My plans to attend the SAF Convention have changed, so I will be around posting here after all.
.. in the words of Robert Burns in his poem “To A Mouse”
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
As we move into FY 2025, it’s important that there is clarity and consistency in our Region for hiring non-fire temporary employees (1039s) and tours for fire and non-fire Permanent Seasonal Employees (PSEs or 18/8s and 13/13s).
As you know, the Forest Service has worked over the last two years to stabilize and strategically grow our workforce. One important action we took nationally was to convert approximately 1,400 non-fire temporary (1039) employees to permanent status. Region 6 held a significant number of those conversions. That change helped provide these employees certainty and better benefits, as well as helping to ensure the agency benefits from a more permanent workforce to accomplish work on behalf of the American people.
We are likely confronting a very budget-limited environment in FY 2025. As leaders, it is our responsibility to plan for the most conservative funding picture. We need to make the best decisions we can now with the information we have. As such, we are planning to use the House Interior Subcommittee funding levels proposed for FY 2025. In addition to focusing on that proposed funding level, we are also navigating the exhaustion of the supplemental funding we received through both the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Additionally, over the last two years, we have absorbed two cost of living increases totaling close to 10%. All these factors mean we are contending with less funding overall in FY 2025 and we need to make adjustments and accommodations.
We are navigating the challenges we face by anchoring to our core values as the guide in our decision making while prioritizing the collective financial health of the agency. As such, in Region 6 the following direction is now in place:
Temporary (1039) Employees
• In FY 2025 we will not be hiring (1039) temporary employees outside of fire.
• Temporary, non-fire employees hired and onboarded in FY 2024, with tours that go into FY 2025, will complete their tours.
Permanent Seasonal Employees (e.g., 13/13s and 18/8s)
• For fire (i.e, employees who charge base 8 salary to WFSE) and non-fire employees, existing tours will not be extended.• Under certain circumstances when fire activity warrants, extensions may be granted for fire and non-fire PSE extensions. Additional guidance will be forthcoming that will
clarify how employees charge their time if/when their extensions are granted.
• For any Permanent Seasonal employees whose tours cross fiscal years, tours will be honored as specified in individual agreements.This is a difficult change. Our entire workforce helps us live our core value of Service – to each other and to the public. The services we provide are critical to our Region and the people who live and visit our Forests and Grasslands. We are also all interdependent and we will work to adjust to this change by working together internally as well as our partners communities, volunteers, members of other agencies and Tribes.
As our workforce changes, the amount and type of work we will do will be different than in the past. I know we will all do the best work we can with the resources we have, but it’s a simple reality that producing the same outputs and outcomes with fewer employees isn’t feasible.
However, we will remain focused on our key priority work, especially in our 5 Wildfire Crisis Strategy landscapes. We are putting this hiring direction into place immediately.
Thank you for all that you do to make Region 6 such a success.
Letter from NFFE to USDA and FS on Wildland Firefighter Occupational Series, here’s a link to the letter.
The letter talks about issues around their involvement in the new occupational series, and also draws a line between budget concerns and problems with the series. I’m not so sure they’re related, and I’m interested in the FS side of the story.
It is our opinion that the Forest Service sought to adopt what amounts to largely a “title change only” new occupational series to avoid a devastating budget shortfall by continuing the exploitation of its workforce. Ultimately, it is management’s responsibility to manage the workforce and address the serious issues employees have raised through the union. We did our best to influence and encourage good decision-making. Now we leave it to the members to determine whether the new series works for them.
We will be recommending that employees do not opt-in to the new series to receive the new title. Employees must apply and compete for an opportunity to be placed in a new career ladder under the 0456 series. The Union intends to use early engagement with the Agency to secure fair opportunity for current employees to be selected for any new career ladder positions. We will educate our members on their right to request desk audits once in the new series. It is unfortunate this effort will result in so many desk audits. Desk audits are administratively burdensome, time consuming and results may not be satisfactory. We asked management to make clear what duties are required of a position and what
duties employees may rightfully refuse to perform without fear of retaliation or discipline. Our union will make sure employees have the knowledge needed to navigate the irregularities within the new job series, if they choose to opt-in.
We will also be approaching Congress regarding our critical need for increased appropriations to support the wildland firefighting effort. Congress has oversight on the implementation of the new occupational series and we anticipate legislative inquiries will result from this letter. We have copied Members of Congress on this letter who support wildland firefighters to this end.
We ask OPM to become directly involved to address our raised issues as appropriate. We call on Congress to act and appropriate the necessary additional funds to pay wildland firefighters fairly and correctly for their work. Until federal wildland firefighters are paid at least commensurate with cooperators, we will continue to be short staffed and under-resourced to meet our nation’s forest management goals.
The idea of fire folks doing other jobs has been around for decades. Certainly, there are multiple reasons why that idea never really caught on. Some firefighters can do technical work, and some cannot.
This is a great example of how old mistakes are still hurting the Forest Service. The idea that “any warm body can mark timber” seems to still be strong in upper management.
Right on Larry! What could go wrong? Tongue in cheek; I did some quick math and if the numbers are close, converting those 1400 employees cost the FS less than 1% of their budget! Must be a tight ship…….
It would be very interesting to see how many GS-460 folks were ever a Temporary Employee on a marking crew. I worked with plenty of folks in timber who qualified for Forester positions, but were often not allowed to even apply.
My old outfit (TEAMS Enterprise) used a ton of Temporary Employees. I wonder if they will get some special sort of deal, to ‘stay in business’.
New firefighter series? I was a GS-456-3 Fire control Aid in 1959. More like resituated than new!
Let me give you the summary of yesterday’s all employee call with agency leadership:
-We’ve made great strides in our wildfire crisis strategy. Pretty cool, huh?
-We had to make tough decisions to address the budget shortfall, these decisions were people-driven and we care about all our employees. So don’t worry, all permanent employees will keep getting paid and have access to travel and training.
-No temporary positions will be hired outside of fire (sorry seasonals, you don’t count as employees and we’re not even going to pretend to care about your contribution to the agency!)
I didn’t think my opinion of leadership could get any lower, but they managed to do it with that call. The cynic in me wonders if this is the latest attempt to move towards contracting (still have to clean campgrounds and mark timber somehow) or to recruit more firefighters (many seasonals would rather take a fire job over no job). More likely they are simply inept and out of touch with the work we do at the lowly district level.
Thanks so much!
It seems to me that in previous shrinkages, travel and training were the first to go. Does anyone else remember that? There were also early-outs offered. I wonder why this time is different.
Given the other things I’ve covered, if I were going to be cynical, I’d say that it may involve moving toward partners doing the hiring with their grant money. Time will tell.
Travel and training are quietly going away in spots, also. Not gone gone, but not all that available. Focus is on online training, which reads to me like it is sort of gone as well.
Here’s the call, I think it’s publicly viewable: https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/excel/september-2024-chiefs-all-employee-call-hiring-update
The USFS can fill all those Temporary positions with … volunteers!!! Anyone can paint a tree! No experience needed! How about wildlife Temps? They need to keep NEPA surveys on-track. Who is going to protect and monitor Archaeological sites near logging projects? Will firefighters need cross-training to do “other duties as assigned”?