“The budget cut’s impact on hiring extends beyond seasonal workers. The agency also announced that, with very few exceptions, it won’t be hiring any external candidates for any position within the agency, meaning that any open positions will have to be filled by current employees. And since seasonal work is a common steppingstone to a permanent role, many temporary workers who hoped for a career in public-land management now find themselves at a loss.”
It goes much further than seasonals; as most FS folks know, the SSS (Support Services Supervisor) is the heartbeat of Ranger Districts. Many are now without SSS’s, and those that were in queue for hiring had their offer letters, and acceptance responses rescinded! Can you imagine? Some have been without for two years or more! Not only SSS’s, many RD’s are short staffed in other disciplines, and have the same crappy management actions apply to other interested candidates! How much work, on the ground, you reckon gonna take place next year?
Makes me wonder if they are just itching to become DOI employees……
In my many jobs and assignments on Ranger Districts, I always made sure to make friends with those ladies. Treat them like they are the District Ranger (in a good way… LOL). It really helped, when I needed help with paperwork, personnel stuff or purchasing. They always knew how to get stuff done, back in those “good old days” (25 years ago).
“And since seasonal work is a common steppingstone to a permanent role, many temporary workers who hoped for a career in public-land management now find themselves at a loss.”
Back when I was a longterm Temp, we called that “Career Canceling”. Instead of “seasonals”, we called ourselves “disposables”. For us, Temp Appointments weren’t “stepping stones”. The specialized experience we had really didn’t help us get a permanent position, since the open positions didn’t need that experience. Entry-level positions were always easy to qualify for (by design), and you only needed minimal general forestry experience.
It seems to me that this is the equivalent of Hurricanes Helene and Milton for the USFS. Might we denizens of The Smokey Wire put our collective minds (such as they are) together and write a succinct letter outlining a path forward? “More money” is too simple and simplistic, of course. Maybe we put together a list of the top three or five actions to take. In short, we offer an answer, in terms that a member of Congress can understand. And maybe even act on.
I’m sure that some units wanted to have a mix of Temps and Permanent Seasonals on their timber crews. It’s important to have a career ladder, to keep up morale and give good kids hope that they can have a nice career. I’ll bet Congress won’t be happy with the Chief’s statement about next year’s goals and targets. The Forest Service got a lot more top-heavy, and the ‘trickle-down’ theory is biting them in the butt.
Let’s not forget that the Forest Service has been actively converting a lot of long-term temporary positions to permanent seasonal positions, particularly in OR and WA. This provides a lot more flexibility to the FS and gives those employees access to benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. Let’s also not forget that the FS is once again in a position where they hired a lot of higher-graded positions in SOs, ROs and the WOs and there need to be more workers at the District level. I’ve seen this happen at least once in my career. So there definitely needs to be some analysis done to figure out if there needs to be more of a shift towards district-level employees and less of an emphasis on non-district employees. But the problem is that the agency is currently enamored of “head count caps” that do not distinguish between higher-graded and lower-graded positions. And since each position counts the same as any other position, this often leads to a more top-heavy organization.
There is a lot of past due work that has needed to be completed on USFS properties for decades: salvage, site prep, thinning, road and trail maintenance, tree planting, broadcast burning, old-growth maintenance, campground repair, etc. This is needed year-round work that would greatly reduce wildfire risk, wildlife mortality, deadly smoke, and provide significant funds for the US treasury, states, counties, and schools. We also have tens of thousands of folks living on sidewalks and millions of others entering our country illegally. This doesn’t add up. Spending millions to watch wildfires create billions of dollars in damages instead of actively managing our public lands for our common benefit.
The destruction of the Pacific Northwest reforestation industry began with USFS contracts that favored low-bid, short-term contractors and minority (including white women, somehow) contractors that became increasingly dependent on illegal alien migrants to complete projects formerly done by local contractors. This was not only an enticement for foreign migrants, it was also a loss of income for local families — and lesser quality work and underpaid and mistreated laborers were part of the result. There is much work to be done, many people to do it, yet regulations, contract specs, and lawsuits continue to make it impossible. How to fix?
“The spending bill that recently passed the U.S House of Representatives gave the agency around half a billion dollars less than it requested, meaning that the Forest Service, which exists within the Department of Agriculture, faces a large budget cut. Most of the other environmental and science-based federal agencies also face large cuts. Meanwhile, the money that the agency received from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate law, has already been spent. ”
No, the House marks mean that the FS could face a large budget cut, depending on what the Senate comes up with.
It is not uncommon for agencies to receive far more less than they request in the President’s Budget (the executive branch’s proposal to Congress). I would suggest that receiving less than requested is the norm across the executive branch.
Montana Senator Daines writes his own letter:
https://www.daines.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/USFS-Fire-Management-Strategy-Transparency-FINAL-2024.10.11.pdf