In his ongoing efforts to support wildland firefighters, U.S. Senator Jon Tester yesterday backed the bipartisan Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act to preserve competitive pay for wildland firefighters.
As part of his 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Tester championed $600 million in temporary pay boosts for wildland firefighters, but these pay increases — for more than 10,000 Forest Service and DOI firefighters — will expire at the end of this fiscal year. The temporary raise boosted firefighter pay by $20,000 — or 50 percent of annual base salary, whichever was lower — and that funding runs out at the end of September. The IIJA, known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on November 15, 2021. About 16,000 federal firefighters received the temporary raises, according to Fed Manager.
“This is a welcome down payment on a sorely needed continuous investment in our federal wildland fire workforce. Wildfires will continue to impact millions of people across the U.S., and we need to ensure we have wildland firefighters to respond whenever the call is made.”
~ Riva Duncan, vice president, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters
Tester and other members of Congress plan to extend those pay raises and improve recruitment and retention. The new pay scale is more than the GS pay scale under which federal employees are paid. This not only creates a new hourly pay rate and overtime pay rate for wildland firefighters, but it will also be used for their retirement calculations. Currently applicable pay premiums (such as hazard pay and Sunday differential) would still apply.
The new bill requires the Forest Service and the DOI agencies to distribute daily pay supplements to employees when they are working on long-duration wildfires, working on prescribed fires, or deployed away from their duty station for pre-positioning. The daily pay supplement is determined by multiplying one hour of an employee’s basic pay by 4.5 and payments are capped at approximately $160 per day and $9,000 per year.
A bipartisan group led by Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado has now written to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee urging swift consideration of the bill.
“Firefighters deserve fair pay, support for their mental and physical health, and time to recover from their dangerous work. In a future with increasingly catastrophic wildfires, Congress cannot wait to ensure that the federal government has the necessary workforce to protect communities,” they wrote.
“Montana’s wildland firefighters put their lives on the line to protect our communities and public lands, and the least we can do is ensure fair and competitive pay for the work they do,” said Tester. He added that firefighters should be fairly compensated for the dangerous work they do. “This bipartisan bill will make that compensation permanent, and I’ll be fighting to get it across the finish line in Congress.” Tester chairs the Congressional Fire Services Caucus.
This new bill would make the temporary pay raise permanent. The Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act that was introduced yesterday would codify a base pay raise for those frontline responders. According to the Federal News Network, this new bill came after months of calls from advocacy groups. Though it’s not as comprehensive as Tim’s Act, it’s a good start. “Well, to say we aren’t disappointed that more reforms weren’t included in this bill wouldn’t be truthful,” said Riva Duncan. “But we have to remind ourselves how far we’ve come to get to where we are today. Now the ball is in the legislators’ hands for the WFPPA, and we will continue to remind them to do the right thing for the federal fire management workforce.”
“As climate change brings longer fire seasons and more extreme fire behavior across the West, we must remain steadfast in our commitment to wildland fire preparedness and response,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau during a visit to Montana. “Through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are strengthening our wildfire response efforts, providing increased certainty to allow land managers to better prepare for future needs, and ensuring our wildland firefighting workforce is given the respect, compensation, and training support they deserve.”
“It is critical that Congress passes this legislation as soon as possible,” said NFFE National President Randy Erwin. “If the provisions within this law do not pass by September 30, federal wildland firefighters will endure a pay cliff of a 50 percent cut to their base pay up to $20,000. If this happens, a mass exodus will begin that may be impossible to stop. Thankfully, there is a tremendous amount of bipartisan support for the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act. In addition to continuing existing practices on pay, the bill recognizes the 24/7 working life of wildland firefighters while on assignment, and it calls attention to the burnout and exhaustion that these firefighters experience throughout the year.”
The full text of the bill is [HERE].
I think people are arguing points with accurate info. We’re just looking from different angles. We need to look at the portions of this Bill separately.
