CHARLESTON, W.Va. — With more than 70 state Division of Forestry workers looking on Thursday afternoon, the state Personnel Board tabled a proposal for significant worker layoffs within the division but the reprieve may be short-lived.
The division told 37 workers Wednesday they would be laid off at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, due to a $1.7 million revenue reduction in the new state budget. State lawmakers passed a bill reducing a special severance tax on timber in February and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed it into law.
The workers pleaded with the personnel board to save there jobs in a jam-packed meeting room at the state capitol complex. Sixteen-year forester Matt Cook volunteered for non-paid furlough days if that would help.
“I’m sure that these 37 people probably wouldn’t mind a couple of furlough days a month versus no job at all,” Cook said. “I think losing two days a month would be a lot better than losing your entire salary and having to move your family.”
Ten-year forester Jack Spencer, who works in Nicholas and Clay counties, agreed.
“I’m willing to take a couple of days furlough as long as I can keep by job. My wife has health issues and so do I. Without this insurance we aren’t going to be able to make it,” Spencer said.
But Randy Dye, director of the state Division of Forestry, told the Personnel Board the only option to keep the agency up and running was to make staff cuts but he warned, “We won’t be able to do what we once did.”
Personnel board member Jeff Woods made a motion to table the proposal and member Mark Carbone agreed. Carbone said the proposal “wasn’t ripe to be dealt with today.”
“I think when 37 people are losing their jobs we need to explore every possible option to avoid that or at least minimize that,” he said.
But the state Department of Commerce, which oversees the Division of Forestry, quickly asked the personnel board to reconsider its decision.
“A shortfall of this magnitude cannot be addressed simply by reducing hours, particularly when even the minimal 1.5 percent tax currently allocated to the Division will expire in three years,” Commerce Director of Communications Chelsea Ruby told MetroNews in a statement. “For every month that this action is delayed, three more employees ultimately will have to be laid off.”
Both workers and industry representatives told the board cutting one-third of the division’s staff runs the risk of unchecked logging operations and manpower problems when it comes to battling forest fires.
“Have you fought a fire?” Cook asked personnel board members.
Sixteen-year forester Tim Casto, also on the layoff list, predicted conditions in the state would be returning to the early 1900’s without them.
“You’re taking your boots off the ground,” Casto said.
Upshur County forester Danny James has only been on the job for three months. The Roanoke resident said he was totally devastated when he got the news Tuesday.
“I think about everything that could happen, mortgages, car loans, just everything,” he said.
The layoff announcement seemed to take some state lawmakers by surprise. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Hall told MetroNews no one from forestry, including Dye, had approached him about the consequences of the severance tax rate reduction. Some foresters criticized Dye Tuesday for not fighting for their jobs. When he had a chance to speak, Dye defended his decision not to cut his administrative staff. He said the division’s federal funding would be put into jeopardy.
The personnel board could call an emergency meeting to reconsider the proposal.
Ruby said the decision to layoff the workers wasn’t easy but the jobs can no longer be funded.
“We recognize the hardship that the proposed layoffs will cause, and we regret it immensely, but the Legislature has made its decision. When the Legislature chooses not to fund a government agency at its current level, then basic math dictates that the agency cannot maintain its current level of employment,” Ruby said.