ShareThisBy JOHN HILL
State firefighters would be in line for substantial raises under the terms of a last-minute bill approved by the Legislature.
Assembly Bill 2683, passed in the waning hours of the session Thursday, would require the state to link firefighter compensation to the statewide average for jurisdictions with 75 or more firefighters.
Firefighters would join California Highway Patrol officers as state workers with pay tied to counterparts in local agencies.
"They're underpaid and underappreciated," said Aaron Read, whose lobbying firm represents state firefighters.
Others saw it as a last-minute maneuver designed to avoid debate and by-pass collective bargaining.
"Every year, they have some eleventh hour thing that no one has a chance to analyze," said Ron Roach, a spokesman for Cal-Tax, a group that advocates against taxes it considers unnecessary. "The public employee unions do this every year. They can do it because they have a Democratic majority, and they own them."
Former Gov. Gray Davis vetoed similar bills for other types of workers in 2001 and 2002, saying that it circumvented the state's collective bargaining process. The office of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he had not yet taken a position on the bill.
Read said the bill merely strengthens an existing law on firefighting compensation. That law states that it is the state policy to "consider" salaries and benefits in other jurisdictions when setting state firefighter compensation.
The bill approved Thursday, by contrast, declares that the state "shall pay" the average compensation found in the annual survey. The bill also says that the state and the firefighters can agree in collective bargaining to deviate from the survey results.The bill is very similar to one passed in 1981, requiring the state to set CHP pay according to a survey of five other large law enforcement agencies.
For years, the state skirted the CHP requirement. But after the CHP officer's association filed suit, the state agreed in 2001 to bring compensation in line with the other five agencies over the course of a five-year contract, said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the Department of Personnel Administration.
A 1986 law on prison guard compensation calls on the state to "take into consideration" the salaries and benefits of other California peace officers.
In 2001, state teachers, attorneys and administrative law judges tried to pass similar bills, and engineers made an attempt in 2002. But all three were vetoed by Davis as too costly and an end run around collective bargaining.
The bill approved Thursday, AB 2683 by Assemblywoman Gloria Negrete McLeod, incorporated the contents of a bill introduced last year by Assemblyman Bogh, R-Cherry Valley. That bill died when if failed to get past the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Read said the committee failed to take it up because of an oversight. After it died, legislators told about the bill said that it sounded fair and expressed an interest in reviving it, Read said.
Two weeks before the end of the session, AB 2683, which had been about architects' licensing, was gutted and amended to incorporate the contents of Bogh's bill.
It passed in the Senate and Assembly Thursday night with at least a two-thirds vote in each house, required for procedural reasons. Read said that even though the bill has an "urgency clause" allowing it to take effect immediately, it will not come into play until 2008, when a contract negotiated this year expires.
