AB-1309 (CalFire Pay Parity) & SB 581 (Fight for Firefighters Act)

General Discussion
101

So the municipality staffed engines
Are FC-FAE-FF1 unless its a fuels engine.

The additional engines being staffed in CSR are all with PERM STAFF.

BDU staffs up to 3 additional engines above Bluebook Base with the above referenced staffing model. No additional FF2 beyond the fuels engine have been hired. Most units have permanent employees hired awaiting academy dates. With the rollout of municipal staffing occurring by battalion or even station once the employees have completed COA or in some cases FFA & COA.

SB581 is the funding mechanism that is missing. Yes the 3540 budget lists $40 million to begin the process to convert FF1 to FF2. But that is currently UNFUNDED and continues to languish in committee.

As 66hr has continued to roll out, all single engine stations in the state were funded for 3 FAE. Those that only had funding for 2 FC, were comverted to 3. So this increased permanent staffing from 2-2.5 to 6 employees. Stations that traditionally closed in the winter with the FC being moved to winter assignment are now consolidated. Resulting in additional staffing above Bluebook.

What is curious is The FY 25/26 Bluebook has not been published yet.

2 Likes
102

Interesting read…

103

Is this an update to the language used in the pay parity bill? Wonder why calhr would spend the time to do this…

1 Like
104

Required by law/govt code…it’s meant to “inform” calhr for bargaining purposes.

AB 1309 did not survive and will not be considered this year, it (or similar bill) will have to be introduced next session (2027-2028). I’ll post further insight to the survey later, saw this before turning out the light…

SB 581 still waiting for full house vote…

3 Likes
105

FF2 offers start on 2/9. SB581 is a formality. My guess is around 150-200 offers will be made for the year 2026. Disclaimer, I have no insider knowledge whatsoever and it’s speculation from years in the agency and looking through the departments internet info.

The salary comparison survey shows us an average of 20% lower total compensation than the average of the agencies on that list. It’s not a simple 20% increase to salary to get us an idea on value because of compound numbers and the “total compensation” verbiage. It would be interesting to see what the pay parity number would actually be though.

1 Like
106

BDU, RRU, SDU will be getting 3 FF2 for each station. These stations will be municipality staffed (FC-FAE-FF2).
That is 42 stations and over 120 FF2 positions. That will also be an equal reduction in FF1 positions. The only remaining FF1 positions will be Hand Crews, Helitak, and those stations with 2 engine’s assigned. This will increase the number of year round enigines exponentially. Eventually, all stations will follow the model with over 100 stations in the south having FF2.

The hard part will be getting all of the employees taking these jobs through FFA. With the current 66hr staffing increases, the Academy is at max capacity with the FAE & FC positions created by 66hr in 02350 & 03050 PCA. Adding several hundred more FF2 while creating a ever growing pool of promotional candidates. LT-FF2 will have a 24mo clock on each employee till they get a spot in FFA and begin their permanent career and complete probation.

Exciting times with continuing growing pains for.the next 5-10yr.

2 Likes
107

I believe the northern region is doing the same but in a slower tiered fashion. Sounds like 3 engines per unit are getting FF2’s instead of FF1’s for now along with each unit adding in the traditional staffing component slowly to not create forces for the captain rank.

3 Likes
108

There will be the addition of a 10 week IFSAC/ProBoard FFA for the FF2 hiring.

1 Like
109

Yup, a total of 6 on the 2026 calendar.

1 Like
110

Growing pains is the understatement of a lifetime.

CAL FIRE is so behind the 8 ball when it comes to training especially when we are frequently hiring so many that have basically none. Many open list captains and fae are requiring 20 plus weeks of training and then everything on top of that for all hazard operations. The unit training programs are severely understaffed, EMS virtually doesn’t exist (state funded positions). Our work force is super young, under trained, and lacking a experience or a foundation in CAL FIRE. A bulk of the 3@50 will be retiring in the next 10 years and those are the folks that have most heavily invested in the department, overhead, cadres, training, committees, and on and on. The department will be fine, it’s ever changing. I have 25 years in, it looks nothing like it did 10.years ago, which looked nothing like 20 years ago. Some of the changes are for the better and some the worse.

4 Likes
111

Don’t let yourself get distracted by the monthly total compensation lag that’s shown at the top of the survey that ranges from 20.9% for FFIIs to 40.8% for BCs with an average lag of 26.9%. That figure doesn’t account for the 66 hour CAL FIRE workweek vs the 56 for everyone else.

Conveniently hidden at the bottom of the report is the real metric, which is hourly total compensation.

Hourly calculations equalize the 143 days worked by CAL FIRE against the 121 days worked by everyone else.

On an hourly basis, the total compensation lag is:

42.5% for FFII
44.1% for FAE
45.7% for FC
66.0% for BC

This is significantly higher than the 20% “headline” number that CalHR would like you to focus your attention on.

If one is to insist on using the monthly metric, you have to consider that the monthly pay gap widened from 16.7% in 2023 to 26.9% in 2025. That means the monthly compensation lag increased by ⅔ in just 2 years in spite of the reduced workweek.

In spite of the language of Government Code 19827.3 that requires CalHR to take the survey into consideration, the pay disparity continues to widen with each survey.

This underscores the importance of clarifying the pay parity language that already exists in 19827.3.

3 Likes
112

Behind the ball? Most fire agencies put their folks through 20+ weeks of training when hired. Not to mention we continue the training through the JAC curriculum for another 3 years. I don’t know any local gov that covers the continued training that we get. Tuition, travel, meals… all covered. Most local government is lucky to get the tuition covered and has to burn their own time for continued training.

