The defendant, for a period of fourteen weeks beginning June 1, 1936, paid the plaintiff his salary as a district chief of the fire department at a rate ten per cent less than his previously established compensation of $60.20 a week. He brought this action to recover the deficiency. The judge found for the defendant, the Appellate Division dismissed a report, and the plaintiff appealed to this court.
St. 1853, c. 175, authorized the city council of the city of Springfield to establish a fire department, to consist of as many men as the city council by ordinance should from time to time prescribe, and “to fix and pay such compensation for their services” as they should deem expedient. By St. 1893, c. 97, it was provided that those powers “may
On March 2, 1936, the budget for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1936, was submitted to the city council under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 44, § 32. The total was $12,989,252. The amount for the fire department 'contained three items for salaries, called “personal services,” (1) administration, $34,639, (2) fire alarm system, $27,366, and (3) operation, $750,000. The city council on May 1, 1936, reduced these three items to $32,908, $25,998, and $712,500, respectively, and reduced the total of the budget to $12,462,164. It was voted that “the heads of each department be and hereby are directed to absorb the amounts so reduced as to each and every personal service item reduced.” The reduction was of approximately five per cent. At the time it was made, officers and employees had already been paid for several months at the old rates. The reduced appropriations naturally would not permit paying them at the same
It seemed to the board of fire commissioners that the best way to live within its appropriation was to reduce all salaries ten per cent for a period of six months from June 1 until December 1, 1936; the equivalent of five per cent for the whole year. On May 25, 1936, the plaintiff and all other members of the fire department were notified of this reduction. See G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 31, § 43. Upon request under that section, a public hearing was had, and the reduction was confirmed. This was done in good faith and from proper motives. Whalen v. First District Court of Eastern Middlesex, 295 Mass. 305. Whether notice and hearing were necessary we have no occasion to discuss.
The contention of the plaintiff is that the authority to fix salaries was vested in the city council, and was not lawfully delegated to the board of fire commissioners. It is true that the vote adopting the budget established the rates of pay of all city employees as of April 1, 1936, according to a schedule in which the plaintiff’s salary was shown at $60.20 a week. The vote forbade the increase of salaries, but not their reduction. But that vote was subject to the direction, adopted at the same time, by which the heads of departments were directed "to absorb the amounts so reduced as to each and every personal service item reduced.” Under St. 1893, c. 97, the city council had an unqualified right to delegate to the board of fire commissioners its power to fix salaries in the fire department. Whalen v. First District Court of Eastern Middlesex, 295 Mass. 305,309. A reduction of salaries was an obvious and reasonable means of complying with the order of the city council to “absorb” the reduction. We think that the city council did not intend
Order dismissing report affirmed.