The Forest Service is taking as much as $43 million away from grants to states and localities this year to pay workers who took the agency’s deferred resignation program offer.
The transfer of funds, which Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz acknowledged at a Senate hearing last week, reflects both the upfront cost of prodding several thousand workers to quit and the Trump administration’s new priorities for the land management agency.
Employees who took the deferred resignation offer will still be paid through the end of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
Officials picked five grant programs within the Forest Service’s state, private and tribal forestry mission area from which to take money: the Landscape Scale Restoration program, the Forest Stewardship Program, urban forestry grants, community forests and open space, and international and trade compliance programs.
