1. Purchasing card weirdness. Heard that each district gets only one purchasing card? And they have to pick one person.. who conceivably might go on fires, take vacation or get sick? This is the weirdest thing I’ve heard so far. Hopefully, this is a “new Admin” thing and will be shortly resolved. According to my sources, one Region has issued only 11 government purchasing cards. For the Region!
With AI, folks should be able to figure out if employees are spending on unusual or too many things.. if you wanted to take a look at purchasing, there would be many ways to slice it. Sometimes getting desired work done requires loosening the leash. I’m sure the Admin will figure this out.. the sooner the better, IMHO.
2. FS Intentions : Four Stages of Employee Reduction. First, probationary, Second Fork in the Road, Third VERA, Fourth RIF. The plan was due last Friday, but other rumors said it wasn’t turned in on time.the plan is to focus RIFs on mid to senior people in the WO and ROs.
For those of you who don’t know about VERA,
Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) allows agencies that are undergoing substantial restructuring, reshaping, downsizing, transfer of function, or reorganization to temporarily lower the age and service requirements in order to increase the number of employees who are eligible for retirement. The authority encourages more voluntary separations and helps the agency complete the needed organizational change with minimal disruption to the work force. By offering these short term opportunities, an agency can make it possible for employees to receive an immediate annuity years before they would otherwise be eligible.
The idea will be to reduce as few field staff as possible.
3. Following RIFs, restructuring will occur. The priorities will be on the ground wildland fuels reduction, timber, and energy and minerals projects. Of course, we old folks who have been through many restructuring exercises are immensely curious about the nature of this one. I’d still like to hear from someone who has seen what has gone to OPM.
The following two I heard only enough to get vague outlines and tried to put the pieces together from different people but perhaps with not much luck. Any additional clarification appreciated.
4. NEPA there is timeline for each agency to redo its NEPA regs in a year. This means that the FS probably won’t change many things (it should be noted that the folks customarily responsible for NEPA regs reside in the WO). I’ve heard of other NEPA and litigation intended improvements but not in enough detail to write about here. Others may have heard more.
5. Priorities are wildland fuels reduction timber, minerals and energy, and recreation. Rumor is that timber target is going up, in at least one Region.
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7. Funding is coming through to grantees, although possibly only funding toward money already spent by the NGOs. There was also an issue with the payment system that also could have led to delays in reimbursements.
6. Apparently when the FS had its first budget crisis last summer, they tried to get funds they had obligated to Keystones (which we think might be $400 mill) back. We don’t know how much they got back, and how much is still obligated to partners to contract and hire people to do work.
It’s kind of interesting to me that the “grant funding information” cone of silence seems to apply regardless of Admin. And in my contacts with folks at the Keystone groups, they aren’t talking either. Of course, it’s all in flux so perhaps no one knows how it’s going nor how it will ultimately turn out.
It will be interesting to see what the agencies do about NEPA regs. No agency that I’m aware of has its own comprehensive set of NEPA regs – the agencies leaned heavily on the CEQ regs. The Forest Service approach is typical:
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-II/part-220
Given the limited time the agencies have to address this issue, most will likely simply paste 90% of the old CEQ regs into their own sections of the CFR, so instead of one set of NEPA regs there will be 20. Efficient!
What do about the other 10% will consume most of the reg-writing time. The controversial provisions (such as indirect and cumulative effects, when an EIS is necessary, alternatives analysis, perhaps some stuff on judicial review, and so on) are the ones that will keep lawyers up late into the night. Maybe the administration will simply decide to eliminate most of these provisions, but as discussed in another thread, even that may yield less litigation relief than supporters might think.
What I heard was with the limited time to finish the new regs (1 year?) there would have to be limited changes to existing. But I heard that third or fourth hand so… could be some discussion as to which agencies would need to be NEPA guinea pigs.
As I’ve mentioned before, when it came to CEs, our timber association rep used to tell me that they wanted the surest way, not the fastest way.
I’m guessing that there will be a 5th source of employee reduction. After the RIF, some remaining employees who weren’t RIFfed will choose to leave the Agency, in protest. While it might not be a big number, each of them would probably be important to Agency (and Administration) goals.
I don’t know..when the last RIF happened, I was just glad to have my job, and honestly for some of our professions, paying jobs outside the federal government (especially without moving) are extremely limited. We also felt that we folks left had to keep things together as best we could.
