City of Morgan Hill Public Safety Master Plan

firefighters. All field personnel are certified as either EMTs or paramedics and every station is staffed with at least one paramedic in order to provide advanced life support (ALS) services.

Operational shift personnel work 72 hours on and 96 hours off, which is based on an average workweek of 53 hours. The normal workweek includes 53 hours at straight-time wages and 19 hours at the overtime rate (time and one-half the employee’s hourly rate). The minimum staffing each day is 16 personnel, which includes three personnel operating from each of the five fire stations (two City and three District) and one Battalion Chief (excludes Station 31, which operates under an Amador Agreement). CAL FIRE utilizes a unique platoon schedule to staff the various stations throughout the year. There are three platoons that are operational in this system. Platoon A works for three consecutive days. Platoon B works the three alternate days. The third platoon is a relief platoon and these personnel typically work the seventh day not covered by either Platoon A & B and also cover for scheduled vacancies on either of the other two platoons. CAL FIRE utilizes a constant staffing model; thus, when an operational vacancy occurs as a result of scheduled or unscheduled leave (sick leave, vacation, disability leave, or termination, etc.), that vacancy is filled by either by an individual from the relief squad or by the recall of an off-duty person (utilizing overtime). Figure 3-4 is a representation of the CAL FIRE platoon structure.

FIGURE 3-4: CAL FIRE Platoon Structure

As indicated above, in each monthly work cycle CAL FIRE employees typically work 288 hours, of which 212 hours are at the straight time rate and 76hours are at an overtime rate. This is not typical in most fire organizations, as scheduled overtime is usually 12 hours or less. CAL FIRE provides a much higher amount of scheduled overtime, but this is offset by the lower wage scale when compared with neighboring California jurisdictions. The state of California is required by Government Code; Section 19827.3, to survey salary and benefits of firefighters in other jurisdictions. In the 2014 annual survey, conducted by the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR), it was determined that when compared to 20 randomly selected municipalities for the four positions surveyed (Firefighter II, Fire Apparatus Engineer, Fire Captain,

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