There are few things that will get a fire chief’s heart racing faster than a phone call from the Department of Retirement Systems (DRS) telling you that they believe your agency has people improperly enrolled in the LEOFF system. After asking fellow state chiefs for advice, and after getting several concerned replies from colleagues asking if they might be next to get a visit from DRS, Executive Director Wayne Senter asked if I would write a short article for the WFC newsletter to update everyone on the DRS’s efforts to make certain that LEOFF enrollees are eligible to remain in the program.
As some of you may know, we recently finalized a three year long trial merger in my agency. As part of this finalization, we officially absorbed all Washougal fire employees in to the city of Camas. During this process, the DRS requested several job descriptions be sent to them for evaluation. The one that piqued their interest was that of our Division Chief/Fire Marshal. The person occupying this position had been in LEOFF for years and had been the Washougal fire chief before the merger. Camas always fills prevention slots from combat line ranks, so we've never hired civilian personnel as some agencies do. Despite this, the DRS opinion, as related to our HR Director, was that fire marshals do not qualify for LEOFF enrollment because their primary duties are not “suppression,” nor supervising people in suppression. Regardless of his previous enrollment, DRS stated that our fire marshal should have been removed from LEOFF and put in PERS when he moved to the fire marshal’s office. Despite our protests, DRS stated their interpretation would be official unless we felt our fire marshal’s current job description was not accurate and needed to be updated.
In a near panic (along with my fire marshal, no doubt), I reached out to several of you for advice. What I discovered could definitely be cause for concern in some agencies. It appears that for the past several years, DRS have been going through fire departments all across the state in search of people they feel have been improperly enrolled in LEOFF. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been in LEOFF for 20 years. If DRS feel they were improperly enrolled to begin with, an agency could be looking at the nightmare of going back years trying to calculate what proper contributions should have been in to the PERS system. That’s to say nothing of the unpleasantness of explaining to someone that they may have to work a minimum of 9 years longer than they might have planned before they’re eligible for retirement. Several of you replied that the DRS was clearly wrong and suggested we remind them of language in the LEOFF manual that states,
"Fire protection activities" may include incidental functions such as housekeeping, equipment maintenance, grounds maintenance, fire safety inspections, lecturing, performing community fire drills and inspecting homes and schools for fire hazards. These activities qualify as fire protection activities only if the primary duty of the position is preventing, controlling or extinguishing fires. [WAC 415-104-225(2)(a)].”
We were indeed already on top of this language and quoted it back to DRS while reminding them that the primary duty of nearly all fire marshals is in “preventing fires.” DRS replied that this language, in their opinion, does not apply to fire marshals because once again, their primary duty is not suppression. They also added that simply responding to all fires to investigate cause and origin doesn't qualify because it doesn't involve suppression.
So here is our current situation in Camas. Based on recommendations from other agencies that have been through this process with DRS, we have updated our fire marshal job description to include references to the fact that this person is indeed still expected to participate in fire suppression activities and to supervise line firefighters during emergency incidents as part of their primary job description. These are the key phrases that DRS will be looking for in any of your job descriptions should they decide to pay your agency a visit. Being a small department, our fire marshals have always worn these hats. Everybody is expected to be able to do everything, including the fire chief, who has been known to still “pack up” and go in to fires. Our fire marshal’s job description has never included this phrasing because we simply felt it wasn't necessary. Given the DRS’s opinion in our situation, clearly we needed to. If your job descriptions lack similar provisions, it may be time for you to update them for accuracy.
It is important to point out that our contact person at DRS was very friendly and courteous and encouraged us to make sure we updated our job description if we felt it was not accurate. If any of you have questions about our experience, or would like a copy of the updated job description we have created, please do not hesitate to contact me. I very much appreciated all the helpful advice I received from colleagues and our agency is more than willing to return the favor in any way we can.
By: Nick Swinhart
Fire Chief
Camas-Washougal Fire Department