Below I am posting a comment to the previous post on RO’s by Josh..
As I’ve said, the FS has had many efforts to cut costs (and focus on service delivery at the District level) over time. Yesterday I was talking to someone who remembers the Transformation effort. He told me that the the group came up with the idea of having basically three RO-like entities for the country in terms of technical support, but actually continuing to have Regional Foresters and a few staff, mostly concerned about relationships, and not the rest of the things ROs do. Which I think are…
1. Provide technical expertise on how to do things
2. Be involved with budget allocation to Forests
3. Conduct activities that occur infrequently on forests (e.g., litigation prep)
4. Provide next level review, e.g. Objections and unit reviews. About reviews, over my time in the FS they changed from being meaningful to being performative, both in R&D and in NFS; this was never more obvious than when we did a joint review with BLM who still took the concept seriously. We in the Region ran the appeal/objection process, but all the folks doing the work were borrowed from Forests, although as I recall the Deputy RF decided on them.
5. Work on regional projects (e.g. Southern Rockies Lynx Amendment).
Conceivably Forest and District folks could be rounded up to do 5, but then that would be less work done at the Forest and District level.
If there were a simple answer, it probably would have already been done.
Anyway, I’d sure like to see the details of what the Transformation group came up with..
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Here’s one person’s experience of their RO. I think the FS’s apparent inability to highlight recreation over time is one of the ongoing flaws in the system seemingly regardless of kind of Admin in place.
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I’ve been a Recreation and Wilderness program manager on a district for 22 years in R4. I can’t recall a time when I or many of my immediate colleagues had anything positive to say about many of the Regionals. Oh, individually I’ve had many solid working relationships that seemed to function as intended but the majority of the time it has seemed like the RO’s just been a major interfering pain in the ass. For the past 15 years now it’s gotten worse, with unresponsive, non-supportive staff at the RO doing who knows what, the Regions taking their cut of the budget for pet projects and doling out pittances to the Forests for budgets. For example, GAOA! One RO engineer got it in his head he wanted to be the guy with the big dollar prize project so he and he alone slapped a concept together for all of the back country airstrips in the region to get a massive upgrade. He operated in a black box of his own design, somehow got the funding then got in touch with the folks on the ground who actually managed and maintain many of these airstrips. Turns out not every single airstrip needed high dollar work like his project called for. Three years later we’re still attempting to sort out his mess and a year after this reality hit he left the Regional Office and handed his problem off to the next person up who ended up being some guy on a Forest within the Region.
We often say that the role of the Region is to facilitate the work on the Forests but in practice it seems more like roadblock due to power mongering or due to pet projects or interference due to egos who want credit or fear driven agendas masquerading as priorities such as the wildfire crisis strategy, which is now being wordsmithed.
Every few years the new Admin with help of the WO/RO rolls out a new shiny ball priority with an unfunded mandate for Recreation. Think 10-year Wilderness Stewardship Challenge. There has never been a well funded, direct focus on Recreation in my entire career. A few years ago Recreation seemed to be getting it’s due with a National program called Recreation as a Priority…we had hopes this would provide more manpower and more funding. It didn’t get a good rollout and a few years in many of us hadn’t heard bupkus, then things started to happen. We were standing up the temp to perm concept when it got entirely subsumed by every other resource area and before you knew it there was a massive hiring effort occurring forest service wide.
However due to it being wide open and less focused on recreation, it turned into a massive financial crisis.
The simple fact that the RO staff and budget officers didn’t draw a line in the sand and instead willingly walked the agency into this situation still blows my mind. Zero accountability.The RO has played a pivotal role in setting all the Forests priorities including how fleet is administered. But now fleet eats 75% of my forest budget!! We can’t even right size rigs to programs because fleet is what we’re told by the RO. Its enough to make one sick. Now we currently face the new administration and the slapdash directives, terminations/reinstatements of the boots on the ground and a freeze on all external communication. Forest level EAs are being briefed all the way up to the WO and Dept level in order to determine if “controversy” exists and the project is alignment with the administrations goals. Insanity has peaked and I can’t see how the Regional Office does anything but make matters worse. They are currently tight lipped and not sharing any information about the coming RIF either.
I’m certainly not advocating for the dissolution of the Regional offices, but a hard look at performance and steering new expectations and standards would be welcome. I’m all for fixing what’s broke and solving problems, I’m a recreation practitioner, that’s what we do! But I don’t support a bull in a china shop approach either.
Jon and I had wondered in the earlier RO post why the ROs were created in the first place? Turns out Steens does indeed have something to say about this!
