pbrains, your correct as I see it. Attended a region mtg last week. Many LG’s are very concerned about it as I am also. May be lots of UTF’s on the USFS order system. It’s not only the pay issue. Many LG FF’s don’t like the 16 & 8 shifts on USFS incidents. Been there and hate them myself. Much rather work a 24 on, 24 off as CalFire does. Pls note, this IS NOT a color of the uniform issue or a Motel issue. It’s a problem that has to be worked out by the upper Management folks. Pray for them, cause they don’t know what they are doing. Boots on the ground, Lets pls be civil and watch each others back this yr.
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Could get interesting.
Maybe R5 can offer up some of those nifty t shirts they keep talking about getting for everyone. Good grief.
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I dont get this at all. Cal Oes does a salary survey for a fire dept. Its what the feds pay on. Sometimes the feds make out. The pay is an average of costs. Many FD labor MOUs have roll ups for longevity, specialty pay etc. My point is Captain A may be a first year captain with no specialties making below the average on this fire and Captain B from same agency may be top step, plus specialty pay and longevity etc making more than the average. In the end washes out. How the heck are they going to do this based on exact costs.
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They want agencies to send them “canceled checks or payroll summaries” for each person on the F42.
42 USC 1856 Reciprocal Fire Protection Agreements is what the Forest Service is citing as there reasoning behind why their internal audit found issue with the current CFAA agreement.
exactly so if they pay a person less than whats on the 42 based on what i cited before is that what they are looking at? If they are they are missing the big picture here with pay averages. And they are really going to audit these? What a waste of taxpayer money paying someone to audit this. Its sad to see the lack of advancement in this arena with the feds over my career. I loved working for the agency but this BS is what really bogs them down. Not willing to pay their folks portal to portal.
They did it all ready. May LG Agencies have been asked to prove payment prior to being reimbursed for last season. They sent the agencies a list of personnel and submitted reimbursement amount they calculated and said basically prove it. You are correct with your earlier assessment and the longevity is a great example. Its a nickle and dime game.
Edit for auto correct
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Eventually this will cost the feds way more than the current system. When they can’t fill their IMT’s, and the public becomes outraged LG will be able to name their own price for anything!
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This kind of seems like a no brainer. If you are a small department that can’t front the reimbursement, don’t go to fed fires. If you are a large department that can front the reimbursement, don’t go to fed fire in support of the small departments. Things will change quickly when nobody shows up to their party.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
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Are you okay sharing the names of the departments?
It’s unfortunate because the ultimate loser will be the public who just want the fire burning in their backyard to be put out.
Most the time these large fires are unified with the state, so I would say it’s unlikely a mass protest stand-down would occur with state bushes burning. Cities and counties would step up. Not defending the Feds, just stating the obvious. Where the locals could pull back is from the fed IMTs.
I wonder if Calfire could still order these small department overhead, pay the small department bill and then bill the Feds back, potentially resolving the issue? Governor might direct that if the administration won’t resolve. Based on this past winters tweets about California wildfire cost and land management practices, I wouldn’t be too confident the administration will be in a hurry to resolve this quickly for Californians.
Should be interesting to see how this plays out. My uneducated guess is the Secretary will reply with something like we’re standing behind our audit and our documentation requirements.
November, 2020.
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A further clarification on what’s going on. https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article230474629.html
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I would not classify that as a clarification but an escalation.
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The audit was a direct result of Ghilarducci’s letter of complaint in 2017.
It’s very noble how OES advocates for the departments. With all the political attention this agreement and the issues are getting I won’t be surprised if/when OIG is obligated to conduct their own audit. That could have major implications to the departments that have been overpaid. Will OES support the departments financially when there are collections to be made or are they only there for moral support?
Where are you getting information that OIG is involved? OIG performs investigations.
They’re not involved. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes it to their radar now that Senators are writing about it.
The audit OIG did was in 2016. Still available on their website. It was pretty critical on R5 about the CFMA and CFAA.
Again, part of the problem feds are facing is they are seeing recently retired federal wildland folks now working for the “Podunk fire volunteer fire department” and wanting to NOW get paid portal to portal because that former IC or plans or ops chief in now a “battalion or division chief” with that department, in name only, truth be told. Albuquerque see’s the names being submitted for payment and knows some of these people were just on federal type 1 and type 2 teams before they just retired. And they know some of those people are just trying to get their piece of the pie. Not all, most are playing by the rules and doing their “16’s” or hour for hour the correct way.
But there are those out there that may be a chief officer for some fire department now who are “cooking the books”. Plain and simple. The former CAL OES chief knew that and was trying to reign in those who were scamming, but a lot of departments told him to back off. So now the feds are checking everyone past time slips before they will get paid. There’s nothing wrong with “trust but verify”. It worked for the US with Russia.
All I am saying is that there quite a few bad apples out there and the feds are trying to rein in costs. Can’t blame them if you see the big pictures. Now should they wait till next year, till they come up with a new contract/agreement, I don’t know! The feds have a right to protect the American tax payer now, not next year.
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While that may be a component of the issue, there are many smaller agencies throughout the State who will be negatively impacted as a result of this. Ultimately, it is the public in general who is harmed with higher suppression costs, more acres and structures lost, and above all safety for evacuations. I am all for trimming costs where feasible but what is the law of unintended consequences here?
Let me add one further element for consideration, as smaller agencies decline to send personnel, what is the impact to larger agencies stripping their resources and the impacts to their primary responsibilities?
And let’s not forget that the larger agencies are not an unending supply of experienced wildland fire personnel either as the report of the Ranch Fire burnover points out.
There is a fine balance between saving the taxpayer’s money, of which we are all in that category, vs. public safety and achieving fire suppression efforts. I am personally not convinced that the impacts of this type of an approach to saving money by having agencies proved their direct costs, ostensibly for a relatively few overhead and team positions, is going to outweigh the impacts to the containment objectives by reducing the pool of available line personnel and equipment.
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I wouldn’t call them bad apples. Ie Bad people or bad departments. Those who signed up follow the department pay rules. Enough said.
Feds over in Vallejo have been viewing the invoices for years, no problems with them for years. Feds processed the invoices. They complained in private Within Vallejo all these years, internally complained. Jealous they were not paid the same? Maybe.
If you shut down the small departments who sponsor many team members currently in Cali, you just collapsed 3-6 type 1 or 2 IMTS in Cali. If other departments in solidarity protest by removing their employees off Fed IMTs, you just collapsed the Fed Cali system completely and many in Vallejo who are not protected by civil service rules will be packing up there belongings.
Your move.
If Cali thinks they’re going to get relief on this, just go back and look at the mans tweets about Cali before, during and after the federal shutdown. Comes down to this for Cali departments. How do you fight fire? With fire.
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