Affidavits (or statements) are necessary when you are attempting to contradict your past official position descriptions (PD) or you can't find your old PDs. Your past position descriptions were the official record of the work you were assigned. These PD's were certified as accurate by your supervisor and used to determine your past grade, pay, qualifications, retirement coverage, and other employment matters. If your PDs are lost, you may be just getting statements showing what you were doing. If the PDs are available and do not prove that you were doing law enforcement/firefighter work, then you are now attempting to contradict these past official records.

An ideal statement:

• Identifies the writer and the writer's relationship to the employee at the time in question. A supervisor's statement is given the strongest weight as evidence, second level supervisor's statements are next, then management officials, coworkers, and so on.
• Provides exact dates of the writer's responsibility for the employee's work or knowledge of the work.
• States the primary purpose of the position while occupied by this employee. If the signer convinces me that irregardless of what the PD said, the main reason you were hired was for purposes covered under firefighter/law enforcement work, then we don't have to worry as much about how much time you spent doing what.
• Describes the FF/LE duties in detail for the times in question. Remember, not all law enforcement duties are covered duties (i.e. protecting life and property). Also, not all firefighting duties are covered duties (i.e. routine fire prevention).
• Describes the nonFF/LE duties for the times in question.
• Explains the percentage of the employee's time devoted to fire fighting or law enforcement and to fire/law related duties (separately). An affidavit just stating that you spent 50% of your time doing fire/law duties is not enough because I don't know that the person signing the affidavit knows what qualifies as fire or law duties for special retirement. Therefore, the signer of the affidavit needs to explain each of the fire or law duties and what % of time you spent doing them. It carries more weight when the statement can say that you spent 65%, 70%, etc. of your time doing .... instead of "over 50% of your...
• For secondary administrative jobs, states whether fire fighting/law enforcement experience was a prerequisite for the position in question. This means that they could not hire someone who did not have fire experience. When fire experience is something that was just "helpful", that does not count.
• For secondary supervisory jobs, states if supervising primary ff/le was the primary duty of the position in question. In other words, was supervising primary firefighters the main reason the position existed?
• Explains any disagreement with the official position description or with any other official record (title, series, grade, performance requirements, application forms, etc.). Basically, explains why the PD did not say you were hired primarily for firefighting or law enforcement.
• If the statement sounds like the signer knew you -- and was not just saying "canned" items -- it makes for a better statement.
• Has a signature, the date signed, and a phone number where the person signing the statement can be reached if determining official needs further information or clarification of claimant's duties.

Contact: Helga.Brown/wo@fs.fed.us
Modified: 4/28/99