for retirees, meaning district staff would continue to receive a supplementary health plan from the district upon retirement, Shirey said.

“Ultimately, our biggest concerns got addressed, and I think management could say the same,” he said.

krice@orlandosentinel.com and @katievrice on Twitter