One small step in the right direction for fair pay and benefit to federal wildland firefighters is to ask for your House Rep. to support this bill:
Federal Retirement Fairness Act
it’s a bill to buy back our seasonal time. I know this is a bit off topic from CFAA, but it has kind of gone down this rabbit trail in this thread too.
You’re spot on aj.
And just speaking as a player in both the CA and AZ sandbox, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management (why the name was not changed to ‘fire protection’, I will never know) have also spoken with the AZ LG fire agencies regarding the reimbursement on California Fed incidents.
Many of the AZ LG fire agencies have stated (per the ADFFM rep) that they will more than likely not take an out of state assignment to California.
It is just not a matter of IMT positions being UTF. The safety of everyone working in the operations side maybe compromised. The FS does not have an Advanced Life Support program or even enough providers to fill the EMPF and EMTF positions that are supplied by CA local government agencies. Add in REMS and other tech specialist, and the Line Guy is on on their own.
I agree JB. It’s way beyond just overhead. Arguably the most important aspect of CFAA are LG Strike Teams. My guess is they will probably still be able to get them, however reluctantly. Volly engines could probably stand down because of the unknown and the financial mess this could cause to a small department.
It’s all about Communications and providing any new documents and the answers needed to ensure payment.
Clueless. Truly clueless.
The longer the FS drags their feet on this, the weaker their bargaining power will be once the current contract expires in Dec. They are rapidly losing any willingness to negotiate or compromise by the agencies and decision makers who they will need to come to the table for a new contract. Very, very short sighted
I suspect a few understaffed fires due to lack of compensation ought to get politicians making noise real fast.
The slow season, unfortunately, has not pushed this issue to the forefront.
Like Ltrees said COMT-42580, You can be a AD for a forest or GACC and they will take care of all your pay. You do not be attached to a LG agency. The Forest will get you a Plane ticket and/or rental car if needed. So go forth and communicate…
Attached is a 2017 document between FS Washington office and CAL OES. It is talking about the same issues both agencies are talking about now. The Feds offered a quicker way to speed up payment, on line, instead of paper, but CAL OES never came up with a way to make this happen. It also talks about 9 agencies charging for “admin fees” that are not allowed. Anyone what to take a shot on some of these agencies? And no they are not state agencies, but LG/VFD.
So this problem is not new. Part of the blame is on CAL OES for not stepping up their due diligence to speed up the repayment process. Part is on the FS for trying to re-negotiate a contact mid stream. They have a right to defend their payments to assisting agencies, but this could have been done prior to start of 2019 fire year. So both parties have screwed up by not fixing the problem when they had the chance.
In the 2017 document is talks about showing documentation for salaries paid to get reimbursed. They are talking about former feds team members who retire, join a volunteer or small LG fire department that is “friendly” to ex-feds, gave them the rank of BC or DC and then they expect the feds to reimburse that VFD at a higher rate, and then then that local VFD/LG FD wanted the feds to pay a admin fee for those employees yet they never got paid at that rate while attached to those agencies. It was those agencies cooking the books, who the FS was going after. Bring on 2019 and my contacts tell me it is still a issue. Chief Kim Zagaris who just recently retired from CAL OES was trying to correct those type of issues for the last several years but was was not getting much support from those LG/VFD’s. It was a money maker…
So this in not all the feds fault. Maybe the feds got tired of being blown off. Maybe is was CAL OES not helping themselves by creating a online billing program to speed up the process. You knows. But this should have been resolved prior to Fire Year 2019…
An AD COMT makes 25 an hour. Overtime is already factored into that cost. It’s a flat 25 per hour for all hours worked. Basically the AD Pay Plan says a qualified COMT is worth about 18-20 per hour.
Forest Service Region-5 and probably some other regions haven’t allowed AD’s to use the rental car agreement for the past two years. Some units may still do this under the radar or by ignorance. Rent your own and your own insurance. They do allow an AD to check a vehicle out at Ground Support if they have a gov license.
The squeeze is not just for LG Responders. The appearance is they want everyone to be discouraged from participating with large fire management. Good luck with that.
Tidwell writes in his letter about establishing more local agreements away from OES. Maybe that’s the answer. However didn’t the Forest Service go away from mobilizing overhead using local agreements a few years ago because they discovered they have no authority to mobilize overhead outside of response area on a local agreement?
Well…CA looks like it is in a bit of a mess…please indulge me…
Wildfires and emergency operations in CA are very expensive, just a fact. All you have to ask yourself is why are there so many Hotshots in CA when compared to our entire nation. We are just busy!
