Forest Service lays off 360 Montana-based workers

In response to news this week that Montana’s largest land manager is laying off 360 Montana-based federal employees, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service said Friday the agency is “confident that talented individuals” impacted by the staffing reduction will have “many opportunities to contribute to our economy and society in countless ways outside of government.”

The spokesperson, who asked to not be identified, went on to say that Brooke Rollins, who heads up the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, “fully supports President Trump’s directive to optimize government operations, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA’s ability to better serve American farmers, ranchers, loggers and the agriculture community.”

“We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people, not the bureaucracy,” the statement continued.

Montana Conservation Voters Executive Director Whitney Tawney wrote in an email Friday to Montana Free Press that the cuts threaten Montana’s economy, recreational opportunities and communities. 

“Indiscriminately cutting jobs for hardworking Montanans who manage our public lands is the opposite of common sense. These cuts will make our public lands less healthy, more likely to burn and less accessible,” she wrote. “Montana’s Congressional delegation must call President Trump now and tell him this is unacceptable. These decisions should be made locally, not by D.C. political hacks who know nothing of Montana’s public lands.”

The Forest Service spokesperson did not respond to Montana Free Press’ follow-up questions regarding severance pay for the affected employees or changes national forest users can anticipate in response to the workforce reduction.

According to a Thursday evening story by POLITICO, the Forest Service anticipated firing about 3,400 federal employees across “every level of the agency” as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce. Wildland firefighters, law enforcement officers and other employees with a public safety nexus were exempted from the firing initiative. 

The workers that have been impacted are still within their probationary period, meaning they’ve been employed by the agency for less than two years, and perform a variety of roles ranging from road and trail maintenance to timber production and watershed restoration.

Hilary Eisen, a Bozeman-based policy director with the Winter Wildlands Alliance, said the layoffs will be felt by “everybody who visits or works on these public lands.”

The Forest Service administers tens of millions of acres of land across Montana. In addition to reviewing and authorizing timber sales and livestock grazing leases, the Forest Service plays an important role in the state’s multi-billion dollar outdoor recreation economy and conducts research on a variety of subjects ranging from how wildfires spread to the impact of “hot drought” on forests and promising forestry-oriented approaches to increase water yields.

“The people who lost their jobs maintain trails, discover and extinguish abandoned campfires before they become wildfires, clean outhouses, control weeds, process permits, and much, much more,” Eisen wrote in an email to MTFP. “Arbitrary cuts to the federal workforce is not a path towards efficiency or meaningful budget reductions, but it will harm communities all across Montana and the nation.”

The National Federation of Federal Employees, a union that represents Forest Service workers, has joined a coalition of unions in a lawsuit to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce. In the lawsuit, the unions argue Trump’s efforts are undermining the role of Congress to establish funding for federal agencies. This, they say, is a violation of the separation of powers. 

In response to what it described as the “illegal gutting of the federal workforce,” the union on Thursday issued a press release urging the judicial branch’s intervention. 

“Federal workers are your friends and neighbors who have dedicated their careers to serving our country. We cannot let the President disrupt their lives and dismantle critical services relied upon by the American people,” NFFE National President Randy Erwin wrote. “If this Administration and Elon Musk truly wanted to make our government more efficient, they would have taken the time to understand that these actions will only lead to chaos and poor service for the American people.”

The layoff notices arrived via email the day after the deadline for the “Fork in the Road” offer for federal employees to resign and continue receiving paychecks through September, according to POLITICO.

MTFP requests for comment from the NFFE were not returned by press time Friday. On its website, the Forest Service-specific arm of the union is advising employees who received termination letters to contact a union representative and consider an appeal of the termination.