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Leadership, Culture and Direction
Working Well
Morale is fairly good
People like their jobs
Local support is mixed across the country
Quality of new personnel is good if adequate leadership is provided
Processes are improving and becoming more efficient
Concerns
Units are below critical mass in terms of people and skills and cannot meet expectations
Administrative requirements are deeply affecting the productivity of all field personnel
New personnel are inexperienced, affecting decisions and results
Districts are responsible for results, but lack the authority necessary to achieve them
Priorities are clear but units are not confident they can be achieved
Technical training is lacking in timber, engineering, wildlife and fisheries
Many zoned personnel are spread so thin they can’t successfully complete priority work.
Workforce Capacity
Working Well
Fire organization
Concerns
Administrative processes and centralized services are not user friendly
The most “broken” administrative practice is the hiring process, which takes too long to complete
and removes many approvals and decisions from the affected field units. This applies to both
seasonal and permanent hiring procedures.
Following the “process” often appears to be more important than achieving desired results
With the exception of fire, all programs are suffering due to a lack of skills, personnel and funding
Those providing centralized services do not seem to understand or care about customers in the field
The perceived focus appears to be national data needs, not achieving work on the ground
Consolidation and Zoning
Working Well:
It is estimated that 15–50% of the work is performed by partners, volunteers and community groups
Concerns:
Some units believe they are zoned to the point of failure
Large land bases, increased travel times, and lack of connection with communities is rendering many zoned units ineffective as they are not able to complete critical work and maintain essential
relationships
To increase the pace and scale of work, units will require a commensurate increase in critical skills including heritage, timber, engineering, soils, NEPA leadership, non–fire forestry technicians,
contracting officer representatives, wildlife biologists and local partnership coordinators
There is broad agreement that the Forest Service is abdicating its land stewardship responsibilities in the program areas of recreation, trails and special use program management.
Forest supervisors and district rangers are very concerned about the continued erosion of funding and skills in the above–listed programs
On the Ground Management
Working Well
The Environmental Analysis and Decision Making (EADM) initiative is positive, and units have high expectations it will bring about needed change
o The level of understanding about and status of the current effort varies widely
o It would be a monumental disaster to morale if this effort failed
Concerns
The necessary skill sets and funding are simply not available to get the work done
The recreation program funding has dropped extensively for a very long time and the Forest Service cannot provide for the needs and expectations of the booming tourism market
Process and administrative burdens exist in hiring, contracting, procurement and grants and agreements
There is a strong disconnect between those leaders who want to get work done and those leaders who are responsible for the administrative functions necessary to get that work done. This is a universal frustration in the field.
Partnerships
Working Well
Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) is a valuable asset and helpful tool in some locations. Its use depends on the individual state’s interest, capacity and funding.
Concerns
Overall, the GNA program is limited by funding and certain authorities not being granted to the states
The limiting factor to expansion of GNA, or shared stewardship, is people, skills and funding to do the job
Field units do not have a clear understanding of what approach is planned without additional funding for the counties or states to fully participate
Ranger Districts often want Temporary Employees who are ‘team players’, but are unwilling to actually put them on the team. The USFS still does not value the work of temps, especially in technical fields and inspector roles. They say fire season is year round, but that forest management ‘season’ is exactly 1039 hours per year.
No wonder NEPA compliance has fallen by the wayside.
What do you mean by “fallen by the wayside”?
The “Personnel Changes by the Numbers” table reflects accurately the Forest Service’s transition from Timber to Fire Fighting agency. A Timber agency needs engineers to build logging roads and biologists to assess and try to mitigate logging’s ecological consequences. A Fire Fighting agency thinks it needs none of these skills.
One other thing that is new, in Region 5, is the effect of CalFire hiring 1400 new firefighter positions last winter. I heard bits and pieces about not having fire crews at full capacity, last summer. I could see some young timber temps going over to fire, if offered a permanent.
With the infrastructure bills still stalled, ‘the process’ might take too long to fill positions before next summer. I don’t think Congressmen know that surveys need to be completed by ‘ologists’ before work can begin. Some surveys (Botany, for example) cannot be attempted until August, when the plants can be identified. Wildlife surveys have similar restrictions. I wonder if 20-year old Heritage surveys are ‘good enough’, on a landscape-scale project. (We had full surveys done before doing bark beetle harvest, from 1989-1992. One project (out of a dozen) totaled 41,000 acres, to harvest from.)
Our Ranger District had an army of temps keeping the loggers moving. We had 5 or 6 marking crews, 8 Harvest Inspectors and 6 Sale Administrators. There were several wildlife crews and 4 cultural crews. Back then, a temp could work up to 220 days, with an extension, in a year. I doubt that such a ‘force’ could be assembled out of temps today.
Now, apply that to all western Ranger Districts, with a mandate to ‘fix the forests’ and get them ready for wildfires.