The U.S. Forest Service will suspend hiring seasonal employees next year as it expects to receive less than the $8.9 billion it says it needs to pay its 30,000 employees, run its 193 million acres and fight wildfires.

With final allocations from Congress pending, the chronically underfunded and overworked agency plans to scale back operations in 2025, sparking concerns among its many Colorado partners that recreational projects will be delayed.

“We have the opportunity to do what we can with what we have” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore told employees Sept. 16noting that the agency has lost about 8,000 jobs over the past 20 years and that he “sees signs of a stressed workforce.”

He told his staff that priorities would change with the funding cut. “We’re not going to do everything that’s expected of us with less staff,” he said.

For example, a question raised this week by NPR’s Marketplace asks who will pump campground toilets as the Forest Service budget shrinks? This is a big ask for volunteers.

Volunteer groups who work with the Forest Service are bracing for “some frustration and challenges ahead for 2025,” said Doozie Martin, executive director of Friends of the Dillon Ranger District.

Forest Service officials have warned most of their partners not to anticipate major projects in 2025, as the agency struggles to overcome a hiring freeze.

The 20-year-old Friends of the Dillon Ranger District regularly volunteer about 1,000 days a year on 60 projects in the White River National Forest Ranger District, which accounts for about half of visits to the forest White River National Park, the most trafficked forest in the country. Last year, the nonprofit provided more than 8,500 volunteer hours and collected 500 bags of trash on public lands around Summit County and contributed to the education of 1,516 local children through its programs for young people.

“We’re lucky to live in an area where we get a lot of support from the community and I don’t expect that to diminish,” Martin said. “Maybe we will need to adjust our programming… but for now, I still anticipate our 1,000 volunteers patrolling the trails and reporting to land managers. I think we can accomplish a similar amount to what we have done in the past.

Budget problems mean the White River National Forest – where more than 17 million annual visits to its 2.3 million acres attract an economic impact of $1.6 billion in rural Colorado, there will be about 30 fewer seasonal workers next year.

These seasonal jobs – which do not include firefighting crews – include fuel reduction, fire prevention and education, campground management, public education, biological field work as well as as the maintenance and construction of trails.

The Forest Service recently converted 1,300 seasonal positions to permanent jobs, including 105 in the Rocky Mountain region and 15 in the White River National Forest.

Donna Nemeth, spokeswoman for the Rocky Mountain Region Forest Service, said the agency is working with its partners “to explore solutions to fill gaps where we can.”

Nemeth said the continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in September continued funding for the agency through 2024 and that the Forest Service is pursuing a federal process that would provide an exemption from planned budget cuts for next year.

“And while the bar for exemptions is high, we take into consideration funding sources and the ability to conduct work through alternative or other means, such as grants or agreements,” she said in a statement. e-mail. “We also hope to have more hiring options in the coming year if additional funds become available.” As you can see, we are working diligently to ensure we are able to accomplish this essential work.

Forest Service lands contribute $44.3 billion to the U.S. economy

The Forest Service’s 2025 request for $8.9 billion includes $6.5 billion for core programs and $2.4 billion for wildfire operations. The FY 2025 budget request represents an increase of $658.5 million over FY 2024, with most of the increase dedicated to the agency’s wildfire management program. The agency supported 410,400 jobs in 2022 and contributed $44.3 billion to the national economy, 69% of which comes from recreation, energy and mining development, logging and grazing livestock.

“The Forest Service continues to be a good place to invest and will maximize every dollar invested in our agency, ensuring that every dollar benefits the American people,” Forest Service Chief Moore told the agency. U.S. House Appropriations Committee in April. “The citizens we serve deserve nothing less than to see the value of their money working for their benefit. »

Recreation is a growing force on federal lands. An estimate 159 million recreational visitors Lands managed by the Forest Service spent $11 billion in 2022. As recreational visitor spending trickles down to communities adjacent to public lands, it supports approximately 161,000 jobs. The outdoor recreation economy has reached a record $1.1 trillion in 2022with public lands being the cornerstone of the outdoor recreation industry’s growing impact in rural communities.

Although a final budget has not been approved, early indications are that the Forest Service will not get the $8.9 billion requested. The House Interior Subcommittee proposed in June $8.43 billion for the Forest Service. Given two cost-of-living increases the agency imposed on its employees this year, rising project costs and the expiration of one-time funding of $945.2 million in 2024, following the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the House’s proposed budget for 2025 represents a decrease of approximately 4% compared to 2024.

In July, the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed $6.45 billion for the Forest Service’s core programs, which is similar to what the agency had requested. In an August 29 update to workers, Moore said “prudent planning involves using the lower” of the two funding proposals.

In that August update, Moore also warned that budget cuts were coming “in a potentially budget-constrained future.”

“We are approaching this challenge with an abundance of caution…which means prioritizing the collective financial health of the agency and ensuring we can pay our employees – above all else,” Moore wrote.

Lloyd Athearn heads the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, which regularly deploys more than 30 of its own seasonal workers each summer to rebuild and maintain the busy trails leading to the state’s highest peaks. Since his group hires its employees, he doesn’t expect much impact from the hiring freeze.

But Athearn relied heavily on the help of Loretta McEllhiney, the Leadville-based director of the Forest Service Colorado Fourteeners Program that everyone calls the “Queen of the 14ers.“McEllhiney retired in August after 35 years with the agency. And the Forest Service is in no rush to fill vacancies.

So administering federal funding for trail work and getting approvals for Colorado Fourteener Initiative trail projects, Athearn said, “is going to be accelerated quite a bit over the next year.”

“Are we going to encounter difficulties in putting agreements and authorizations in place? If we obtain federal funding for our projects, will these payments be delayed? All the messages I get from the Forest Service people are that these are the people who will make these decisions,” Athearn said.

“I can guarantee you that CFI will be there in full force next summer, unaffected by the Forest Service recruiting process,” he said. “Who knows, it might just work for us.” We could be the only ones hiring trail workers. This could give us access to more qualified people. Who knows?

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation recently joined with partners to distribute $3.7 million for 33 projects in Coloradoincluding elk research, fencing projects and habitat improvement in the Arapaho, Gunnison, San Isabel, San Juan and White River National Forests.

Blake Henning, the foundation’s conservation manager, doesn’t expect the Forest Service’s hiring freeze to have an impact on those projects.

“Most of the work that we fund the Forest Service for is done largely by their fire crews,” Henning said. “These people are going to help continue the projects that we have awarded money to. In talking with our partners at the Forest Service, my impression is that many of these temporary people are tied to recreational programs like trail maintenance and campgrounds.

The group Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado – or VOC – I turned 40 this year with plans to double its seasonal staff. Last year the group led 2,673 volunteers who devoted 19,643 hours on more than 100 projects, including maintaining 21 miles of trails on public lands.

The group’s spokeswoman said they expected the hiring freeze to have a “significant impact” on volunteer operations next year. This year, the Forest Service sent 21 applications for VOC projects and the group completed 18. For next year, the agency sent 18 applications for work on land managed by the Forest Service, Gate said -VOC spokesperson, Kimberly Gagnon.

“With fewer seasonal staff, we anticipate the Forest Service will have to reduce its essential field work and partner engagement efforts,” Gagnon said. “So that likely means prioritizing immediate visitor services over routine maintenance and infrastructure projects.” VOC is preparing to bridge this gap by… providing additional support from our volunteers and staff to move critical projects forward.