Double dippers that receive a retirement and find another agency to work for are everywhere in Government, including our Region Office. Yes, agencies receive additional money for administration and contractors receive similar benefits. Read a few contracts or shepherd a couple…we don’t sign the contracts we only follow them and represent our agencies.
Qualified personnel that are available and committed are getting harder and harder to find. In fact Agency Administrators seem relieved when a team arrives so their host personnel are not negatively impacted from their regular duties. Personnel hiring’s and necessary positions continue to be unfilled and transient in nature.
The federal government pays the lions share of fire suppression in CA. FMAGS, FEMA, forests, grants and the entire CalFire airforce are ponied up by the federal government, lots of federal dollars are supporting our state and local efforts. I am not sure about bankruptcy and federal protection of business and utilities but I would guess the federal government would have a hand in keeping PG&E’s solvent.
Is there room for improvement in cost reduction and fiscal continence? Yes, certainly. Take a look at a cost breakdown of large fires, personnel is not the biggest slice of the pie. Battling over rental vehicles and the CFAA agreement is fodder for a larger problem. If there is interest in reducing costs then we need to look at the whole enchilada! Can we cut costs? If we cut costs what are we sacrificing? We tend to slowly creep into corners that we can’t easily escape.
Unfortunately we never seem to get to the core of the issue. I am not sure if anyone really knows anymore. We have several groups that meet with equal representation. I submit that a better job could be done understanding the impacts of individual agency initiatives before the board approves the direction for all participants.
Unfortunately, I believe, that the business of protecting resources and serving the public has transitioned from a noble endeavor to a personal blinded focus. Our issues and improvements must be for the greater good and not personal on the part of a few personnel.
Can the collective administrations take a chapter from “our” training? What is your intent? What are your objectives? Can you set a realistic timeline? What the heck do you really want?
This is a very complex issue that needs demonstrated leadership at the top so that it does not erode what many of us have toiled to create for years, operational cooperation and effectiveness.
CM I think you hit the bullseye. Very hard to roll back pay, and with the hourly wage increases calculated portal to portal as much as most love their job and are devoted to their duty the large compensation has become a large part of the game. As you said supply and demand is also a problem, decades ago everyone was itching to go now only when convenient.
If the Forest Service valued the work of the 5-10 fire departments that hire retirees they would get representatives from these departments in a room with OES and negotiate this to an end. Could be done in 3-4 days. Same with volunteers who mainly staff engines. You could negotiate that cost per hour by region for both of them. All it takes is the will to make this work.
Forest Service would continue to get responders with a high level of experience. Most likely at a lower cost. Everyone would walk away ready to go.
I don’t think they value them. Even though the letters pushed that type of praise, I think they want to crush those 5-10 departments. Scare them with potential violations of law.
I can’t figure out why. Jealousy? Pride? Get even? I don’t know. However what I do know is that the Forest Service is stepping in it each day. They’re making a mockery of themselves, building enemies and isolating themselves with sister federal agencies.
I don’t think this is about cutting cost. Everyone knows fighting fire is expensive.
This is about reimbursement of ACTUAL costs.
Did departments really pay x amount to the employee or are they making profit? Prove it.
Did the department really incur backfill costs? Show the paying agency where.
Are those employees really BCs or are they supplemental?
I don’t understand why so many have an issue with THEIR federal government taking steps to ensure THEIR tax dollars are appropriately spent.
My department keeps all those records on actual costs and tracks backfills. The oes/fed payment system that is currently establish has been in existence for years. How do you reimburse a volunteer department when they have no actually employee expense? Should they leave there regular job and go to a forest service fire for free? All the volunteer department is doing is creating an invoice based on the agreement the forest service signed.
It’s not about cheating the federal government. It’s about following the federal governments rules and regulations in an agreement the Feds signed and told us to follow. We just said, ok.
I still believe representatives can get in a room and solve this in a week. Why hasn’t that happened?
Just saw email USFS going to follow agreement this year, work on changes for next years new agreement
Good news there
I need to make a point, this IS NOT aimed at the boots on the ground folks. It’s aimed at the management folks in the big Ivory towers…
ok. I’m from the USFS. Don’t you trust me? NO I DON’T!
5 yrs ago the USFS fought the battle of NOT to pay portal to portal. Just when they thought they won that one they found out that due to previous union contracts and previous pay practices they had to pay Calfire and local Gov. Portal to portal anyway. Boy oh boy were they pissed! What comes next? Your guess is as good as mine but, I still don’t trust em. The next 5 yr agreement meetings will be interesting.
So, Let the battle begin in the big office upstairs and if you wear yellow, blue or even green, lets hang tight out there on the fire lines.