It appears that regions have existed in some form all the way back to Pinchot. He supported the establishment of entities (then called “districts”) to decentralize decisionmaking. Steens, The U.S. Forest Service: A History (2004) at 77. Pinchot seemed to have two main motives: (1) push most forest management decisions out from the WO to, as close as possible, the directly affected public; and (2) alleviate his own prodigious workload. See id. at 77-78. By 1908 he had established six districts (headed by such luminaries as William Greeley and Frederick E. Olmsted). The districts would be renamed “regions” in 1930. https://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/fs-650/sec2.htm#:~:text=All%20the%20districts%20were%20renamed%20regional%20offices%20on%20May%201%2C%201930.
Pinchot may have wanted his districts to have a long leash, but there was a leash nevertheless. He issued the Use Book in 1905 to ensure a uniform level of quality work among FS employees. Steens at 78. So the paradox of the regional offices stems from the paradox within the man himself: a desire for centralized decentralization.
Thanks for looking into this, Rich! Isn’t that true to some extent of every supervisor to every supervisee… “exercise your own creativity as long as you’re doing what I want you to do.”
Sorry, that’s Steen, not Steens. Confusing the man with the mountain …
First, I have to reply to Sharon’s comment….
“Thanks for looking into this, Rich! Isn’t that true to some extent of every supervisor to every supervisee… “exercise your own creativity as long as you’re doing what I want you to do.””
My first professional job was with a forestry and engineering consulting firm. At my signing up as full-time employee I asked the Director of the firm “what were company policies” his reply was direct and to the point.
He said “company policies are whatever you decide, don’t “****” up. He also did not want to hear from me unless I needed help. Then he wanted to hear from me sooner rather than later.
I think he single handedly ruined my future career with the Federal government.
BUT, getting back to Regional Offices.
I was at the Supervisor’s Office in Recreation in both Region 1 and Region 6. I was also at the Supervisor’s Office in Planning in Region 6.
The Regional Offices have a split between policy matters and technical matters. The policy matters are easily handled without a Regional Office in the sense, that the SO’s need to be aware of national and regional issues, not just local issues. In planning or recreation I had no problem with “policy” issues. Those are really easy.
On technical matters it is a different outlook. The Forest Supervisor came to me and said Region 6 wants to get rid of the Operations Research Analyst (ForPlan) and the Regional Economist.
He asked “What do you think?”
My answer was “I spend time keeping current on ORA and economist issues, but I don’t keep current on the analytical tools that I would have use if a problem came up. I rely on the RO for those skills, and so do all the other Forest analysts in the Region.
Getting rid of the those two positions means that 19 Forest Analysts would have to divert their attention to “maintaining professional skill sets”.
Region Six in that round, kept both positions.
Likewise, in Recreation, the policy issues were fairly easy to deal with, but in special use permits like summer homes, ski areas, and other special use recreation permits the RO did come in handy.
When I worked for the National Park Service they had the Denver Service Center to provide technical skills to the parks. It seems today, that is being provided by Regional Offices in the NPS.
I think the Forest Service needs to make a split in the concept of Regional Offices between policy matters and technical matters. The policy matters are simpler to deal with, but folks with technical skills need to be there to help the individual National Forests.
The policy role of the Regional Offices is easier to deal with than the technical role.
As a practitioner of both Supervisors and Regional Offices, I can’t help but think the RO’s could be combined to two; East and West, with West being Forests west of the 100th. About the only good thing I saw out of a Regional Office was the Planning Section, and being tied to the OGC folks. OGC provided much more in advising on all things policy matters and pertinent Laws associated with resource management.
Far too often, as a Forest Supervisor, about the only thing I got from the RO’s outside direct guidance from the Regional Forester was as an attitude problem from RO Directors! They seemed to thrive on the perception they could make life miserable for a Forest Supervisor that didn’t see their way. Many occasions the threats came in withholding funds, for various reasons, mostly ego driven. I didn’t put up with their crap very often, talking to the boss and making known my disdain for the Directors silly little games. More than once I was threatened with removal, but cooler heads (and SES) generally filled my life with joy! 🤣
Strip the WO to the bare minimums, two RO’s and give Forest Sups back the authorities that puts decisions back at the ground level…..
Gee, I somehow I missed all the power games of Directorship!
On one notable day a DRF called me and one of my employees in for a lesson on “how to get Forest Supes to do things you want.” After his explanation of how he did it, I asked him “do you think we can start with three letter words and work my way up?” So probably even then, our bossiness quotient was below average. When forests didn’t want to do plan revisions, I thought that they had good reasons.
Another was one day my boss the DRF called me in and said “Supe X has complaints about you.” I said “Supe X never mentioned them to me, didn’t we learn in management training that you were first supposed to go directly to the person involved with your suggestions for improvement?”
