Why We Need Workforce Planning...

In the words of Service Director Dale Hall, "The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is at a crossroads. To continue the agency's proud tradition of national conservation leadership, we must act decisively and with a clear vision for the future. In the short term, we must prepare for tighter budgets. In the long term, we must position ourselves to maintain strong core functions essential to accomplish our mission.”

It's no secret; budgets for the National Wildlife Refuge System have been declining for the last few years. In the Southeast Region , with 128 Refuges and 748 employees, due to our size and number of employees, the proposed changes represent a tremendous challenge. Refuges in the Southeast have managed through these budget shortfalls by reducing FTE's. Through attrition, we have lost 67.5 permanent positions over the last three years, allowing operating dollars to increase from only 5% in 2003 . However, even with the loss of these positions, approximately 85-90% of our budget goes to pay salaries. With annual cost of living increases, we need an additional $2 million annually just to stay even.

Furthermore, the past workforce reductions have been opportunistic, leaving some refuges fully staffed while others are functioning with a depleted workforce. This is not a fair or equitable way to distribute our people or achieve our mission critical objectives.

Looking Ahead
The forecast for the budget over the next five years (through 2011) is to remain flat or even decline slightly...If this prediction is realized, our budget and our functioning costs (salaries and operations and maintenance costs) will intersect in 2011, leaving no funds to achieve the mission of our refuges. Continuing down this road without a plan is a formula for disaster.

So in an effort to realign our workforce to match up with mission-related priorities, the Southeast Region established two teams to examine our workforce in our field offices and in our Regional Office. They completed a detailed analysis with recommendations that will guide us as we realign the workforce, focus on mission priorities with more discipline, and ensure as much money as possible gets to the field.

The resulting plan is expected to yield $3.9 million in savings over the next three to five years. This was a difficult process and involved many hard management decisions. However, making these decisions now will put Southeast Region refuges in a stronger position to manage our priorities, and hopefully help us avoid having to make more stark decisions three to five years from now.

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