OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
8:46 AM – Wednesday, October 8, 2025
California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would grant state firefighters pay raises months after the most expensive wildfires in state history devastated Los Angeles.
On Friday, Newsom released a letter to the California State Assembly attempting to explain why he refused to sign Assembly Bill 1309.
“This bill would require the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to pay firefighters within 15 percent of the average salary for corresponding ranks in certain local fire departments. This measure would also require an annual survey of the salaries and benefits for fire chiefs in five specified fire departments,” Newsom wrote.
“While I appreciate the author’s intent, this bill would create significant cost pressures for the state and circumvent the collective bargaining process. State employee salaries, along with other components of compensation such as health and pension benefits, should be determined through collective bargaining,” he added. “Establishing a statutory salary floor for employees of a single department undermines this process, to the detriment of both the state and other bargaining units.”
According to a State Assembly Analysis, the bill would have cost the state between $373 million and $609 million in the first year, if signed. The bill argued that worsening fires in the Golden State have “placed overworked firefighters at risk.”
The bill was introduced in February by Republican California Assembly Member Heath Flora as a bipartisan measure that would require the state to pay firefighters employed by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection on State Bargaining Unit 8 within 15% of the average salary for the comparable ranks in 20 California fire departments.
It would also have required the Department of Human Resources to conduct a survey of the past year’s salaries and benefits for fire chiefs in five departments and report to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection by January 1, 2027.
The fires in January cost at least $250 billion in damage, burning thousands of acres of land and causing hundreds of Californians to flee their homes.
A September report from McChrystal Group on behalf of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors found that LA County’s response to the fires faced staffing shortages, outdated policies, inconsistent practices, and communication issues.
A Bay Area News Group analysis found that the Los Angeles Fire Department has less than one firefighter per 1,000 residents. In January, San Jose Fire Captain Jerry May told GovTech, which originally reported the findings, that his city not only has “the lowest staffing number out of all metropolitan cities in the United States” for “one of the busiest in the nation,” but is also “severely understaffed.”
Newsom has also recognized that Cal Fire (the state firefighting service) is short-staffed. This summer, he launched a recruitment campaign for Cal Fire that included a new website: joincalfire.com.
“As a former Cal Fire firefighter, this one hits hard,” said Flora. “I’ve been in their boots. I know how demanding the job is and what it takes to keep Californians safe during long and brutal fire seasons. These firefighters deserve pay that reflects the weight of that responsibility,” Flora told The Post.
A 2023 report from the California Department of Human Resources found Cal Fire staff lagged behind 20 surveyed local fire departments by 87.5%.
“It’s also important to recognize that state firefighters are scheduled to work more hours than the surveyed local fire departments – 156 days a year for state firefighters, compared to 121 days for the local fire departments,” the report reads.
Nevertheless, Newsom argued that the bill would be too costly, despite his administration spending nearly $300 million on a special election to override the committee that draws California’s congressional maps, in retaliation against Texas’s five new House seats, which would allow the state to counter and gain five Democrat seats of their own.
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