HR743-119

What This Bill Does

Tim's Act creates a dedicated wildland firefighter compensation and benefits structure. It defines federal wildland firefighters to include temporary, seasonal, and permanent Agriculture Department, Interior Department, and Tribal Firefighter positions that maintain incident qualifications and primarily engage in or support wildland fire management, including forestry, rangeland, aviation, heavy equipment, dispatch, fire and fuels, and related technical roles. It replaces regular General Schedule base rates with special base rates for GS-1 through GS-15, increasing GS-1 by 42 percent and stepping down to 1.5 percent at GS-15, and requires generally consistent prevailing-rate increases. It creates incident response premium pay for qualifying wildfire incidents, premium-pay cap relief for emergency suppression, paid rest and recuperation leave after qualifying incidents, health programs including a cancer and cardiovascular disease database, mental-health services, seven days of annual mental-health leave, OWCP recognition of PTSD and psychological stress injuries, retirement credit and disability reforms, structural-firefighter pay parity review, annual CPI pay adjustments, hazardous-duty differentials, recruitment or retention bonuses of at least $1,000, housing allowances for deployments more than 50 miles from home, tuition assistance of at least $4,000 per year, a Wildland Fire Management Casualty Assistance Program, and continuing accrual of firefighter service despite certain breaks in service.

Who Benefits and How

Federal wildland firefighters, Tribal firefighters, incident support personnel, and next-of-kin of firefighters injured or killed in the line of duty benefit from higher base pay, premium pay, rest leave, mental-health supports, disease tracking, workers' compensation coverage, retirement credit, bonuses, housing allowances, tuition assistance, and casualty assistance. Forest Service, Interior, and tribal fire programs may benefit from improved recruitment and retention. Federal structural firefighters benefit from a mandated comparability review and potential parity adjustments.

Who Bears the Burden and How

The Office of Personnel Management, Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior, Forest Service, Interior fire bureaus, Department of Labor OWCP, and the Secretary of the Interior must create pay tables, policies, health databases, mental-health programs, reports, retirement-credit procedures, casualty-assistance systems, bonus and tuition programs, and housing allowances. Federal taxpayers bear the cost of higher pay, leave, benefits, program administration, workers' compensation coverage, and survivor assistance.

Key Provisions

• Creates special base rates for federal wildland firefighters, increasing GS-1 pay by 42 percent and phasing down to a 1.5 percent increase at GS-15, with parallel prevailing-rate increases.
• Adds incident response premium pay, premium-pay cap relief for emergency suppression, and paid rest and recuperation leave after qualifying incidents.
• Requires a cancer and cardiovascular disease database, a mental-health awareness and support program, seven days of annual mental-health leave, and OWCP recognition of PTSD and psychological stress injuries tied to firefighting.
• Improves retirement treatment by crediting eligible wildland-firefighter service, counting overtime in pension calculations, and easing disability retirement for covered occupational diseases.
• Adds annual CPI pay adjustments, hazardous-duty differentials, recruitment or retention bonuses of at least $1,000, deployment housing allowances beyond 50 miles, and annual tuition assistance of at least $4,000.
• Creates a Wildland Fire Management Casualty Assistance Program for next-of-kin, survivor travel reimbursement, case management, benefits information, complaint channels, and data collection.