Feds status check

General Discussion
#1

Why is there no topic dedicated to supporting the Feds right now?

Darkest days we’ve ever known and we’ve gone to the Hotlist for support forever.

At a minimum reach out to your fellow Feds, or if you’re not a Fed call your FS/DOI friends to check on them.

Make sure they’ve checked their email for the latest, so they can at least make the decision how to reply for themselves by tomorrow night.

Ask if they’ve lost their job, or if they’re stressed and could use help in navigating the application process for your agency, or could use help expanding their network.

We’re Feds because we love fire, we love the lands and we’re proud of what we do. And it’s all crashing down on us right now.

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#2

I think a lot of us who aren’t Fed are having a hard time sifting rumor from fact. I for one would love to have more direct info on what’s happening.

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#3

I’ll take a shot, only after asking a facility manager, Human resources staff member and few road crew super’s.
Former perm WL10 myself, anything OTHER than a non probationary permanent employee; meaning TENURED PERMANENT employee, has been furloughed, laid off, let go before there probationary employee term expires, so seasonal, returning seasonal, career furlough, temp, term etc, have been released or not given return to work notice or ability. Obviously this affects almost someone you know or know of, pretty big move. These were all DOI employees I spoke to in a rural community as well. OBVIOUSLY, someone has to perform these jobs , I was told the jobs in vacancy were being evaluated before rehire. I’m sure that’s a new process that could be doubted or viewed upon in a less than positive way, most likely from a Fiscal.
Don’t shoot the question asker’
Cheers :beers:

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#4

OK, I’m tracking so far. But wouldn’t that include the vast majority of forest service firefighters?

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#5
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#6
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#7
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#8

I’m sure, I thought the USFS uses a seasonal, career conditional, subject to furlough or term in thousands of positions, if anything probably every HotShot, crew/engine member… it’s huge. But… I’ve met Captains on the Sierra that are perm, there crews are not. I’ve also met Captains that are perm/subject to furlough, that I think are laid off right now.
The feds created many type of career service appointments for various reasons and budgetary being a large factor. You’re notified of your appointment type when you apply and hired. I was a WG8 Permanent subject to Furlough when I was given my first position, I knew that I had to take at least a required 2 week non pay status leave every year. It was typically always 2 weeks broken in between 2 pay periods to at least somewhat alleviate the pain of not getting a paycheck. But during one budget year my furlough was 4 months. Unfortunately, it is the nature of the job and you are alerted it could happen when you get hired as I said. It seems DOGE took advantage of “less than Permanent “ positions for its audit

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#9
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#10

Not specific to Fed employees, but impacting the mitigation world: A lot of planning and fuels thinning projects which were funded by the USDA’s Community Wildfire Defense Grants are frozen at the moment. I was working on Community Wildfire Protection Plan for Shasta County and a WUI fuels mapping project for Plumas County that are both on hold, as the funding has been temporarily frozen. The Del Norte Fire Safe Council was working under a big USDA grant that is also frozen, shutting down a lot of their work: https://www.delnortefsc.org/cwdg
Lots of other impacts across the board in forestry and fuels world, as just about anything that relies on being reimbursed by the Feds is locked down.

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#11

For all that have questions. Ask.

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#12

As far as probationary employees, when you promote you become a probationary employee. For example a squady on a hot shot crew with ten years of service becomes a probationary employee when he promotes to captain.

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#13

So are those people out of work right now?

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#14

None of the probationary fire employees on my district got terminated.

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#15

How it’s worked so far is that Fire/Fuels/Aviation staff are exempt as public safety, it seems that positions covered under primary or secondary retirement meet the criteria. No admin, no militia red carded people are protected.

All other programs in the FS/DOI agencies have been impacted, those on probation were terminated for poor performance even though in most cases that was not accurate.

You were on one year probation if you were new in a perm position, but you also go on probation if you’re a new supervisor. So one could have been say a Forester for 15 years but if they recently took a supervisory timber program lead, they were fired again for poor performance, regardless if that was how they were actually rated.

So imagine coworkers, spouses, friends that you worked with on Fuels, Trails, Wildlife, Timber projects are no longer in the office and you likely understand how difficult life just got for them, maybe in small towns with few jobs.

We have been told RIF is coming with a 4:1 reduction ratio but we’re getting very little from WO leadership on what that will cover or exempt, when it will happen or what severance would look like.

It does sound like there is interest in transferring lands, responsibilities, and operations to the states and or private sector. But this is all rumor so far.

So that’s what’s going on with the Feds right now.

People are stressed, look out for one another and yourselves.

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#16

No wildland fire positions have currently been affected. The folks terminated were under their probationary period. We were actually proceeding to bring back our permanent seasonal employees before all this mess but the union was getting involved and has delayed that process. We are also proceeding with hiring temporary employees.

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#17

Several colleagues told me a few department heads advised their staff that “actually responding to the OPM email is voluntary and there is no risk of termination”. Can’t confirm which agencies but I imagine this must feel like a wild rollercoaster ride, just not the fun kind…

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#18

USDA sent an email to its employees stating that

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#19

Sooo, department heads are not obeying an order from the head of the Executive Department ?

That could prove to be very interesting.

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#20

Not to split hairs but I believe the order came from the dept head of DOGE. So I think it would be no different than the FBI shrugging off an order from the USDA.

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