Internet IM Update, February 20, 1997

Impacts of Fiscal Year 1997 Budget

As many of you are aware, the National Weather Service (NWS) is facing significant budget reductions for FY 1997. I want to share the specific actions we are taking to meet the management challenges created by these reductions and to maintain a viable NWS that will continue to accomplish its core mission responsibilities well into the next century.

The NWS base operations budget for FY 1997 is $27.5 million less than the level enacted in FY 1996. The President's FY 1997 budget included $17 million in savings for personnel and administrative streamlining. The Omnibus Appropriations Act of FY 1997 required that another $10.5 million in streamlining reductions be taken in the NWS Headquarters and centralized operations and support activities located in the national capital area. There is no way imaginable that we can absorb all of this permanent reduction without abolishing positions, and as many as 200 positions may be abolished by the end of FY 1997. I am committed to using every tool available to mitigate the effects of this reduction and to minimize the actual number of employees impacted.

Most of our operating costs are fixed, primarily in salaries and related expenses, and in overhead such as rents, utilities, and communications. We have been doing everything we can to avoid adverse effects on NWS employees. A stringent hiring freeze was imposed earlier in FY 1996, and the dozens of vacancies that have occurred since then have not been filled so that we can reduce our spending and meet FY 1997 targets, and ultimately avoid impacting employees. We also conducted a NWS-wide review of all activities to identify other streamlining actions we could take that will affect neither our current staff nor the delivery of warnings and forecasts.

Our approach to the FY 1997 funding problem includes cuts of both a permanent and temporary nature. A primary way we will achieve the reductions is by accelerating many of the streamlining activities of the NWS modernization and associated restructuring that had been planned to take place over the next several years without changing the overall modernization plan.

In the national capital area, among the actions we are taking to accommodate the $10.5 million cut are:

phasing out Headquarters transition management activities; reducing Headquarters test and evaluation activities; streamlining D.C. area central computer operations; abolishing non-operational position vacancies; discontinuing Headquarters international operations and support activities; reducing support contracts; curtailing most non-operational travel; and reducing central administrative support.

Among the actions we are taking nationwide to meet the remaining $17 million shortfall are:

freezing operational equipment replacement efforts; abolishing non-operational position vacancies; accelerating transition program staffing activity; accelerating transition program office closeouts; reducing buoy development activities; reducing university outreach activities; reducing COMET training; reducing central logistics and supply stock levels; deferring NWS central network operations and maintenance; reducing quality control of central guidance products; reducing satellite support services contracts; re-engineering centralized training activities to capitalize on field office distance learning methods; and accelerating the planned consolidation of the four conterminous regions to three, by closing Southern Region headquarters, which has been supported by the NWS since FY 1994 despite a permanent base funding reduction initiated in our FY 1994 appropriations bill. Responsibility for the management and administration of warning and forecast programs and for operational and technical support activities of the Southern Region will be transferred to Central Region headquarters and Eastern Region headquarters.

A breakout by NWS organization of the number of encumbered positions that are to be abolished is attached.

An NWS team was formed to develop a plan of action to avoid and mitigate the negative affects of the FY 1997 spending cuts on employees. The team is comprised of the six Deputy Regional Directors, NWSEO President Ramon Sierra, and representatives of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the Office of Systems Operations, the Office of Management and Budget, and the NOAA Human Resources Office. We know now that a reduction in force (RIF) must be initiated by about the middle of July to achieve the needed FY 1997 reductions. The team has developed a plan in partnership with NWSEO that we hope will result in mitigating the negative impacts of a RIF and that minimizes the number of employees who may be separated involuntarily. Among other actions, the plan includes the following combination of placement/separation measures:

continue the nationwide hiring freeze and utilize existing and future funded position vacancies as placement offers and/or as positions for directed reassignments; extend saved grade and pay authority to employees unable to relocate via a reassignment when available lower-graded position vacancies exist in the same commuting area for which the employees are qualified; and request authority through DOC and NOAA from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congress to offer employees a limited number of cost-effective buy outs to generate vacancies we can use for employee placement activity.

This is the most difficult of times I have seen in my tenure with the NWS. Despite the adverse situation, I remain committed to providing our career staff with every alternative we can before enacting involuntary separations within the next few months. For every impacted employee who is reassigned, or placed in a vacancy, or who accepts a buy out (if the authority is granted) before the middle of July, we will have reduced the number of employees who may be separated involuntarily.

In the weeks ahead, we will be providing updated information to you in many forms. We have established a telephone "hotline" in the NOAA Human Resources Office on (301) 713-0534 x116. We have also established a cc:Mail electronic bulletin board with specific employee information regarding involuntary separations and an interactive cc:Mail mailbox (#97 REDUCTIONS) for employees to use to address their questions and obtain answers about the situation, their entitlements, and the impact of these reductions. The Collective Bargaining Agreement may also be used as a source of information, especially Articles 5 and 15. Bargaining unit employees desiring information about their rights during this difficult time may also contact their local NWSEO steward.

Within the next few weeks, employees whose positions will be abolished will be receiving a letter of inquiry along with a list of continuing funded position vacancies that we will use to make placement offers and/or for reassignments. This letter will ask the employees to indicate their interest in assignment to any of those vacancies (and if applicable, their ranked preferences if their interest is in more than one position.) The letter will also request the employees to indicate their interest in accepting a buy out, should we be successful in gaining buy out authority.

These responses will form the basis for each servicing Human Resources Office to begin the process of determining which employees will receive formal letters of reassignment, offers of buy out (if applicable), or formal notices of separation.

There is little I can say to soften the acute pain associated with this situation, but I pledge that we will "pull out all of the stops" to minimize impacts on our staff. I ask that you continue to work at your same high level of professionalism during this difficult time in the history of the NWS so that the public can continue to be served with excellence.