City officials will be holding a closed meeting Tuesday to discuss the most recent contract draft in negotiations between the city and firefighters.

Austin firefighters, organized under the International Association of Fire Fighters, will not have a union representative at the meeting, which will give council members the chance to review the latest draft. The city and firefighters have not had a contract since the end of 2007.

City administrator Jim Hurm said in an e-mail that a contract will not be signed at the Tuesday meeting.

One of the main issues of contract talks has been scheduling. Currently, firefighters work 10 or 14 hour shifts during the week, averaging 56 hours per week. Between the two shifts each day, the station usually has at least two firefighters on duty.

Before that, in early 2009, the department switched to more conventional 40-hour-per-week staffing, which left the department without anyone at the station after 10:30 p.m. That move was rescinded within a week after some public criticism reached city hall, and the department now is staffed 24 hours per day.

Fire chief Dan Wilson has been critical of the 24-hour schedule, saying it doesn’t necessarily make citizens safer and is an inefficient use of the department’s resources.

He said even with at least one firefighter on duty at all hours, a fire call requires at least 15 firefighters, meaning those at the station often wait for more to come in during the night.

He also said the 24-hour system is costlier to the city.

He said the 40-hour-per-week staffing led to larger crews during the day, more efficient time usage and did not make the city any less safe, because firefighters were on call at night and some volunteers even slept at the station at times.

Wilson said at a February meeting that the media created a “public perception” that not having firefighters at the Austin Fire Station overnight creates a safety concern for the city.

That meeting also led Carla McCarthy, a citizen who attended, to file a complaint with Austin police against Wilson, alleging that the chief threatened her. Wilson has maintained he never threatened McCarthy.

Troy Tigner, president of the Austin affiliate of IAFF, said Friday that the union had no comment at this time regarding the contract situation.