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40 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, January 27, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Opportunities Moving to Southern Oregon? MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend December 22, 2004 National Forest staff trimmed by federal budget ax By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune Uncle Sam plans to lay off up to 50 employees on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest staff to meet its shrinking budget. The U.S. Forest Service is sending out notification letters to employees whose positions are not funded in the current budget, said forest spokeswoman Patty Burel. The forest currently has 390 employees. When the job cuts are completed, the staff will be about one-third the number of employees that were on the job two decades ago. The workforce reductions, which began Oct. 1 and are expected to be completed early next year, began after the forest officials trimmed all the fixed costs they could for the forest, Burel said. An effort is under way to find positions for the laid-off workers on other national forest staffs if they have indicated they would be willing to transfer, she said. Advertisement "A lot of these people are highly skilled who have been with the Forest Service for many years," she said. "They are great at what they do. "It’s a very stressful time if you are one of the 50 unfunded people," she added. This fiscal year budget is about 5 percent less than the previous budget of roughly $43 million, she said. The current fiscal year began Oct. 1. Most of the staff reductions are the result of declines in logging, officials said. Previous staff reductions had been covered by retirements and transfers, Burel said. "We’ve also been looking at ways to reduce fixed costs by doing things like getting a smaller fleet of trucks and reducing facility costs," she said. For instance, moving the Butte Falls District office out of its leased facility into historic buildings in Butte Falls this year has saved about $100,000 annually, she said. "But we realized earlier this year that we’ve made all the cost savings we can, and that we had to look at work force reductions," she said. The positions being cut include just about every forest job, from biologists to foresters, she said. In addition to trying to find jobs on other forests, the agency is trying to match them up with positions created by retirements, she said. The agency is also working with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Medford District to determine if there are opportunities to share positions. "We’re trying to save taxpayer money," Burel said. "But we will maintain a presence where we always have in local communities . . . We’re trying to build a workforce that is permanent." Some specialized jobs, such as those dealing with budget and finance, are being centralized in Albuquerque, N.M., she said. Late last year, the agency administratively combined the Rogue River and Siskiyou forests. The result was streamlining specialty jobs in areas such as the timber staff, fire staffs and engineering staffs, officials said. Although only Congress has the authority to physically create one forest out of the two, the agency chief has the authority to combine forest administrations. In 1999, the agency placed the two forests under one forest supervisor whose mission included combining their headquarters staffs. Other steps included placing one ranger over two ranger districts in several regions. At that time, officials estimated the annual savings from combining the administrative staffs would be about $1 million. Two decades ago there were nearly 1,000 full-time employees on the two forests combined. Meanwhile, more Oregon cuts are likely to come as the Forest Service consolidates operations and shifts people with specialized skills to where they are needed, Rex Holloway, regional spokesman for the Forest Service, told the Associated Press. In 1990, the Forest Service employed more than 8,200 people in Oregon and Washington, Holloway said. Today the agency employs about 4,200 in the region. Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? 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