Briefing Paper

Can someone tell me what they mean by "reserve" employee in this briefing paper? Are they
saying to allow Fed employees to be a "reserve" for the Local Fire departments? Or do they
want to change the agreements lowering the rate the Feds will pay for LG employees, hence
asking the LG to violate its union contract? Any thoughts?

In any event, heads up LG employees, something is in the air.

Signed,

What are they talking about?
_______________________________________

USDA Forest Service
Fire and Aviation Management
Briefing Paper

Date: November 6, 2008

Topic: Forest level agreements with Local Fire departments

Issue: Local Fire Departments signing up people solely for the purpose of providing them for Federal emergency response at high rates and/or overhead.

Background: Over the past several years, incident responder pay equity has become an issue. Costs of some state and local resources have escalated, while AD rates do not include allowances for hazard or overtime pay. This situation has encouraged skilled resources to seek out higher rates of pay through other then the traditional methods of hire.

Several Local Fire departments have established programs to sign-up qualified resources as “reserves” to be dispatched to Federal assignments under agreements between a local fire department and a national forest or other federal office. These agreements cover all aspects of partner relationships for wildland fire prevention, detection and suppression.

Key Points: In reviewing a number of Local Agreements and Annual Operating Plans, there are a variety of pay rates, overhead rates, backfill, and methods of pay (hours worked vs portal to portal).

• Average rates being paid to reserves by some local FDs are significantly higher than regular agency employees
• OH rates ranging from 10-25% are added to the salary rates
• Some agreements also add liability and FICA to the OH rate – additional 16+%
• No standard exists for how these employees are listed in ROSS; often it is not known by whom or how a resource is being paid.
• Resources are being signed up outside the local area of the FD, making it unclear which office is responsible for dispatching them.

Proposed Actions: Allow local Federal land management offices to include “reserve” employees for dispatch in local agreements but establish standards and controls for the following:

• Require “reserve” resources to be paid on an as-worked basis; no portal to portal.
• Provide definition of “reserve” resource so that a consistent application is applied.
• Establish standard rates for reserve employees, using GS tables w/locality applied.
• Develop reduced overhead rate for “reserve” employees.
• Do not allow backfill for “reserve” employees.
• Develop a standard format for local agreements; decouple from Local Fire protection agreements.
• Require national review of local agreements that utilize SU funding & provide responders as part of the national resource pool.
• Re-evaluate AD rates
• Develop standard ROSS & dispatch protocol for management of “reserve” employees

All of the proposed actions have been tasked by NWCG to the Incident Business Practices Working Team for development. They will be responding in February 2009 with implementation dates in April 2009.

Contact: <snip>

Ab note: Originally typos with lo CalFire: I think "Lo CalFire" is a spellchecker correction of "local fire" or LG ("local government" fire). With this correction the memo makes much more sense.

Reserve employees are also called Supplemental (not ADs).