Cal Fire wants a pay match with local departments. Can California afford it?
An Assembly bill that could increase pay for state firefighters is headed to the senate appropriations committee. The bill is intended to get Cal Fire’s pay within 15% of benchmark local fire departments such as Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco.
Tim Edwards, Cal Fire Local 2881 president, says that the current salary calculation formula, which matches firefighter pay with other state workers salaries, does not account for inflation or the amount of overtime state firefighters are working.
“A top-ranked Cal Fire engineer with a family of four qualified for free school lunch because of his income, that tells you how much we’re struggling.” Edwards said. “If you look at other departments, over the last few years, they’ve gotten significant raises to match inflation, and our work has not gotten lighter; in fact, it’s gotten worse.”
The bill is the second iteration of AB 1309, which was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year. In his veto order, Newsom said that AB 1309’s automatic salary floor “undermined” typical state-union negotiation processes. Newsom has not said if the newer version of the bill quells this concern.
The new bill, AB 2129, cites the same wage increase goals as AB 1309, but opens the door for negotiations with a compensation benchmark intended to help retain Cal Fire employees who would otherwise be lost to higher-paying departments. According to the bill, the state would have to produce an annual average salary report for the 20 local departments that Cal Fire is stacked against and make sure state firefighter pay is within 15% of that average.
According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, the bill would cost $373.4 million to $609.1 million from the general fund. Assemblymember Heath Flora, R-Ripon, the bill’s author, said he anticipates the actual cost of the bill to be much lower than the projection, and that he only foresees opposition from the Department of Finance.
Lance Christensen, vice president of government affairs and education policy at the California Policy Institute, says that the bill’s success is the result of a mix of misaligned governmental priorities and legislative clog.
“The state Legislature hasn’t fought deeply about the budget in years,” Christensen said. “Whatever the unions say stays. They’re willing to spend anything on staying in office.”
Christensen says that a pay increase for Cal Fire is a “duct tape” solution for larger problems and that California has other legislative priorities that are being overlooked and underfunded.
“Where are the commensurate cuts to accommodate this bill? We have created a state that is perpetually burning down, so of course Cal Fire is going to be working harder and more, but that budget is only going to increase because we haven’t addressed not having fires.”
Christensen suggests the state should instead focus on stripping back environmental regulations that make brush clearance and fire prevention costly, which would ensure state firefighters are not working excessive overtime and the state budget is not being stretched beyond its means.
This story was originally published June 24, 2026 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Cal Fire wants a pay match with local departments. Can California afford it?."
