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S 2473
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Federal Firefighters Families First Act

To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide for pay equality and the more accurate computation of retirement benefits for certain firefighters employed by the Federal Government, and for other purposes.

Introduced Jul 28, 2025

Latest action (Jul 28, 2025) Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Summary

This Act amends federal law to improve compensation and retirement benefits for federal firefighters. The bill changes how federal firefighters' retirement benefits are computed by including overtime hours that are part of their regular tour of duty in calculating average pay. The Office of Personnel Management must establish regulations within one year to set a maximum regular workweek for federal firefighters, not to exceed an average of 60 hours per week. The changes apply to retirement annuities based on separations from service occurring more than 60 days after enactment.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

Actions (2)

  1. Jul 28, 2025 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. · senate
  2. Jul 28, 2025 Introduced in Senate

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

Full text

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

July 28, 2025

Mr. Gallego (for himself and Mr. Moreno) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

A BILL

To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide for pay equality and the more accurate computation of retirement benefits for certain firefighters employed by the Federal Government, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; PURPOSES.

(a) Short Title.—This Act may be cited as the “Federal Firefighters Families First Act”.

(b) Purposes.—The purposes of this Act, and the amendments made by this Act, are—

(1) to improve pay equality between Federal firefighters, other Federal employees, and municipal and other public sector firefighters;

(2) to enhance recruitment and retention of firefighters in order to maintain the highest quality of Federal fire service;

(3) to include the pay of all regularly reoccurring scheduled hours during the firefighter workweek when computing the retirement benefits of firefighters; and

(4) to establish the regular workweek for Federal firefighters.

SEC. 2. COMPUTATION OF PAY.

Section 5545b of title 5, United States Code, is amended—

(1) in subsection (b)(1)(A), by striking “2756” and inserting “2087”; and

(2) in subsection (c)(1)(B), by striking “2756” and inserting “2087”.

SEC. 3. COMPUTATION OF ANNUITY BASED ON CERTAIN FIREFIGHTER SERVICE.

(a) In General.—Section 5545b of title 5, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

“(e) For purposes of any determination of ‘average pay’ under section 8331(4) or 8401(3), in the case of a firefighter who is subject to subsection (b), the rate of basic pay in effect for that firefighter for a year of creditable service (or, in the case of an annuity under subsection (d) or (e)(1) of section 8341 or under chapter 84 based on less than 3 years of creditable service, for any other period of creditable service) shall, in addition to the amount determined under subsection (b) for that year (or other period), include an amount equal to \1/2\ the basic hourly rate of the firefighter (as computed under subsection (b)(1)(A)) for that year (or other period) times the number of overtime hours included as part of the regular tour of duty of the firefighter during that year (or other period).”.

(b) Conforming Amendments.—Title 5, United States Code, is amended—

(1) in section 8331(4), by striking the semicolon at the end and inserting “, subject to section 5545b(e);”; and

(2) in section 8401(3), by striking the semicolon at the end and inserting “, subject to section 5545b(e);”.

SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF A MAXIMUM HOURS OF FEDERAL FIREFIGHTERS’ REGULAR WORKWEEK.

Section 5545b of title 5, United States Code, as amended by section 3, is amended by adding at the end the following:

“(f)(1) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall prescribe regulations establishing the maximum number of regularly reoccurring hours that comprise a workweek for a firefighter covered by this section.

“(2) The maximum number of hours described in paragraph (1) shall not exceed an average of 60 hours per week.”.

SEC. 5. APPLICATION.

The amendments made by this Act shall apply with respect to any annuity entitlement that is based on a separation from service occurring after the date that is 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act. <all>

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