Basic Pay, we went from 50%/20G’s to this newly proposed percentage in S.2272. I’m not ignoring the fact that we’re currently getting a supplement. The lawyers shredded its true intent. Is S.2272 better than pre-BIL? Absolutely, especially with it being permanent and the increases to OT, HZ, retirement calcs. The question is, will it address pay disparities? Fact is it’s a decrease from what was determined to close the pay disparity gap two years ago.
New Daily Supplement. In a nutshell it’s the portal to portal. At least the 50% of 9 hours off the clock proposal. It needs to stay separate from filling the gap of the 50%/20G’s.
Something is better than nothing, but I believe we deserve more. I also believe what we’re asking for is fair. Still a long way to go before any of this Bill becomes a reality. Or maybe “if” is the better word.
I don’t understand why you’re ignoring OT and H pay. They will increase along with the base pay if this bill passes. To say that someone would have to work 55 days on assignment to increase their pay by $20k from what we had been paid previously is not correct. After 55 days on assignment (assuming 15 hour days and counting the additional base pay for the whole year) a GS6/5 would be about $25,500 ahead of where they would be without this bill and $5,500 ahead of where they’d be under the current retention incentive.
I’m not arguing if this bill is doing enough to fix some of the problems we have in the agency (frankly I think there’s a deeper rot in the agency but I don’t have enough space here for that rant). I do think people should be arguing their points with accurate information and the fact is that for most people going on two 14 day assignments will get them pretty close to $20k on top of what they would have previously made.
Couldnt agree more Forestry Tech
“Caping the daily supplement pay is as bad as the purposed sliding pay scale. It’s degrading to those of us moving into supervisory positions and those who take on the most responsibility/liability for this agency.
However, these changes could potentially be enough to slow the mass exodus to Cal Fire and are greatly appreciated by those of us who are still here.
But more important than a potential pay raise, with all the burning we are going to be expected to do, how in a world where the federal government requires a cancer label on anything sold out of a card board box, are we not going to be entitled to hazard pay for prescribed fire?
Speaking as a cancer survivor with an approved presumptive occupational illness.”
the fact that prescribed fire is paid the same as sitting in an office is insane. I regularly wade through hip deep snow over tons of obstacles shooting a flamethrower doing fuels treatments for the exact same pay as doing my charge card statements in the office.
OT and Hazard pay have gone from incentives for going above and beyond, to necessary work needed to keep food on your table.
Thanks for proofing my math, I did fail to use the updated base pay rate when figuring incident premium pay. Still, to make up the difference in the pay cut using just the incident premium pay requires 55 days away. I was trying to illustrate the difference without counting any overtime to compare what we are losing to what we are getting.
Just for the record a GS-6 step 5 wouldn’t need to work 69 days on assignment under the new bill to equal the current temporary retention incentive.
Under the current plan their base bay would go up by about $12,850. Thus they’re about $7,150 short of the current temporary retention incentive.
Since this is a new base rate it also affects overtime and hazard pay rates. A GS6/5’s overtime would increase by about $9.24/hour, hazard pay increase adds another $1.54 for a total of $10.78 in additional H+OT pay. The new “incident response premium pay adds another $130.41/day (with a cap of $9000 = to 69 days).
Assuming a 15 hour work day the these add up to about $1600 extra per week. This means it will take a GS6/5 about 32 days (approximately 285 hours of OT) to get the additional pay up to $20k.
I’m with Biscuit. This is half a carrot being dangled in front of us. The chance to truly fix the problems keeps getting kicked down the road.
I think my self a 13 year GS7 am calling it September 30th. The motto: nobody cares work harder has gotten me this far but I’m done missing birthdays. My 3 kids are going to have and know their father. I’ll work at a Mill if I can’t get on with a state agency. Idc anymore.
Amen to Biscuits:
“Thank you for reporting on this important issue. I do take issue with the wording of the article though.
It says “This new bill would make the temporary pay raise permanent.” It doesn’t. It implements a new scale whereby, as an example, a GS-6 step 5 PFT employee takes a $7100 pay cut from today’s pay with the BIL retention incentive. If they spend 69 days away from their families on fires, they can make up that difference with the incident response pay. When talking about life/work balance and a living wage, thats a pretty stark contrast.
