Pay parity has never made it past the Governor’s desk. This one is a bit watered down though, within 15% of an average of a wide range of pay scales.
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What’s the next step?
If your asking about AB-1309, sometime in Aug (probably towards the end) the Senate Appr committee will have a hearing regarding bills in the suspense file, which is where AB-1309 currently resides. The committee will vote yea or nay on it to send it to (I think) the senate floor. In the last session the similar bill by Flora was passed I believe 7-0, however there are 5 new members this year. There has been no opposition recorded.
In case anyone is wondering the Departments which would be considered for the comparisons are the cities of Bakersfield, Chula Vista, Corona, Escondido, Fullerton, Hayward, Milpitas, Ontario, Oxnard, Rialto, Roseville, San Mateo, Santa Monica, and Torrance.
The Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department, the Novato Fire District, and the Counties of
Los Angeles and Ventura
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Any idea how or why those departments were chosen?
“To ensure the recruitment and retention of qualified firefighters,
Government Code section 19827.3 requires CalHR to “consider
prevailing salaries and benefits” of local fire departments in California
employing 75 or more full-time firefighters.”
Those departments listed above mirror the departments selected in 2014/2020 salary surveys
“In 2014, CAL FIRE Local 2881 identified 68 fire departments in
California with 75 firefighters or more, which CalHR verified. At
CalHR’s recommendation, the five fire departments with the highest
base salaries, and the five fire departments with the lowest base
salaries, were removed from the list. Then 20 departments were
randomly selected to be surveyed.”
Stockton and Huntington Beach got the axe 
in the current bill.
Side rant:
Wouldn’t hurt to probably update 19827.3 to current depts, or change it to maybe departments with 125 or 150 FF’s, but let not make perfect the enemy of the good.
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Here is the link to the 2023 salary study done by CalHR
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I agree with the side rant, why the 75? Even 150 seems odd. We have fire centers that have more people, even the smallest units exceed this.
I have always thought that the “randomly” selected departments have a historic average that we have always been within a few points of at least within 15 percent.
For the casual reader of this thread (and not most of us who are familiar) and who looks into the “comparative analysis” by the state, I feel obligated to point out their surveys’ major flaw. Even though they mention it towards the end and don’t give it the weight it deserves, CalFire hours worked for their total compensation are significantly more than their “comparative” LG fire depts.
Using the same methodology if CalHR looked at the following two employees they would conclude that employee B earns 25% more than employee A and thus does not need adjustments. I leave it to the casual observer to determine if this is correct.
Employee A: Earns $100/ day. Day=4 hours of work ($25/Hr)
Employee B: Earns $125/ day. Day=12 hour of work ($10.41/Hr)
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That is a great point to make. If and when a 56 hour workweek is implemented some day, I guess this bill would then be closer to comparing apples to apples.
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