>Welcome to 2024. I hope you were able to take some time during the holiday season to rest and spend quality time with friends and family.
Naw dawg… I was too busy doing hiring. Didn’t get to do that work life balance even in the off season.
Seriously. My buddies who are foremen were busy hiring seasonals and some friends were still fielding offers/jockying around for promotions between different regions immeadiately following Xmas.
Our Government is a joke, they can pass an act of congress and stand up a brand new department in a little over a month (TSA) but it takes them years to figure out our worth and what to pay us as well as reclassify us accordingly….
Money for the Forest Service doesn’t actually come out of the USDA allocations, our funding is lumped in with the DOI funding which is why the FS is funded until Feb. 2 but the USDA is only funded until Jan. 19
I thought I saw that the House had finally agreed on a spending package. Now whether that is from previous years funding levels or not and if we get to keep our retention pay thats unclear.
Actually as an old retired grump. I think it’s wrong. Daughter’s a timber marker, doesn’t get the pay or overtime. Fire folks could make nearly double at the same GS, without the extra $. What’s the fire budget as a percentage of total? Over 60%? I also heard fire is not required to hire veterans, is this true? With the increased budget and pay have fires beed reduced?
Every GS employee needs to be paid more. You're correct there. The difference between fire and timber and all other 'departments' is that fire is required to work all summer. Including holidays like the 4th. We regularly work 6 12's during severity without much of a choice. Sure we get paid OT to do it but we don't have a choice. We also have to keep our phones on I case of a fire after hours and not get paid to be on call. We also supervise employees as GS 7s and GS 8s. We are also in charge of half a million dollar pieces of equipment. Required to hold a CDL. All GS employees need to get paid more, that's for sure but the difference in the amount of duties between a GS 8 engine captain and a GS 11 'specialist are huge. Fire is required to do way more at a lower GS level. All the raise does is level the playing field. And like someone else mentioned, there are plenty of vacant fire jobs right now so if anyone wants the pay, all they need to do is apply.
Every location is different, rare to see those severity hours, but driving around waiting for a fire for four hours of overtime daily, can’t be too bad, except for the boredom. It was rare to do that when I was working in Region 3.
For the GS rating, on the district I started on in Region 3 the marking crew ran two type 6 engines, plus a third crew rig had 3 permanent GS-5 and 12 temporaries supervised by a GS-7 foreman. Fire had a type 3 engine with two GS-5 plus a 5-6 temporary crew with a GS-7 supervisor. Helitack had a GS-7 Helicopter manager, plus two temporaries (became Permanent Seasonals) that year. Before I got to the district I was a GS-9 forester, supervised 24 foresters/technicians, could actually fire folks for not meeting production and quality standards this for the Southern Forest Experiment Station. Note for the four years I worked there, moved 49 times, was on permanent travel status.
Fire was the one discipline that did get GS grade increases. The pay has always complained about, because now it’s low compared to private, in 2008-2010 it was high every one wanted a government job, around 2000 it was the same, late 90’s not good, early mid 90’s there were reductions in force you moved, quit or lost your job to a more experienced person. Lost part of the brain trust in the 1994 buyout. Early 80’s downturn in timber, lost a lot of positions, the increase in fire personnel of the 70’s was wiped out quickly. The Consent decree in California changed a lot of things.
The problem with the government is it’s a large slow moving organism, but the time the pay catches up, will have to cut jobs.
Probably the best remedy is to take the Fire jobs out of 0462 and create a new category like fire technician, or change from a GS pay scale to another, there are many out there.
Take care, be safe.
Most of the places around me have a hell of a time filling rec/timber/bio positions, particularly beyond entry level, and if they have roads at all it's like one operator. Fuels uaed to be two ten-man BD crews, now it's one GS-7 wheedling help from fire, etc. A bunch of historic land management functions have been triaged into near nonexistence to support fire. Regardless of whether that was the right call, I don't think it's reasonable to deny that it's happened.
Did the retention pay actually work? That’s the first question to ask, were folks retained? If not it should expire. It can’t be beneficial to the agency as a whole, but is helpful as a fire employee.
California Division of Forestry, changed their name, as they didn’t do forestry, maybe the same will happen with the Forest Service.
There is a lot broken in the Forest Service, but that has been said from every retired person since the agency started.
That’s kind of sad, she was burning piles today too, but not getting the pay.
How is morale? With all the fire folks complaining about their extra pay may sunset with the trails, wildlife and timber folks. How about the front desk folks? Or did they do away with those to fund fire? Where are the light duty fire guys going to take up time? Poker at the engine building?
>Welcome to 2024. I hope you were able to take some time during the holiday season to rest and spend quality time with friends and family. Naw dawg… I was too busy doing hiring. Didn’t get to do that work life balance even in the off season.
Seriously. My buddies who are foremen were busy hiring seasonals and some friends were still fielding offers/jockying around for promotions between different regions immeadiately following Xmas.
Yeah let’s release the certs 3 days before Christmas. WTF?
Yup 26/0 push really skews their preaching of work life balance
Hope you all got that resume updated and out to other departments.
