Ranger staff shrinks

Staff on the Sisters Ranger District will be cut back 15 to 25 percent over the next three to five years, as nationwide trends in National Forest funding trickle down to the Sisters Ranger District.

Projected workforce reductions will shrink the Sisters District from 90 summer employees in 1998 to between 68 and 77 employees by the year 2003, with no anticipated layoffs, according to Sisters District Ranger Bill Anthony.

The Deschutes National Forest released its first ever "Business Plan for Workforce Management" on April 28. The effects of the plan are starting to become apparent.

"The Forest needs to take a hard look at what our priorities are over the next three to five years," Anthony said. "For that reason we embarked on a business plan."

Anthony cites dwindling congressional funding of recreation and timber management programs as a primary justification for the diminished National Forest Service budget.

"Lack of public support for large-scale harvesting on public lands" has taken timber volumes from 12 billion board feet to less than 4 billion board feet nationally over the last 10 to 15 years, he said. On the Deschutes National Forest alone, harvest volumes have plunged from 250 million to about 75 million board feet in the last decade.

"About three years ago, most timber programs on this forest were supported by salvage sale monies from the removal of dead and dying trees," Anthony said. In 1996, $11 million of the Deschutes National Forest's $35 million budget came from salvage sales. By 1999, that figure is expected to plummet to between $2 million and $3 million.

Simultaneously, congressionally appropriated dollars for local recreation programs have declined 44 percent, from $2.9 million to $1.6 million since 1996.

According to the business plan, "The Deschutes National Forest had 373 permanent positions on the roles as of December 31, 1997." The Sisters Ranger District employed about 90 personnel this summer, according to Anthony, about half of which were permanent employees.

"We can anticipate being 15 to 25 percent smaller," Anthony said, "and the planning starts now."

In the private sector, a 25 percent workforce reduction usually results in layoffs, but Anthony is confident there will be jobs, albeit fewer of them, for those who stick around.

"We aren't in a process of firing employees," he said. "We are in a process of placing them - placement not reduction."

"We can't guarantee (placement) but we'll do as much as we can for our employees who want to learn new skills."

The district also plans to take advantage of attrition to avoid layoffs.

"Eight percent of our workforce leaves the forest every year through retirements or accepting new jobs elsewhere," Anthony explained. "We expect to take advantage of attrition to help accomplish our objectives."

At that rate, employment numbers would reach targeted goals, taking the total for the Sisters District down to 70 employees, by the year 2001.

The district will have to get creative to retrain those employees who remain and are open to the transition.

"We are negotiating with the union to develop a placement process to help employees develop new skills or to shift their skills," Anthony said. "We will move employees around and retrain them.

"There will be fewer opportunities to hire from the outside, but if we don't have the skills internally for (certain) jobs, we'll look externally."

As job titles are eliminated and new jobs created, the forest will be managed for other values than timber harvest, such as the integrity of wildlife habitat and watershed health, Anthony said.

"Nationally, there is a lot of interest in restoring the health of our watersheds and streams," he said. "So fisheries management and hydrology are two of the areas we are beefing up. We will have fewer people working to support timber management, including people in biological sciences and timber sale planning, and we will shift from regeneration harvesting to thinning."

With changes in forest treatment methods, the district will retain fewer wildlife biologists, landscape architects and silviculturists, but it will increase staffing in fuels management.

Contrary to the emphasis on prescribed fire, wildfire suppression strategy will look quite different under the new management direction.

Three to five years ago, the district operated five engines, each staffed with a four-person crew. This summer they were already down to two engines, and one was designated as a "regional contingency for other forests," according to Anthony. Within two years, they will be down to a single engine.

Anthony added that the Redmond Air Center will be retained since it is a regional and national resource. But the de-emphasis in reforestation harvesting will permanently shut down the Bend Pine Nursery later this year.

"There will also be less money for managing wilderness recreation," Anthony noted, "with the idea ofhaving more of our facilities managed under permit by concessionaires."