Deadline for Summer News Letter Articles is June 15th

Last month while attending the retirement party in Ohio for Andy Pierce, I reflected on the euphoria that was exhibited during the pep rally session at the West Virginia In­Service last Summer. I thought about the budget initiative and what the pie charts, graphs, slide shows, and full blown explanations regarding this anticipated pot of gold would mean to the future of our depleted agent force which was now facing a retirement crisis. 

Most of us who have been around awhile have heard these ``support'' speeches many times before only to have broken promises thrust upon us one more time. We were always told, ``Next year...''. How else can you explain the crisis we are in? Our numbers are dwindling and our experienced agents are leaving in droves, many before they are mandatory. I recognize and applaud the efforts of the Director and the Chief in attempting to restore some dignity to our agent force through this budget initiative. 

Finally, the agents are starting to be recognized by the Service for the awesome job we do, however, setting a goal of hiring 30 new agents cannot be cause for too much excitement when there will be virtually no net gain to the total work force. IF the budget is approved by Congress, IF the money is appropriated, IF the Service doesn't give it all away to another program, THEN we will hire a new group of agents that will only erase the retirements from this past year! This is considered progress? Yes, this is certainly a step in the right direction, but we shouldn't be slapping high fives just yet...there are more miles that must be traveled. 

Also, what happens if we don't get this money? Has anyone thought about that? Although we were authorized 252 agents in 1984, today we have only 211 special agents assigned to the monumental task of protecting the world's wildlife resources! This is nearly the same number of agents that were employed in the late 1970s! 

So after 20+ years, we have struggled and starved to remain at even strength while the rest of the Service has grown exponentially. We've all heard numbers like 400% growth, 700% growth or whatever, however, the fact remains that while Service employee numbers in other programs have exploded, we are now expected to get excited this year about a potential budget, that if passed, would still keep us well understaffed. Having too few agents to do the job is not cause for excitement. 

Fiscal Year - Total Agents

Since 1984, the Service has added nearly 800 species to the Endangered Species Act and an additional 800 species have been added to CITES. We have also seen many new laws and regulations, including the Wild Bird Conservation Act, African Elephant Conservation Act, Rhino/Tiger Act, NAFTA, etc. We have been asked to participate in the reintroduction of endangered species into the wild, including wolves, sea otters, and others. We have been tasked with investigating habitat issues, electrocutions, oil spills, hazardous waste dumps, and the like...we are also training wildlife officers in many foreign countries!

So as our enforcement responsibilities continue to rapidly increase, I sit and wonder if anyone really believes that a fully staffed force of 252 agents is even large enough to thwart the efforts of those criminals who operate globally in their effort to exploit and harm the wildlife resources? Who knows? We've never even had 252 agents to try!

 So who is responsible for the crisis we are in? As expected, everybody in Washington seems to point fingers and blame somebody else, but the reality is we have been dying on the vine while other Service programs flourish...under the current projections, by the end of FY2001, we will lose another 40 agents to retirement!

MEETING WITH CHIEF KEVIN ADAMS by Tim Santel, FWOA President 

A request was made by Chief Kevin Adams to meet with the Association to discuss various issues that were important to members. It was the opinion of Chief Adams that a meeting might be beneficial in developing a rapport with the Association and would open the lines of communication with his office concerning issues that were important to all of us. To my knowledge, this was the first time a Chief within the DLE had ever asked to meet with the Association, especially to hear our concerns. I liked the idea and I agreed to meet with the Chief. On March 7, 2000, Jim Gale and I met with the Chief in Springfield, IL. The four hour meeting proved valuable and all of the issues requested to be asked by our members were brought to Chief Adams' attention. We initially spoke about some of the problems within DLE, including the lack of communication from the WO/LE and RO/LE offices. We all agreed that a better job of communicating information to the field was needed in order to reduce some of the unwarranted information, worries and rumors that seem to circulate throughout our ranks from time to time. There was also a discussion about why and how information, such as foreign training assignments should be shared with all field agents. I advised Chief Adams that one of the top issues expressed by our Charter members was the reclassification of our job descriptions to the 1811 series. The Chief went into great detail about the process to change and advised us that OPM was currently considering a reclassification of our positions to the 1811 series. Chief Adams explained that the effort was in part due to a desire by OPM to reduce the number of all job series within the Government. The Chief was unsure what the ultimate decision would be by OPM, but he added that the interviews of several of our agents last year by OPM were now being used in the decision to reclassify. We spoke about the pros and cons of change. One of the drawbacks that some managers have apparently expressed to Chief Adams is the alleged inability of DLE to hire agents with wildlife backgrounds into both field and supervisory positions.

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