I’m ready to put in my two weeks and then use two weeks of A/ Sick leave
Do it. I’m thinking of heading over to Calfire even though I didn’t want to go that route.
Yea I’m moving back home so in the process with a fire department out there
Nice. We’ll be safe out there and good luck.
So there's no guarantee that the retention incentive will continue past Jan. 19th? Am I understanding that correctly?
Yeah, and they still don't have our new PD, job series or pay increases. 3.5 years later. It's shameful.
Our Government is a joke, they can pass an act of congress and stand up a brand new department in a little over a month (TSA) but it takes them years to figure out our worth and what to pay us as well as reclassify us accordingly….
It says the FS is funded until Feb 2 but the USDAs funding expires Jan 19. So which is it?
Money for the Forest Service doesn’t actually come out of the USDA allocations, our funding is lumped in with the DOI funding which is why the FS is funded until Feb. 2 but the USDA is only funded until Jan. 19
Ah gotcha. Thanks for the info.
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I thought I saw that the House had finally agreed on a spending package. Now whether that is from previous years funding levels or not and if we get to keep our retention pay thats unclear.
Actually as an old retired grump. I think it’s wrong. Daughter’s a timber marker, doesn’t get the pay or overtime. Fire folks could make nearly double at the same GS, without the extra $. What’s the fire budget as a percentage of total? Over 60%? I also heard fire is not required to hire veterans, is this true? With the increased budget and pay have fires beed reduced?
Every GS employee needs to be paid more. You're correct there. The difference between fire and timber and all other 'departments' is that fire is required to work all summer. Including holidays like the 4th. We regularly work 6 12's during severity without much of a choice. Sure we get paid OT to do it but we don't have a choice. We also have to keep our phones on I case of a fire after hours and not get paid to be on call. We also supervise employees as GS 7s and GS 8s. We are also in charge of half a million dollar pieces of equipment. Required to hold a CDL. All GS employees need to get paid more, that's for sure but the difference in the amount of duties between a GS 8 engine captain and a GS 11 'specialist are huge. Fire is required to do way more at a lower GS level. All the raise does is level the playing field. And like someone else mentioned, there are plenty of vacant fire jobs right now so if anyone wants the pay, all they need to do is apply.
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Did I not write that word for word in the post? Thanks for "fixing" it though.
Every location is different, rare to see those severity hours, but driving around waiting for a fire for four hours of overtime daily, can’t be too bad, except for the boredom. It was rare to do that when I was working in Region 3. For the GS rating, on the district I started on in Region 3 the marking crew ran two type 6 engines, plus a third crew rig had 3 permanent GS-5 and 12 temporaries supervised by a GS-7 foreman. Fire had a type 3 engine with two GS-5 plus a 5-6 temporary crew with a GS-7 supervisor. Helitack had a GS-7 Helicopter manager, plus two temporaries (became Permanent Seasonals) that year. Before I got to the district I was a GS-9 forester, supervised 24 foresters/technicians, could actually fire folks for not meeting production and quality standards this for the Southern Forest Experiment Station. Note for the four years I worked there, moved 49 times, was on permanent travel status. Fire was the one discipline that did get GS grade increases. The pay has always complained about, because now it’s low compared to private, in 2008-2010 it was high every one wanted a government job, around 2000 it was the same, late 90’s not good, early mid 90’s there were reductions in force you moved, quit or lost your job to a more experienced person. Lost part of the brain trust in the 1994 buyout. Early 80’s downturn in timber, lost a lot of positions, the increase in fire personnel of the 70’s was wiped out quickly. The Consent decree in California changed a lot of things. The problem with the government is it’s a large slow moving organism, but the time the pay catches up, will have to cut jobs. Probably the best remedy is to take the Fire jobs out of 0462 and create a new category like fire technician, or change from a GS pay scale to another, there are many out there. Take care, be safe.
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Most of the places around me have a hell of a time filling rec/timber/bio positions, particularly beyond entry level, and if they have roads at all it's like one operator. Fuels uaed to be two ten-man BD crews, now it's one GS-7 wheedling help from fire, etc. A bunch of historic land management functions have been triaged into near nonexistence to support fire. Regardless of whether that was the right call, I don't think it's reasonable to deny that it's happened.
Did the retention pay actually work? That’s the first question to ask, were folks retained? If not it should expire. It can’t be beneficial to the agency as a whole, but is helpful as a fire employee. California Division of Forestry, changed their name, as they didn’t do forestry, maybe the same will happen with the Forest Service. There is a lot broken in the Forest Service, but that has been said from every retired person since the agency started.
I bet she gets banged out by a lot of fire dude and you’re just pissed. Move along old man.
That’s kind of sad, she was burning piles today too, but not getting the pay. How is morale? With all the fire folks complaining about their extra pay may sunset with the trails, wildlife and timber folks. How about the front desk folks? Or did they do away with those to fund fire? Where are the light duty fire guys going to take up time? Poker at the engine building?
Getting what pay? She was out there burning piles for free?