Granted, this bill, if congress even passes it, is an improvement over what we had 3 years ago. But it doesn’t go very far in making up the salary gap between federal agencies and the leading state and municipal agencies. I’ve been out as a fed, training someone from a municipal agency, who made twice what i did as a base salary and also got portal to portal where I got nothing for the hours i was off shift. Even if it becomes law, which is uncertain, this will do little to solve the staffing problems we are facing in this industry, and really only goes to highlight the lack of comprehension among those in the WO and congress. Perhaps when fires are burning on the doorsteps of their second homes and nobody can be found to go save them, they will understand. I can no longer in good faith encourage people to pursue a career in this field with the federal government given the lack of meaningful support or understanding of the issues from DC.”
Well, I’m a lead on a crew. I like it! The incident pay supplement seems unnecessarily complicated but it leaves the door open to 16s, which is a plus. The 36hr provision kinda incentivizes dragging out IAs, but oh well.
Ultimately, you gotta fight the fire where it’s at and when it’s burning, and even if you’re doing fuels work you gotta go where the fuels are. Nobody wants to leave home for free, being on the road will always pay better than staying home. I don’t think there’s really any way around the chase for OT in the industry, except personal frugality.
Thank you for reporting on this important issue. I do take issue with the wording of the article though.
It says “This new bill would make the temporary pay raise permanent.” It doesn’t. It implements a new scale whereby, as an example, a GS-6 step 5 PFT employee takes a $7100 pay cut from today’s pay with the BIL retention incentive. If they spend 69 days away from their families on fires, they can make up that difference with the incident response pay. When talking about life/work balance and a living wage, thats a pretty stark contrast.
Granted, this bill, if congress even passes it, is an improvement over what we had 3 years ago. But it doesn’t go very far in making up the salary gap between federal agencies and the leading state and municipal agencies. I’ve been out as a fed, training someone from a municipal agency, who made twice what i did as a base salary and also got portal to portal where I got nothing for the hours i was off shift. Even if it becomes law, which is uncertain, this will do little to solve the staffing problems we are facing in this industry, and really only goes to highlight the lack of comprehension among those in the WO and congress. Perhaps when fires are burning on the doorsteps of their second homes and nobody can be found to go save them, they will understand. I can no longer in good faith encourage people to pursue a career in this field with the federal government given the lack of meaningful support or understanding of the issues from DC.
From reading the bill the new incident response pay was capped at $450 per day, which makes only the GS Fantastics above 13 bump into that, though you’d hit the $9k annual cap in two rolls.
It’s seems like an OK bill, there will be issues. Wonder what the boots on the ground – Captains and below think? Is it enough, will it be enough to live on? Will we start filling and maintaining employees?
I am skeptical and think congress will f it up.
What does this mean exactly? They will receive the 160 per day and they will also see a real bump in their GS hourly? This looks like a real step in the right direction. Will this Bill be passed before the end of the FY…
Congress is about to go out of session. Not returning until early September….Maybe this thing is nearly done……Hope so…
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/2023_schedule.htm
Call your congress folks….call them 10 times a days…….
Caping the daily supplement pay is as bad as the purposed sliding pay scale. It’s degrading to those of us moving into supervisory positions and those who take on the most responsibility/liability for this agency.
However, these changes could potentially be enough to slow the mass exodus to Cal Fire and are greatly appreciated by those of us who are still here.
But more important than a potential pay raise, with all the burning we are going to be expected to do, how in a world where the federal government requires a cancer label on anything sold out of a card board box, are we not going to be entitled to hazard pay for prescribed fire?
Speaking as a cancer survivor with an approved presumptive occupational illness.
The new bill requires the Forest Service and the DOI agencies to distribute daily pay supplements to employees when they are working on long-duration wildfires, working on prescribed fires, or deployed away from their duty station for pre-positioning. The daily pay supplement is determined by multiplying one hour of an employee’s basic pay by 4.5 and payments are capped at approximately $160 per day and $9,000 per year.
We’ll see how the leadership comprehends the above. We’ll be seeing clowning around like we did we COVID money…garoooonteeed