So there were lots of RF/DRF/Supe undercurrents I never really caught on to in my seven years of Directorship. I expect that some were Regional culture, and some were individual personalities and personal chemistry. When I spoke with RPDs from other Regions, they had decidedly different experiences.
Region 2 was relatively benign; relatively. I thought the atmosphere was a bit terse, with some strain, at times, with some of the players. I didn’t like caving “every time” to Senators and Congress folks! Region 3 however, wore their battle scars where everyone could see!
I had been a Deputy for only a couple months when me and the boss were summoned to the RO. My first week of Deputyship was a Regional review of a large project, on site. I rode all week with all the Directors in a rattling 12-passenger van. Great experience and introduction to the team! Second week was two large wildfires, and I was Agency Administrator for both; didn’t know anyone but we got the job done. Welcome to Region 3!
However, the invitation to be at the RO was three and a half hours by vehicle so me and the boss had time to discuss why we were going. He literally thought it was to pick up an award for performance on the large project that was the result of the Regional review. I didn’t have a clue, but was excited.
Well, I was met by a Director in the parking lot, telling me we were about to be blindsided and reprimanded for action. The RF conference room was on the third floor; we entered to find a couple Directors, Deputy Director’s and Chief of stuff seated. The battle commenced with a complete beat-down of what we were doing wrong, and so forth. My boss was a very smart and talented guy, but he tore right back into the fight like “Sherman took Georgia”, so to speak. Yelling and cussing from both sides of the table, red faces, and had they been able to reach, fists would have been thrown.
Of course the RF heard the commotion, went in and told them to stop. He then called all the Directors and Deputies, DRFs to the conference room. Here is what leadership looks like: he told everyone in the room to begin acting like professionals, knock off the bickering and in-fighting and treat these folks in the field with respect! I’m a country boy, and have heard most cuss words known to man while working cows, but this beat anything I ever saw in a formal setting! Needless to say I was thinking “what the heck did I get into”? However, there was no more real trouble between the RO and the A-S for some time to follow!
Part of that blowup happened because the Director at fault did not have a full understanding of his resource area. I don’t know if it had been a “last chance” placement or what, but THAT was the root cause – and maybe jealousy.
I can talk about it now but man o man, that was a doozy! 🤣🤣
Yes! Absolutely agree with this sentiment from the R4 rec PM. And with #2, it boggles my mind that no one talks about out how after we went to NFSE – the role of the ROs went from marginally beneficial to nearly nonexistent. How many people does it take to dole out the peanuts left in the discretionary BLIs like NFRW?
So much hate for ROs! I guess I shouldn’t be entirely surprised. Isn’t it a law of nature that we think the level above us serves no purpose? At the district, we complained about the SO. At the SO, we complained about the RO. At the RO, we complain about the WO. And I’m sure the WO complains about the department. I’m in an RO now and all I see around me are colleagues doing everything they can to support the field. It’s their primary purpose. If their version of help doesn’t feel helpful, this is feedback they actively solicit and want to hear from the field. Where I think they’re most helpful is in identifying needs and opportunities that stretch across multiple units and seeking solutions that can be applied programmatically, so that each unit isn’t trying to tackle at the individual unit level what’s more of a universal thing. In that way it can take some pressure off units so they can focus on more their unique needs and on-the-ground work and it gains some efficiency of scale. They’re also able to take on special projects that benefit the region that forest and district-level folks don’t have the capacity to take on. Often their work is done with substantial opportunities for input/feedback/contributions from the field. They do a lot more than dole out peanuts, it’s just that the peanut-doling is probably the most visible to certain field-level folks. And yes, like everywhere, there are ways ROs could become more efficient and effective, just as there are ways districts, SO, WO, and beyond could become more efficient and effective.
Just to complete the circle, it should be a role for each higher level to help the lower level become more efficient and effective (effective in implementing a policy), and I think most of the time that is the intent. But it is not always easy for a higher level to discern when instead a wheel needs to be reinvented for a specific situation.
I agree with you Anonymous, especially on “the level above is messed up” and the hard workers (most of which formerly worked on Districts or SOs. Do folks think that there is some kind of RO virus that people get when they move to an RO? Also the fact is that District Rangers and Forest Supes can…make mistakes and be warned off those by the RO. I observed this in the WO NEPA world. Forest does CE abuse.. RF does not want to do a power play on the Supe due to only having so many relational chits.. so it goes to the WO to be the bad guy..
Three Regional Offices would make a lot of sense, the redundancy of “nine” is just a waste! Sure, great folks in the RO, dedicated to the job assigned to do, but there is a power trip with some individuals and that is pretty much Agency wide. I think the biggest offenders are the Deputy Director’s and DRF’s, but that’s just my experience….