Also wrong to say EMS is non-existent when many units are putting scruple B personnel through EMT courses with 02350 dollars. I’d say this has changed drastically in the last 2/3 years with more to come in the near future.

2 Likes
113

Zulu,

Yes many agencies do that upon new hire entry level fire fighter. I’m not aware of any that do this for fire captain or fae rank. I would say EMT is the minimum standard for almost all paid LG, minimum here is PSFA and if you don’t have it we will put you through it.

Yes CAL FIRE has an amazing training system compared to other agency when it comes to putting people through training and the compensation. Problem with that is they have no skin in the game, they had to make zero effort to go to a class. My point though was we are abysmal in the training and EMS support system. 02350 funded training captains, 2 per unit, came online last July. 02350 EMS support positions at the unit level aren’t there yet. Training and EMS is a big lift and the department is nowhere near where it should be.

3 Likes
114

I’ve had this conversation with a few people and it’s really comparing apples to oranges since our FC and FAE rank technically are ENTRY level when they are an entry point into the department for some. Many of those coming in “open list” as it used to be called, only need that amount of training because they worked for agencies that do not train by the same standard as us in CA

2 Likes
115

EMS has changed across the board for the department, SFM office now has a EMS coordinator, all SFM vehicles are fully equipped with minimum of BLS gear and all employees are EMS trained. It was a huge push across the board but its a huge change the 2-3 years. They dont respond but are fully expected to stop and assist if they come across stuff.

2 Likes
116

What s159 said (the entire post).

I meant to get back to this and forgot, however I couldn’t have written it any better.

2 Likes
117

Lateral hires (Open-List) come with lot’s of experience. However, most come from the Federal Government (BLM, DOD, & FS) It is not uncommon to get 1-3 engines responding with zero All-Risk experience to an All-Risk incident. I will agree with the training that our employees are put through is comparable to our LG partners. However, they lack experience running day to day All Risk calls.

When a FC responds to a Structure Fire Wildland Threat in January, is the 1st or 2nd engine O/S. Yet responds in Wildland PPE because of the 02350 mission. Are we doing the right thing, are we ALL-RISK. That is where the lack of experience shows the most.

CAL FIRE FF Hand Crews aren’t Type 2, IHC or even CDCR crews. Yet i continue to see comparisons with FC’s & FAE’s on these crews wanting to build Type 2A or IHC crews with 3-4 saws. Then when corrected, “thats not how we did it at xxx agency”

We are losing our experience, historical knowledge, and culture growing as fast as we are growing. Not to mention, we have become a larger and larger training program for LG departments.

Unit training with 2 FC’s in training and over 100 employees on JAC or ITR plans is unmanageable.

There are currently the following vacancies
224 FC
14 FC-PM
Yet less than 200 on the current eligibility list.
FAE and FAE PM are overhired by 191. But 27 CDCR crews get FAE’s after July 1 so that overhire will be absorbed during year 3 of 5 of the 66hr expansion.

Over 55% of the suppression employees are millennials with less than 35% being Baby Boomers and Gen X COMBINED. that means millennials make up 1.5x the suppression workforce, or over 3500 employees are under age 30😳. How much life experience, let alone fire experience does someone have at that age? Answer, at best 12yr but it the avg in PERS years is around 8.

Now add in 30% or approx 2,100 employees will be eligible to retire in 5yr or less. With over 800 employees eligible now.
There are a total of 15 FCT between Ione & Redding with a possible 600 graduates at 100% success. So the quick math is 200 more are eligible to retire now than the academy is capable of graduating.

The demographics are against ALL EMPLOYERS (Especially Blue Collar) with the Fire Service due to the time it takes for training (More retiring, than being training) causing increased workloads for those remaining. Now take into account over 55% of the workforce is under age 30, have different desires, work ethics and Loyalties. You have even more competition for an ever shrinking workforce. These under 30, with 8-10yr experience have exponentially more options to work for LG with some of the best training CF/SFT provides.

Its just not CF with this problem. A large LG County dept has resorted to starting training academy’s with 72 cadets. With increased instructor student ratio required to maintain accreditation. That single academy requires over 10 dedicated SFT certified instructors.

Now circle this back to the current CF dilemma.
Not enough eligible candidates on the FC list for current job openings. More employees eligible to retire than the academy can currently train. With the addition of over 300 new Permanente FF2 jobs being created to build a year round work force.

4 Likes
118

With CAL FIRE’s 40%+ lag in hourly total compensation creating a huge challenge in stemming the flow of CAL FIRE trained employees going to neighboring departments, it will be interesting to see how the training capacity deficit will play out in the coming years.

If DROP comes to fruition, that might ease the impact a bit, but there will still be a considerable training bottleneck.

2 Likes
119

Yes, some units are doing EMT, epcr is now statewide. Ordering, QA/QI, continuing education, recertification, BLS cpr, meeting requirements of LEMSA’s as a professional agency… The state doesn’t truly fund a position in any of the units. It’s either as “other duties as required” or subsidy from a sched a contract.

The state doesn’t take training and EMS seriously at the unit level.

4 Likes
120

Appears that Flora is going to attempt another bite at the apple and possibly submit another bill similar to AB-1309 this year. He’s going to have to change something in order to get it signed. Even if he gets something through that tightens up what HR is required to do for bargaining would be beneficial. As it is now the law just says “Hey HR at your convenience do a survey…If you want, could you consider the survey?..Would sure be nice if you considered the survey…You’re going to ignore the survey?..Sounds good by me…See you next time”

3 Likes