Yeah. That’s a good point. Should be interesting to see how this plays out and interpreted.
We should be hearing announcements soon about which departments will be dropping out.
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The fine print specifically states that you shall not be employed for the sole reason of being on an IMT. Single resource dispatches are a loophole at this point.
Just to clear things up - CAL FIRE relies heavily on the CFAA and Contract County agreements for major incidents. Most CAL FIRE IMT local government “team member” positions are a direct agreement between CAL FIRE and the local agency or through the contract county agreements (they actually designate a certain number of positions for local government). All other resources and subordinate overhead positions go through the CF system or OES…and the CFMA to a certain extent.
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Fed teams may need to shuffle the deck chairs soon. Roster issues are being reported.
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The head of R5 FAM stated a few years back that the answer to lack of teams due to personnel shortages, (ie. getting rid of retirees) would be mitigated through the use of out of region teams…
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Looking like he got what he wanted.
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It would seem the feds will end up ordering current LG personnel earning portal to portal pay, to replace the retirees they got rid of that were working 16s
Let’s not forget the fact that the CFAA commity and CAL OES rolled over and allowed the FEDs to dictate participants employment practices. This is wrong no matter which way you lean on retired hires. CAL OES needs to stop hiring a bunch of disgruntled retired Fed employees who seem to forget that they no longer rep the Federal Government.
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Most the overhead department suppliers are reporting they have approval to still send overhead to state fires at the normal state pay rates regardless of what cfaa says. They have ceased all mobilizations to fed fires.
I wonder if an oes name request placed through region could be used to reach these overhead at the regular state pay rates for fed fires
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First IMT to report unavailability because of significant roster vacancies/resignations occurred today. I don’t know which team it is, however it’s reported to be the only Northern California based IMT.
A FED IMT?
As we know there are no longer North/South/Central Teams. All Type 1 and Type 2 Teams are “statewide”. That being said California Type 2 Team 10 used to be Nor Cal 2. Nor Cal 1 was basically reorganized last year as a Type 2 Team to deal with long term fires as Team 16. This year that team was totally disbanded. So based on your report it would seem to be Nor Cal 10 since most of its members are still from the North Ops area. At this time they are still showing first up on the GACC page.
That’s probably the one and correct on the reorg.
Confidence isn’t high with the accuracy of the GACC page, on any given day.
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what I don’t get at the moment, and I know there is currently confusion, is that the agreement seems to prohibit retirees from being on a team if they are employed by a department solely to be on a team and yet it is being said that retirees CAN be on a team under AD. I don’t get it. And I don’t get how we have been banned from ALL fed fires through the program we are in. (Or were in…)
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For those that may not know, the AD program is the Federal “Call when needed” program. The most important difference between a retired person as an AD and working with a LG Department is the pay. AD’s are payed a flat rate based on the job they are doing in the incident as opposed to pay based on their rank with their department. No overtime, no hazard pay, 16 hours maximum per day etc. As a retired LG fire captain I make a lot less as an AD.
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I believe it was team 10. A member from team 11 said they were being polled for availability because 10 couldn’t roster a complete team.
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December 31,2020 is the final date that retirees can work through a local fire department as a supplemental employee. Beginning next year if you want to play still (as a retiree) you will have to sign up as an AD. Wonder how many forests will be willing to do those sign ups?
Wouldn’t you think most of the Forests would be willing to sign ADs up to help cover and fill holes as needed? Signing up as an AD is not much of a process. Verifying Red Card qualifications/documentation may be the challenging part though. I imagine many folks will retire for good now.
I think many will just wait for state calls and not worry if the phone doesn’t ring. The Group doesn’t seem to pleased with feds at the moment. AD pay would be a huge pay cut, I heard a few forests have reached out to these overhead and offered to AD them. Most forests won’t with everything else going on. Lots of work with Medical’s, testing and such.
That may be true but LG supplementals can only go to state or tribal fires and not federal even as a single resource which does not make any sense to me,