H.R. 759 — Federal Firefighters Families First Act

This section designates the Act as the "Federal Firefighters Families First Act" and states its purposes, which are to (1) improve pay equality between federal firefighters, other federal employees, and municipal or other public sector firefighters; (2) enhance recruitment and retention of firefighters to maintain the highest quality of federal fire service; (3) include pay for all regularly recurring scheduled hours during the firefighter workweek when computing such firefighters' retirement benefits; and (4) establish the regular workweek for federal firefighters.

This section establishes a new subsection (e) in the federal firefighter pay computation statute (5 U.S.C. §5545b) to include in the average pay calculation for Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuities—for firefighters subject to subsection (b) (i.e., those with regular 24-hour shift tours of duty rather than a basic 40-hour workweek)—an additional amount equal to one-half the basic hourly rate (derived by dividing annual pay by 2756) times overtime hours included in their regular tour of duty during the relevant creditable service period (including for annuities based on less than three years of service). It makes conforming amendments to the CSRS average pay definition (5 U.S.C. §8331(4)) and FERS average pay definition (5 U.S.C. §8401(3)) to reference this new provision. (Thus, this increases the average pay base used to compute retirement annuities for such firefighters.)

This section directs the Office of Personnel Management, not later than one year after the date of enactment of the Federal Firefighters Families First Act, to prescribe regulations establishing the maximum regularly recurring hours comprising a workweek for firefighters covered by this section (i.e., those in the GS-081 firefighter occupation whose normal schedules average at least 106 hours biweekly). The maximum shall not exceed an average of 60 hours per week. (As background, this section governs pay computations for such firefighters, typically those on 24-hour shifts, by deriving hourly rates from annual pay divided by 2756 rather than 2087.)

This section specifies that the amendments made by this Act apply to annuity entitlements based on separations from service occurring after the end of the 60-day period beginning on the date of enactment.