USFS faces 30% budget cuts

Mike Tozzo

April 26, 2007.

Rumors have been flying around the Tongass National Forest that the United States Forest Service is looking at a 30% staff cut and the possibility of transferring as many as 44 workers out of the Petersburg Ranger District.

The allocated budget from Congress and what comes through the administration has been reduced significantly and the USFS is anticipating upwards of a 20% to 30% budget reduction in the next fiscal year.

According to Deputy Forest Supervisor Olleke Rappe-Daniels, the staff cuts are untrue but the USFS has been working on ways to handle the budget cuts. “There are lots of ways to do that,” she said. “None of the ways we have discussed have included getting rid of 44 people in the Petersburg District, that’s for sure.”

Most of the possibilities they have on the Tongass deal with the fact that they have a pretty high vacancy rate and attrition rate. “There are a lot of people who are of retirement age who we anticipate will be leaving in the next year or two or three,” Rappe-Daniels added.

There is a lot of flexibility on that score and Rappe-Daniels noted that with the engineering group on the Tongass there is the option of people being given the opportunity to retire early. “That’s in the throes of reality right now but those are voluntary retirements if they choose to do so,” she said.

Once people make decisions about whether or not they want to retire then the USFS has to look at how many people that eliminated, and then act accordingly. The other thing Rappe-Daniels said they’ve looked at is the possibility of combining the Petersburg Ranger District with the Petersburg Supervisor’s Office out at Scow Bay.

“We’ve talked about whether or not we could save money by combining those two staffs,” Rappe-Daniels explained. The USFS is still looking at the feasibility of that but even if deciding that made sense, it would take a while to make those kinds of things happen.

The USFS is trying to get ahead of the curve and Rappe-Daniels noted that they will have to learn to work a little smarter and more efficiently. “There are ways to do that but there are some basic core activities that we are mandated to do and so I suspect there will be some reprioritization of projects going on, for example,” she said.

The district level office, such as Petersburg’s office, is the first interface unit with the public. There are 10 district offices on the Tongass, above the district is the supervisor level and above that is the regional office in Juneau. “It’s at the district level that projects that affect natural resources on the ground get done,” she explained.

According to Rappe-Daniels there are 47 employees at the Petersburg Ranger District and around 60 employees at the supervisor’s office at Scow Bay. “If 44 people were transferred out or left, I don’t think we would be able to do anything, it’s not very realistic,” she concluded.