Federal Government hiring freeze...

[SherpaWill]

I read a FB post recently from Friends of Tuckerman Ravine regarding the federal hiring freeze and the impact it's having on hiring new snow rangers. I was wondering if anyone knows what, if any, other impact this will have on the White Mountains, particularly to hikers. It's not my intention to turn this into a political discussion one way or the other.

 

[egilbe]

I would assume since its a hiring freeze, it wouldn't have any effect on the current rangers. Didnt the snow rangers use to be a volunteer force?

 

[TJsName]

I read a FB post recently from Friends of Tuckerman Ravine regarding the federal hiring freeze and the impact it's having on hiring new snow rangers. I was wondering if anyone knows what, if any, other impact this will have on the White Mountains, particularly to hikers. It's not my intention to turn this into a political discussion one way or the other.

I was wondering the same thing with regards to trail maintenance and seasonal crews.

 

[Creag Nan Drochaid]

That is a good question. Can any reader enlighten us as to the work of such USFS employees in 2016?

 

[psmart]

A lot of the summer work in the WMNF is conducted by seasonal employees, so the hiring freeze could be an issue. However, many of these individuals are "permanent part time", so they're not actually new hires, and could be exempt for the freeze. I'm sure the USFS and other agencies are urgently trying to answer the same question. Of course, there's also the legal question of whether the president has the authority to impose such a freeze in the first place.

 

[byron8]

Like it or not, this is a political discussion, but I believe it's an essential one. (Moderator: If you disagree, go ahead and delete this) This president has not exhibited any respect for the environment or (to be seen) the law, so I would expect to see massive cuts to the Forest Service. This is not a time to be optimistic - sorry!

 

[SherpaWill]

It does seem like they are taking a let's throw this against the wall and see what sticks approach to these Executive Orders, so we'll see what happens.

 

[Brambor]

We also have a similar hiring freeze here in Maine under similar loudmouth politician. All it does is it enables the government to indirectly do what has been happening to jobs around the country in the last decade: "avoid hiring people full time to achieve money savings from not paying for their benefits"

In Maine's case people are still being hired but they are hired as 'contractors' .

Sometimes the money savings are not achieved, for example in the IT sector where these 'contractors' are often paid much more than the full time state employees. I believe this also achieves another 'kick in the balls' of the state employees by avoiding to give them raises to match coworkers in the department - 'contractors' are not considered to be part of the department. :-(

 

[David Metsky]

Moderator Note:

Please keep this thread on topic, which is how the current federal hiring freeze effects to situation in the National Forests. All other political commentary is off topic.