Is it possible that today’s RIF survivors may be less glad to still have their jobs? This administration’s goal of making employees feel unwanted and fearful is going to be achieved to some degree. If there was a sense of relief by the survivors of prior RIFs, I don’t think the same thing is going to happen during the next four years (and maybe much longer). As for a sense of duty, it’s less clear what you would be keeping things together for. Many will continue to look for other opportunities.
I retired in 2012 after an RO reorganization would have eliminated my position. (I was the acting Planning Director who got to propose that to leadership team.) As I understood the RIF procedure, I could have bumped the other regional planner with less service time, but when you’re not wanted, and you see other opportunities, you take ’em.)
If we have a new party in power in four years, is it possible that those who decided to stick around in Trump leadership jobs are going to be viewed suspiciously by that side? Retribution tends to perpetuate itself.
Jon, let me push back on that a little bit. You say “this administration’s goal of making employees feel unwanted and fearful”. I remember the Reagan RIFs and there was lots of the same rhetoric at the time about government employees, to the extent I remember thinking “why should fire people go protect his ranch from wildfire if he thinks so little of us?”
I think the whole beauty of the civil service is those folks who prioritize the mission above the current Admin. Yup, the next Admin could do things to folks (more readily to SES, less readily to lower levels) whom they had reasons or gossip to believe they were “too supportive of the last Admin.” It wouldn’t be the first time, I first noticed it during the Clinton Admin (of course I was in DC then.) And finally I have to point out that not everyone in the Forest Service is completely honest and upfront when it comes to competition for jobs, meaning, it wouldn’t surprise me if some people accused other people of being too close to the previous Admin (behind their backs) in order to advance themselves or their own agendas.
You seem to be viewing this as business as usual for a change in administrations even though we’re seeing so many things we’ve never seen before, including one of Trump’s minions saying he wants federal employees to be terrified of coming to work (couldn’t find the quote just now, but it happened). This is way beyond Reagan saying “government is the problem.”
Jon, is this the statement you were looking for?
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Russell Vought [now director of OMB] said in October to his thinktank, Center for Renewing America. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down … We want to put them in trauma.”
Yes – thanks! Maybe OMB will require that everyone left have this quote in a frame at their desks.
Well, it is business as usual. Every team and organization goes through tough morale ups and downs and at this point those still working for the Forest Service need to remember that they do have a job to do and if they can’t handle what’s going on can make whatever choice they need to to stay or leave. There’s far too much speculation causing distraction from actually serving the American People how they should be served right now.
Speculation about what will happen next is fueled by what has already happened, so that is what is causing the distraction.
It is time to right size our Federal workforce, the previous administrations for most of my lifetime simply grew the Federal government. We become bloated and ridiculous in many actions or no actions. We work for the people of America who pay our salaries and it is time we start acting like it.
Thank you Jeff fare to many of the federal worker believe the system is et up for them and not to serve the TAXpayers. I work right now folks who got out downright angry and even threaten to quiet until they were told the might be fired then the tears were flowing just because they had to send in a email telling the OPM 5 little things they did last week that should show everyone how bloated and out of touch the feds workers have become IT is time to become servants again
Priorities align, sounds good to me! Region 8 could certainly up their cut, with more funding to go along with it. Down there, they don’t “pay” to log!
Each FOREST has only one purchase card outside of fire. Yes fire is exempt from this limitation. As far as I know, all other resources must go through the single card holder.
So to purchase for non-fire: submit request to forest budget officer requesting funds, then the typical ad700 signed by supervisor, then request the one card holder to make the purchase. About a two week process now.
I have strong doubts the admin will figure this out soon. There’s been no indication they care about anything at the ground level.
While we are talking rumors, a rumor I have heard from different staff that work in three different regions is several ROs will be closing. Someone went as far as to state that the plan running around DC is for only R2, R6, and R8 to remain.
That would fit the “Three Giant Region” concept that has been around for awhile. Either Zornes brought it up or the Transformation effort or both?
To Sharon’s reply: 😎
It will be interesting for Alaska, and the largest forest in the US, if they close Region Office 10 . It’s not like we have an easily redistributable “commuting area” up here. You have to take a boat or plane to get into southeast Alaska! We have one person in the RO that has purchasing card access now, and we assume there will still be functions needed even with heavy cuts at the RO. Have they basically signaled for these lucky “1s”, that they will likely survive RIF but will need to handle all purchasing for what is left?
