Questions remain in forestry layoffs
Published in: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
Date: 8/12/2005
By: Emily Le Coz
Layoffs and office closures within the agency protecting the state’s top agricultural crop will soon affect Northeast Mississippi.
But no one yet will say how.
The Mississippi Forestry Commission will lay off 48 employees by Oct. 1 and close 59 of its 71 offices. The move will save $1.4 million after the agency suffered its biggest funding shortfall in recent memory.
“We asked for $19.8 million in our general funds, and the Legislature approved our budget at $16.4 million,” said agency spokesman Kent Grizzard.
“That’s where we took our cut.”
Another 39 positions will be trimmed through attrition, saving an additional $2 million for the agency, Grizzard said.
Currently the commission has 586 employees, 128 of whom work in Northeast Mississippi. All are paid from the general fund.
This region also accounts for 21 of the state’s offices, said Brendix Glasgow, Northeast District forester.
Glasgow could not comment on the situation, and Grizzard would not release specific information on which positions would be eliminated from which offices or which offices would close.
He did say that layoffs will come from administrative and administrative-support positions. Those employees were notified Aug. 2 and will stay on the payroll until Oct. 1.
Employees with the most important roles — foresters and firefighters — get to keep their jobs, and the agency will continue to perform its main functions, Grizzard said.
“We’ll maintain a presence in every county that we’ve ever been in,” he said.
“And we didn’t involve forest rangers or forest technicians — those working with landowners and putting fires out; the ones doing the work.”
The agency oversees 4,112 acres of forest land in Northeast Mississippi, most of it owned by private citizens. The region’s timber industry also generates $4.1 billion in total output, provides $1.1 million in wages and employs 35,000 people.
Besides controlling fires, the agency also educates landowners on forestry management, loans equipment to volunteer fire departments, provides advice to the public and manages 16th-section lands, said Jeff Ware, public outreach and urban coordinator at the Tupelo office.
Since last Christmas four county offices have already been closed: Jefferson, Madison, Hines and Rankin. The last three, all in the Jackson area, now share a combined office, Grizzard said.
“That’s a good example to show what’s going to go on in the rest of the state,” he said. “We can still deliver the services, but we don’t have to have an office (in each county) to deliver the services.”
COPYRIGHT 2005 Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal