Discussion and Conclusions

Impacts Associated with Re-alignment
The National Wildlife Refuge System is fortunate to have a dedicated and knowledgeable workforce with a clear direction to focus on Wildlife First. As mentioned above, staff reductions have become necessary to better manage a stable to declining amount of funding available while administrative and resource demands increase. We do not consider any refuge in the Southeast Region to have been overstaffed.

Currently, the Region has 671 permanent field staff to manage its 128 field stations, which is an average of only 5.2 staff per station. This staffing will drop further as we implement this plan. Additional staff reductions, while severely impacting our mission, are necessary for our stations to have enough operational funding to continue to function. Important but lower priority work must go undone while we focus on the highest priority resource needs across the system.

This plan is a tool to effectively manage budgetary increases/decreases and better align current staffing resources to mission priorities for the national wildlife refuges in the Southeast Region. The current flat-lined budget situation of the National Wildlife Refuge System is projected to continue for several years.

After several years of large budget increases leading us to the Refuge Centennial in 2003, the program’s budget experienced a down turn. This adjustment required a large downsizing of staff (68 permanent employees or 10% of the workforce in the Southeast Region). Since this adjustment, the budget has been stable, but negatively impacted by increasing fixed costs and other inflationary factors.

Guidance from Director Dale Hall requires that “we should be doing fewer things better.” This is an important doctrine for the National Wildlife Refuge System, because historically we have strived to achieve “more with less” to the point of diminishing return. With 68 permanent full-time positions eliminated already, the Region has already begun to do fewer things. With an additional 79 field positions and 8.5 Regional Office positions eliminated, the impact of reduced services will be even more noticeable.

The fundamental basis of this report is that we must now focus our attention on fewer priority resources with emphasis on “Wildlife First.” This forces us to limit our attention on all other refuge priorities, principally the “Big 6” priority wildlife-dependant public use opportunities. For example, with less maintenance staff we will be unable to maintain all hunter/visitor access roads and trails, and with less public-use staff we will limit operations of some visitor contact facilities, and significantly reduce our environmental education programs. We will also have to evaluate and reduce our current commitments to our partners. Especially during the past few decades, the National Wildlife Refuge System has looked beyond its boundaries to seek out creative partnerships that will benefit wildlife resources. With less people it will be impossible to develop and maintain as many unique cooperative opportunities.

Implementation
Several steps are required to implement this plan, but this is not a step-by-step plan. This plan provides a vision that is focused on the near and long-term natural resource priorities of national wildlife refuges in the Southeast Region. The plan includes triggers that will alert higher management that action is necessary and each trigger will require more significant action towards a three-year objective of reaching an average operating margin of 20% at each field station.

Goal 1: Maintain current operating margin of 9% (not including annual maintenance funds) through FY 2009

- At the initiation of this plan, the average operating margin of national wildlife refuges in the Southeast Region is approximately 9%. This amount is increased to 14% when it includes funding for the annual preventative maintenance of equipment and assets. Neither amount is adequate to maintain operations or facilities.

- If at any point budget projections suggest that the average operating margin of national wildlife refuges in the Southeast will drop below 9%, the Region will implement a complete hiring freeze until adequate funding can be released to elevate operating margins.

Goal 2: Achieve an average operating margin of 15% by FY 2008

- The Region will reduce staff identified in this plan to recoup salary savings that will increase operational margins by 6% total in FY 2007 and FY 2008, which will provide an average operating margin of 15% at each field station. This amount provides sufficient funding to operate all Focus Refuges at an acceptable level for the next three years, but staffing levels will be far below the minimum level at many stations in the Region.

- Once the required 6% savings is achieved, any additional savings or funding increases will be used to add critical positions. A few critical positions may have to be added subject to Chief approval, but these will be minimal prior to reaching 15%.

Goal 3: Achieve an average operating margin of 20% by FY 2009.

- The actions required to reach an operating margin of 15% will be extended to achieve a higher average of 20%.

- The Region will reduce staff identified in this plan to recoup salary savings that will increase operational margins by 5% in FY 2009. This amount provides sufficient funding to operate all units at an acceptable level for the next three years, but staffing levels will still be below the needed levels.

- Again, once the required savings are achieved, any additional savings will be directed to add critical positions.

The Region expects that the use of early-out/buy-out authority will accelerate the implementation of this plan. A total of 247 positions in Refuges are eligible for these authorities through FY 2007. Of the 88 positions identified in this plan for potential reduction, approximately 95% are eligible for one of these two programs. While the programs are voluntary, there is a high likelihood that the Region can expect approximately 20-30% of these positions to vacate.

If a position that is identified in this plan becomes vacant, the funding associated with that position will be removed from that field station’s budget and held by the Regional Office for reallocation to field stations.

For example, if a station has four positions identified for reduction, those positions are not included in the formula used to reallocate savings for increased management capability. This means that stations with position reductions should not expect to see increased management capability based on their current number of staff, but would maintain current capability for those targeted reduction positions.

If a Regional Office position that is identified for reduction becomes vacant, the funding associated with that position will be included in the reallocation process. The Regional Office does not require 20% operating margin. The Regional Office will strive to achieve 10% margin (not including funding used for centralized field support purposes such as leased space or PCS).

If a position that is not identified in this plan becomes vacant, the funding associated with that position will remain at the field station or within the geographic area. Each manager will be given as much control and flexibility as possible in this process by knowing in advance exactly which positions are identified for reduction and which positions will be re-filled at their discretion (assuming Goal 1 is met).

All funding recovered through salary savings identified in this plan will first go towards increasing management capability as outlined by each Goal. This funding will be primarily directed to Focus Refuges or their Complex to ensure the highest resource priorities are met. Given the need to ensure that we do “fewer things better” we must dedicate our funding resources to these priority locations first.

Unfortunately, this plan proposes the elimination of 88 permanent positions at a time when almost every national wildlife refuge in the Southeast Region is in need of additional positions. The plan will over time better align our workforce in relation to our budget allocations and allow us to put a higher percentage of funding resources toward the highest priority work on refuges in the Southeast Region.

The plan will allow us to better manage during flat-line or decreasing budgets by providing managers more operating margin. At some point in the future, budgets will improve and the Region will be better poised to move forward for our “Wildlife First” mission and make every station a fully-functional Focus Refuge.

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