Purchase cards- We have one P-card for the whole forest, not just district. However, fire folks were exempted from this, they get to keep them. So it’s 11 non-fire P-cards in the region.
Timber targets- yep. We’ve been told FY26 target is double FY24. The crazy thing for us is there’s no one to buy the wood—one of our mills just shuttered due to lack of staff/housing, and our other mills can’t keep up with higher volumes.
Sharon et al— I’m curious how RIFs targeting the RO/WO could trickle down to districts. My understanding is bump & retreat means that RIFed RO people could potentially take jobs of folks in lower positions on the districts (in the same commuting area as the RO). Is that right? How widespread might this be?
Tim, that’s a great question! I’m hoping that we can get memories from earlier RIFs of how they worked, but that is not to say that OPM RIF rules haven’t changed since then (the last one I remember was the Clinton Reinventing Government RIF).
Since you asked, I’ll start another post asking your question hoping to get broader responses.
They will probably make the commuting areas fairly small to prevent the type of thing you are talking about. I thought I saw something in the Executive Orders about preparing for RIF that stated that the commuting/competitive area was to be at the office level?
Thanks for posting this Sharon!
And for gathering the intel.
Definitely a sign that these are unusual times.
I know folks who are eager to see the FS honor its contractual and grant agreement funding obligations to non-profits. Some are waiting to be paid for work that was already completed.
Any additional info you hear, and can pass along, about funding will be appreciated.
Timber targets – Given Trump’s broad brush statements calling for more logging, I’d be surprised if the targets didn’t go up in most regions. IMHO, 5 and 6 are likely to increase and the Northern region too (I’m not current on what # that region is).
RIF >> I was RIF’d in 1986 due to Senator Hatfield’s “Timber Buyout” legislation in Region 6.
I’ll try to post a comment on the article re: Experience w/ RIF’s
Thanks so much for telling your experience! That RIF was a piece of history I had forgotten about… so there was a Reagan RIF in 1982, Hatfield in 1986 and Clinton in 1993-1994; I wonder if there were others?
There was a WRAPs in early 2000s, at the time the ASC was stood up.
While this doesn’t deal with a USFS rumor, at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting the following was said by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Does anyone have any insights on this supposed “$830 million for surveys?”
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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Trump that “There is a federal consulting group which was a group inside of Interior, but it was managing contracts for many different agencies that flowed through here” and “one of those contracts was to do surveys of individuals, $830 million for surveys.”
“And so part of the question was ‘hey could we actually see the surveys?’ and then the surveys came back and it was, the survey was like 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper with ten questions that anyone’s child in junior high could have put together, or AI could have done for free,” Burgum said during the Cabinet meeting. “$830 million, so that is one that we stopped and that contract was going out after you were inaugurated, sir.”
Whoever approved those invoices for payments needs some work and perhaps a PIP. But instead one bad apple spoils the bunch.
FYI. R5 is assigning less than 1 P-card per zone. Our zone has 4 forests and 3 P-cards m.
On the Keystone flux … here is a sort of related lawsuit involving EPA and Trump’s more recent attempts to take back grants.
“A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily barred President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency from clawing back at least $14 billion in grants issued by the Biden administration for climate and clean-energy projects, saying the EPA had not put forward “credible evidence” of fraud or abuse.
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, D.C., ruled that the EPA’s sudden mid-February asset freeze and March 11 termination of legally awarded grants came without a legally required explanation to three coalitions of grant recipients. The groups said the sudden cutoff of funds approved by Congress appeared to be arbitrary, capricious or in violation of federal law and regulations.
Climate United Fund, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, which received $7 billion, $5 billion and $2 billion, respectively, sued over the funding freeze. They are among eight recipients awarded more than $20 billion under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established in President Joe Biden’s signature 2022 climate law more commonly known as the “green bank.”
While the agency voiced concerns regarding “program integrity,” “programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse” and “the absence of adequate oversight,” Chutkan wrote, “vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient.
“The government can’t just void contracts and void agreements and terminate things without following its own regulation,” the judge had said earlier during a court hearing. (Not sure what the “regulation” would be for the Forest Service, but the APA arbitrary/capricious standard also seems to be involved.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/03/18/greenbank-freeze-citibank-judge-order/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=wp_the7-tracking-trump&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F41adffa%2F67db41b81c02d2281d7d89e8%2F5d3a0ebdae7e8a7c4f4664c2%2F48%2F73%2F67db41b81c02d2281d7d89e8