Pay cuts for misbehavior and dozens of dismissals: Is Cal Fire’s crackdown going too far?
A new professional standards program at Cal Fire is giving the department a mechanism to hand down discipline in a consistent manner across the state for the first time in its history.
It's racking up pay reductions, suspensions and dismissals at a rate that rivals scandal-plagued 2014 -- the year when an instructor at its fire academy murdered his mistress and brought intense scrutiny on the department.
The program's advocates say it is long overdue, but the sudden application of harsh discipline is surprising firefighters and raising concerns that
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Take the crackdown on academy cadets last fall who at different times after hours had a drink at
"It's crazy that the department is throwing these people away," said
The department in the budget year that began in July has terminated 56 seasonal employees, the most since the 2014 academy scandal. Some of them regularly worked nine months in a year and earned about
With two months to go in this state budget year, another 58 year-round firefighters have received notices of adverse action, with discipline ranging from temporary pay reductions to dismissal of veterans. That's up from 33 in 2012 and 45 in 2013.
The department lobbied to create the new standards program after the 2014 homicide and received a
The program is supposed to offer far more than a disciplinary process. It's intended to give managers more training and to instill professional standards across a department with 7,000 employees.
So far, though, firefighters are mostly talking about the discipline and sharing tales about employees who got away with misconduct that today is no longer tolerated.
"Historically there was a lack of consistency with regard to how all of these processes worked. Discipline in the south could be different in the north," said
Separately, four firefighters who were punished for drinking at the academy last fall shared details about their cases but asked to remain anonymous because they are appealing their dismissals and fear retaliation.
The records show that the department is expelling anyone who commits a serious crime or drinks alcohol during a shift. It's also dismissing firefighters who investigators believe are misleading when confronted with lesser misconduct allegations.
"We have policies in place that address employee conduct including zero tolerance for drinking on duty. It's the public expectation that our firefighters be ready to respond at anytime while on duty and not be under the influence of alcohol," Pimlott said in a message he wrote to The Bee.
The dismissals include:
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* A high-ranking assistant chief who supervised law enforcement training at the
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One of the dismissed academy firefighters said he drank a beer after he passed all of his tests. He could have gone home that night but stayed in
The firefighter acknowledged he had the beer when the department opened its investigation, and lost his job, he said.
Another firefighter admitted having a drink one night midway through the academy.
"When I got a letter saying there was an investigation, I came forward and told them right off the bat. Right away, I was like I want to clarify, I did have that one shot, I made that bad choice," the firefighter said.
Firefighters at the academy could be called to service in an emergency, but it's unlikely. They're not assigned to engines during their training. They're expected to remain sober and considered on-call for the duration of their training.
Generations of firefighters have attended bars in their down time at the academy, so much so that
That culture lingers, despite the high-profile crackdown on drinking that followed the scandals in 2014.
The firefighters disciplined recently "violated a code of conduct. They were briefed on it, and they violated it," said department Deputy Director
Some of the firefighters have hired attorneys and are appealing their discipline. Year-round firefighters will get help from their union.
"Does the union condone our members drinking on duty? Absolutely not," said Edwards, the union leader. "But in this situation, they were finally going to be permanent personnel at the
"These guys spend six, seven, eight years training to get permanent at the department, and when you finally get the revelation that you finally made it, as a person, it's understandable that you want to go out and celebrate that," he said.
Seasonal firefighters have fewer appeal rights and are hiring private lawyers.
"I am always skeptical of a public agency outright dismissing employees for an infraction, particularly if those employees are long-term employees with no prior discipline of significance and into whom the state has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in training," he said.
Cal Fire's union last month sent an appeal to its 6,000 members asking them to donate hours of personal leave to their labor officers because their representatives are spending so much time in disciplinary hearings. "It is unfortunate over the last few years the department has taken a more drastic approach with disciplinary actions, causing the need to use release time to represent our members," the message read.
"This one is a knee-jerk reaction from (the homicide scandal) four years ago, and we have to get over four years ago," Edwards said.
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