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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 27, 2005 The health of local forests is a point of concern among Forest Service employees who say they are under-funded. Fred Stockwell | For the Tidings Endangered species? Declining Forest Service budget takes its toll By Robert Plain Ashland Daily Tidings Nationwide cuts in the U.S. Forest Service budget are causing widespread changes in how the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest is being managed, said Ashland District Ranger Linda Duffy and other employees of the Forest Service. Although the Forest Service declined to make its budget available, citing its complexity, Duffy and other employees confirmed that a tightening of the budget at the federal level is causing concern and restructuring at the local level. “It’s happening all over the forest,” Duffy said, in an interview at the Ashland Ranger Station on Wednesday. “We used to have this whole building. Now we only have half of it. We are looking for any way we can to cut cost before we cut salaries.” However, Forest Service officials confirmed that many positions have not been saved. Patti Burel, a public information officer, said there has been a 20 percent reduction in the staff of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest since 2002. This fiscal year alone, 47 full-time positions out of 390 have been cut. Duffy said some employees have accepted pay cuts and others have agreed to be transferred to other states that have open positions. However, she added, many employees of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest have families and homes here in the Rogue Valley and aren’t prepared to up and move their lives. “People are paranoid,” said a Forest Service employee who asked not to be identified because of feared repercussions. The employee said they are being discouraged from talking to the media. “No one’s job is secure.” Duffy said, “It’s caused people to be looking over their shoulders. People are always asking who will be next. Until the budget stabilizes, I don’t think people will get over that.” David Klein has worked for the Forest Service for the past 23 years. This summer he was told he had the option of relocating to Susanville, Calif., or losing his job. He chose the latter. “They’ve been talking about cutbacks for years,” he said. “But these aren’t cutbacks. They are gutting the forest service. There is no one working anymore. It’s all just desk jobs. I don’t have a whole lot of regard for management. You don’t hear anyone saying ‘What the hell is going on here?’” Klein, 57 years old with a wife and three children, worked at the J. Herbert Stone Nursery in Central Point, which lost more than half its employees this summer. Some were able to relocate within the district. Others, like Klein, have chosen to move on. He said he could work again for the Forest Service next year as a seasonal employee at a lesser pay grade or use his fire experience to join a private contracting crew. “I’m doing some pick-up work,” he said. “I’ve got a friend building a barn.” Duffy said the pinch is being felt in every department of the Forest Service. She said there is continual pressure to merge the Applegate and Ashland Ranger Districts, which has been heightened as of late because Applegate Ranger Erin Connelly is considering transferring out of the area. Duffy also said bookkeeping that used to be done in the local ranger districts is now being centralized at a nationwide office in New Mexico. Tthis year the Ashland Ranger District had no recreation crew and, thus, could not do any trail maintenance all season long. “We don’t have much of a recreation program because the funding has changed so drastically,” she said. “[The trails] aren’t in the condition we would like to see them in. The campgrounds don’t get taken care of the way they used to.” Duffy said the Forest Service is doing its best to maintain the same level of staffing for its fire crews but they have largely taken the work load away from staff and instead contract the work out “We don’t hire the hand crews we used to,” she said, noting that the Ashland and Applegate Ranger Stations used to hire 10 seasonal workers to fight fires. Now they only hire six and augment this by contracting with private firefighting crews. “We’ve deemed it more appropriate to be handled by the private sector.” A second Forest Service employee who asked for anonymity said many within the organization believe this may save dollars but will effectively make the forest more vulnerable. “We’re placing a lot of trust on labor that we are paying for at the lowest possible bid,” the employee said. “If we are getting all this work out of private contractors then basically our private lands are at the whim of private businesses. It’s very sad for me.” Duffy said the local upper management staff is doing the best it can with a bad situation. She said this region has been learning to live with less financing since the Timber Wars of the late ’80s and early ’90s. “Region 6 carried its share of revenue for many years,” she said. “Elsewhere in the country it’s been this way for a long time.” But, she added, timber, firefighting and recreation all derive their revenues from different streams. So, in fact, the lack of logging actually has nothing to do with budget cuts in other departments. She said answers as to why the Forest Service is being downsized could only come from those making the decisions in Washington, D.C. “We don’t know exactly why, except that there is a lot of need for money throughout our federal government right now,” Duffy said. One of the employees who spoke anonymously called it “a microcosm of the current administration, which definitely has a different agenda.” Another said, “I think the long-term goal is to say the Forest Service doesn’t do anything and contract all the work out.” Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 3040 or [email protected]. 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