As I sat down with my notes from last week, I realized that I am really bad at taking notes. With any luck, I will hear from someone else who was there if I say something wrong, or left out something the Chief said that’s important. Chief Schultz also sat down with Chief Bosworth for a Fireside Chat, which was recorded by the Museum and will be available on their Youtube channel.
You can also hear the Chief on this “Chat with the Chief” from April. He hasn’t done any more of these, and is communicating directly with folks in the field. But his themes seem consistent. The FS has a mission, it needs to get back to the basics… managing the land, and focus on doing that, and driving organizational change and improvement to focus on that.
As an outsider, it will be hard for him to earn trust and respect, especially when many FS employees and retirees are not supportive of this Admin and assume the worst. Like I say about any Admin, there will be decisions I agree with (including personnel decisions) and decisions I disagree with, there will be decisions I agree with that turn out badly and decisions I disagree with that turn out well. That’s the humility that comes with observing them all since the Reagan Admin, and the way the decisions roll out and change through time.
Personally I am a fan of a continuous efforts toward organizational improvement, and remember when that was something both colors of Admin found important (remember Reinventing Government during the Clinton Admin?). His background is managing a state agency, which tends to have less funding and perhaps less bureaucracy, so that could be helpful. It could also lead to great frustration on his part when he runs across “can’t do that”.. OPM, OMB and so on. So we’ll see.
Most of us who have been following this won’t find anything surprising, except that Chief Schultz said was that they plan to get temporaries back next year, which I hadn’t heard before.
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5300 employees have left. (note that this is in the ballpark of the number of employees that were hired in the last few years with IRA and BIL funding). There was a $750 mill deficit (we have heard that number before, but Chief Randy Moore, later at the meeting, said it was only $500 mill, more on that later).
He said he is on the road three weeks out of the month talking to employees.
The reorganization effort started when the funding hole was first discovered, before the election. He said that FS leadership is at the table providing input on reorganization and there are teams of FS individuals working on various aspects of it, but they need to review the public comment before they come out with anything.
Some options considered included three Regions, and there was a fair amount of dialogue. They identified support the Regions provide, and thought about which could be performed by national service centers (like Content Analysis, or ski area engineering..). The ideas are not fully baked yet. It’s a thoughtful process and not going to happen overnight. The proposed hubs are more for USDA not FS employees, the existing facilities make sense.
The Associate Chief’s (Chris French’s) role is more “hands on” with operational elements like forest plan implementation and the Wildfire Crisis Strategy.
There has been a hiring freeze since August of last year.
Communications:
Comms need to be vetted, he has seen in the last 5-6 months social media for fire and safety has opened up. There is a coordination effort and clearance to find the best person to talk to the media. At the same time, his experience is that it’s better to have people talk about the projects they are directly involved with.
Recreation:
Most people know the FS via recreation. As silly as it sounds, clean toilets are key to peoples’ impression, and he pays attention to them. There was a problem early on with contracts, on his “Rides with Rangers” that came up and they dealt with it. Recreation is set to grow, we need to work with the public to develop a plan to support recreation and clarify expectations, then execute the plan.
Fire:
They are going to create efficiencies, there will be a Deputy Chief in Fire, and the focus will be on implementing contracting, position classification, pay structure system, and improving payments to the workforce.
He wants to hear from employees about things that frustrate them (processes) and he will try to make things better.
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If I missed something or got it wrong, please let me know in the comments.
I think the Forest Service should be ‘right-sized’, with adequate permanent staff. That would also mean that no Temps would be needed, in a ‘normal’ year. As it is, in many States, minimum wage is higher than what a GS-3 makes. That makes for a very shallow hiring pool, in more remote areas.
Maybe all Temporary positions should be GS-3, and anything higher becomes a Permanent Seasonal position. There are also other ways to limit the use of Temps, to do the yearly mandated work. Maybe allow 2 years of Temporary Appointments, while eliminating them for the third year, on a Ranger District?
Make those positions TRULY temporary, up front.