Absolutely support Senator Sheehy's (R-Montana), Senator Padilla's (D-California) and other members of Congress introduced bipartisan bills to fix Firefighting conditions! These bills are Great! On a separate issue, the current Continuing Resolution (CR) is not what's known as a "Clean CR", which would be continuity of budget already approved by Congress. The CR now being considered changes the specific amounts allocated by Congress to large slush funds, which can then be reallocated by the Executive at will. There are no legal assurances amounts previously allocated to wildland firefighting would not end up in some other agency, or cut entirely. This is my understanding, so if it concerns you, please verify it for yourself.
Well said - In this CR, Congress is allocating moneys with few assurances the dollars will go where directed, or will even be spent at all. It's too bad we can't figure a way to pass the bi-partisan Bills discussed here on the show separately and permanently.
I hope as all this moves forward there is also some emphasis on some housing for people. The idea of pushing public funds into local communities was (and remains) a good idea, and it worked well for a long time.
But now there's a housing crunch and when you bring in your people in on a seasonal basis you're setting yourself up to compete with local people who themselves are struggling with cost of housing. (never mind eating into pretty low pay rates at an unsustainable level)
And this goes for all the staff, not just firefighters.
No reason we can't go back to the tidy cabins we used to have. God knows there's enough wood....
None of feds are gonna see the pay reflect our checks till July not until they have the mechanics figured out, that was put out today in an email!!!
And they already dropped our retention pay.
They were supposed to be ready to implement this immediately not a proposed 4 months later. Non of us can live on a 40% pay cut. Even if we’re back payed, cause that back pay is not gonna be bulk but gradually.
Absolutely support Senator Sheehy's (R-Montana), Senator Padilla's (D-California) and other members of Congress introduced bipartisan bills to fix Firefighting conditions! These bills are Great! On a separate issue, the current Continuing Resolution (CR) is not what's known as a "Clean CR", which would be continuity of budget already approved by Congress. The CR now being considered changes the specific amounts allocated by Congress to large slush funds, which can then be reallocated by the Executive at will. There are no legal assurances amounts previously allocated to wildland firefighting would not end up in some other agency, or cut entirely. This is my understanding, so if it concerns you, please verify it for yourself.
Well said - In this CR, Congress is allocating moneys with few assurances the dollars will go where directed, or will even be spent at all. It's too bad we can't figure a way to pass the bi-partisan Bills discussed here on the show separately and permanently.
I hope as all this moves forward there is also some emphasis on some housing for people. The idea of pushing public funds into local communities was (and remains) a good idea, and it worked well for a long time.
But now there's a housing crunch and when you bring in your people in on a seasonal basis you're setting yourself up to compete with local people who themselves are struggling with cost of housing. (never mind eating into pretty low pay rates at an unsustainable level)
And this goes for all the staff, not just firefighters.
No reason we can't go back to the tidy cabins we used to have. God knows there's enough wood....
None of feds are gonna see the pay reflect our checks till July not until they have the mechanics figured out, that was put out today in an email!!!
And they already dropped our retention pay.
They were supposed to be ready to implement this immediately not a proposed 4 months later. Non of us can live on a 40% pay cut. Even if we’re back payed, cause that back pay is not gonna be bulk but gradually.
👍good up date👍