Sponsors (16)
Official title: To reform and enhance the pay and benefits of Federal wildland firefighters, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 28, 2025 by Joseph Neguse · Last progress January 28, 2025
The bill substantially improves pay, retirement, health, and survivor supports for federal wildland and structural firefighters—boosting recruitment, retention, and safety—but does so at materially higher federal cost and with significant implementation, eligibility, and administrative complexities that could produce uneven access and new out-of-pocket burdens for some workers.
Federal wildland (USDA, DOI, and Tribal) and covered Forest Service firefighters receive large, broad pay and premium increases (higher special base pay up to ~+42% at lower GS levels, large deployment premium, CPI-linked annual raises, recruitment/retention bonus, and expanded hazard pay eligibility), substantially raising take-home pay and improving recruitment/retention.
Current and former federal firefighters gain stronger retirement and pension protections (credit for qualifying prior service, overtime treated as basic pay for annuities, preservation of hazardous-duty status for those who moved to supervisory roles), increasing future annuities and preserving retirement benefits.
Federal wildland firefighters and their families get expanded health and safety supports (unlimited culturally informed mental health services and peer support, 7 days paid mental health leave annually, expedited OWCP coverage for PTSD and stress injuries, lifetime disease tracking database, and extended disease presumption period), improving access to care and long-term monitoring.
Taxpayers and the federal budget will face substantial additional recurring and upfront costs (higher base pay, premium pay, CPI-linked raises, bonuses, housing allowances, expanded mental-health services and databases, and increased retirement liabilities), increasing federal personnel spending.
Individual firefighters who want retroactive retirement credit may have to pay unpaid employee deductions/deposits plus interest and meet election deadlines, imposing potentially substantial out-of-pocket costs and risking loss of credit for those who miss deadlines or cannot pay.
Significant implementation and administrative burden on OPM, agency payrolls, and employing agencies (new pay systems, reporting, recordkeeping, and outreach) could delay benefits, create costly transitions, and increase agency workload.
Based on analysis of 20 sections of legislative text.
Creates a new wildland firefighter pay scale, premium pay and bonuses, survivor assistance, retirement/health presumptions, mental-health leave and services, and exposure tracking.
Creates a permanent package of pay, benefits, leave, health, mental-health, retirement credit, survivor assistance, and pay-exception authorities for Federal wildland firefighters and certain related personnel. It establishes a distinct wildland firefighter pay scale and recurring cost-of-living adjustments, authorizes incident response premium pay and special pay treatment, requires paid rest and mental-health leave, creates a survivor assistance program, expands medical and disability presumptions and tracking for occupational cancer and cardiovascular disease, and provides recruitment/retention bonuses, housing allowances for deployments, and tuition assistance.