Trails, campgrounds will be affected
Work on trails, at campgrounds and other developed recreation sites in the Methow Valley Ranger District (MVRD) could be slashed next year because the U.S. Forest Service is decreasing funding to forests across the country to address a significant funding shortfall. The cuts could also affect programs including archaeology, range management and engineering.
The biggest anticipated impacts in and around the Methow will come from the decision by the Forest Service not to hire any seasonal employees for anything but fire-related work.
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore described the situation in an all-employee call in mid-September. He acknowledged that not having seasonal employees will affect the agency’s ability to get critical work done. The call, listened to by more than 10,000 employees, is posted online.
MVRD’s seasonal employees work in fire, fuels, trails, developed recreation, wilderness, engineering, timber, silviculture, archeology and range management, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Public Affairs Officer Victoria Wilkins told the Methow Valley News. Most seasonal work is focused on the summer months from June through September, although it depends on the job, she said.
“The Forest is still evaluating what the impacts will be to specific programs and services. We are focusing first on near-term impacts, such as winter recreation programs, and then looking at next season and out-year impacts,” Wilkins said via email. “We do expect that there will be projects and services that do not get done, but it’s too early to know the details.”
MVRD had 22 temporary seasonal workers and 31 permanent seasonals across all program areas in 2024, Wilkins said. Many temporary seasonals return year after year.
MVRD added both fire and nonfire permanent seasonal positions this past year, in roles previously filled by temporary seasonal employees, Wilkins said. The district converted 20 temporary seasonal positions to permanent — four in recreation, one in range/weeds, one in wildlife, one in administration, two in forestry, and 11 in fire, she said. The other permanent seasonal jobs are fire related.
“This decision was made to address the dynamic and evolving budget environment going into fiscal year 2025,” Forest Service National Press Officer Scott Owen told the News via email. The fiscal year started in October.
Owen confirmed that the Forest Service will not be hiring additional seasonal nonfire employees for fiscal year 2025. Seasonal employees typically do a range of important activities, including helping maintain trails, campgrounds and other recreational facilities, Owen said. The agency does intend to hire its core temporary firefighting force of 11,300 for the coming year, he said. Owen declined to speculate on “rumored budget amounts.”
The Forest Service budget appropriation is about $6 billion, but when the agency asked its managers how much they would need to cover everything being asked of them, the total came to more than $30 billion, Moore said. “So, it goes without saying that we are not funded to do the level of work that’s being asked of us, or what you also think is important,” he said.
“The one thing I’m going to be very clear on is this — we just can’t get the same amount of work done with fewer employees,” Moore said. “In other words, we’re going to do what we can with what we have.”
In some ways, the agency brought this upon itself, Moore said. Despite budget cuts year after year, Forest Service employees continually produced the same amount of work. “We have contributed to the expectations that we can do more with less,” Moore said.
Congress is still working on the budget and numbers are not finalized, Forest Service Director for Strategic Planning, Budget and Accountability Mark Lichtenstein said during the call. Lichtenstein likened the budget process, where both houses of Congress need to reach agreement, to a marathon, which can take a year or two to complete.
“We do have pretty concrete evidence that this year — FY [fiscal year] 2025 — no matter which way, no matter what happens, will not likely be a very robust budget environment,” Lichtenstein said.
The Forest Service’s budget comes primarily through discretionary Congressional appropriations. “As an agency, we have a responsibility to plan for the most conservative funding picture, and these actions reflect that reality,” Owen told the News.
‘Dire’ cuts
Although the cuts affect the entire agency, there will be regional nuances, Moore said. With budget matters being handled at the national level, Methow Valley District Ranger Chris Furr said he wasn’t at liberty to discuss specific impacts. But an employee at the ranger district described the cuts as “the most dire” they had seen in their entire career with the Forest Service.
The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest has had additional money in recent years from the Central Washington Initiative, part of the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The initiative provided “a much-needed influx of funding that has allowed us to implement numerous projects that otherwise would have been delayed for years or never accomplished,” Wilkins said.
Although funding for the Central Washington Initiative supplements the forest’s normal appropriated budget, Okanogan-Wenatchee administrators don’t know yet how the larger budget discussions will affect initiative funding, Wilkins said.
Moore characterized the budget crisis as an opportunity for the agency to “do what we can with what we have.” The new approach will be “outcome-based” rather than “output-based,” he said.
There have been measurable gains in recent years, in particular with regard to the wildfire crisis. Moore pointed to significant risk reduction through prescribed burns and other forest treatments.
The Forest Service will have to make hard decisions and the tighter budget will bring trade-offs. The No. 1 priority is to be sure they pay current employees first, even if that means pulling back on commitments to contracts, Moore said.
Moore listed several reasons for the shortfalls, among them a lower overall budget, the end of supplemental funding for cost-of-living increases, and more expectations of staff. A 10% pay increase for federal employees in the past couple of years was never fully funded by Congress, Lichtenstein said.
Over the years, the Forest Service has lost more than a third of its nonfire work force, about 8,000 employees, Moore said.
The Forest Service is focused on fiscal solvency and stability in the short term by using all available funding sources to pay employees, Moore said. “That means we will be asking employees to be taking on the highest-priority work that matches our funding sources,” he said. The agency has asked its leadership team to develop plans to function with limited funding.
Despite the already difficult decisions the Forest Service has made — in particular, to forego seasonal workers — more hard choices will need to be made next year, Deputy Chief for Business Operations Mary Pletcher Rice said in the all-employee call. The Forest Service will fill open positions primarily by promoting and hiring existing employees, and will hire from outside only to fill exceptional needs, she said.
While training and development will remain a priority, the Forest Service will do more virtual training to save money on travel, Moore said.
The agency has already converted between 1,300 and 1,400 seasonal workers to permanent jobs, Moore said. They are not currently anticipating any layoffs and don’t have the authority to offer early-retirement incentives.
“The [Okanogan-Wenatchee] forest is still evaluating potential impacts to prescribed fire, thinning and other forest health programs,” Wilkins said. “Even with projected budget constraints, our mission to manage and protect these lands continues. We’re committed to providing the best service possible with the staffing and resources we have. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we navigate these challenges.”
