Forest Service will move headquarters to Salt Lake City, as part of ‘sweeping’ reorganization
The Agriculture Department is planning to move the Forest Service’s headquarters throughout the nation to Salt Lake City, Utah — step one of a broader company reorganization.
USDA mentioned relocating the Forest Service headquarters will “begin a sweeping restructuring of the agency,” as effectively as a consolidation of its services nationwide.
The division, in its announcement on Tuesday, mentioned this reorganization would carry company leaders and workers nearer to the communities they serve. The overwhelming majority of Forest Service land is concentrated within the Western part of the nation.
As part of this reorganization, the Forest Service has designated 15 state administrators to oversee its operations inside a number of states.
Under this reorganization, the Forest Service will shut all 9 of its regional places of work and relocate that work to six hubs throughout the nation —Albuquerque, New Mexico; Athens, Georgia; Fort Collins, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Missoula, Montana; and Placerville, California.
USDA mentioned these hubs, which it calls “operational service centers,” have been chosen primarily based on the place division workers and infrastructure are already situated. The division mentioned extra operational service facilities could also be introduced as the reorganization progresses.
Some of the services at the moment serving as regional places of work will be repurposed. Regional places of work in Juneau, Alaska, and Albuquerque will be transformed into state places of work — and the latter will additionally serve as a enterprise assist service middle. The regional workplace in Vallejo, California, will serve as a nationwide coaching middle.
The Forest Service will additionally consolidate all of its analysis operations right into a single group situated in Fort Collins.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday that shifting the Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City would place company leaders “closer to the landscapes we manage and the people who depend on them.”
“Moving the Forest Service closer to the forests we manage is an essential action that will improve our core mission of managing our forests while saving taxpayer dollars and increasing employee recruitment,” Rollins mentioned.
USDA has embarked by itself reorganization and is planning to move more than half of its employees within the Washington, DC space to 5 regional hubs throughout the nation.
In February, USDA introduced it’s selling its South Buildingpart of its DC headquarters complicated.
The division’s relocation plans are a lot broader in scope than what occurred below the primary Trump administration. In 2019, USDA sought to move several hundred employees in its investigation bureaus from the DC space to Kansas City, however most impacted workers selected to go away the company, somewhat than relocate.
Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz mentioned in an announcement that the reorganization will make the company “nimble, efficient, effective and closer to the forests and communities it serves.”
“Effective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found — not just behind a desk in the capital,” Schultz mentioned.
The Forest Service’s wildfire operations will proceed to function largely unchanged. Its Fire and Aviation Management program, which, in accordance to USDA, serves as the “backbone” of nationwide incident coordination, will preserve its current construction.
“There will be no interruption or change to our field-based operational firefighters or their positions,” USDA wrote.
The Forest Service’s wildfire operations will proceed reporting to the deputy chief for fireplace and aviation administration on the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
“This structure ensures the agency’s ongoing, close coordination with the Department of the Interior and interagency partners,” USDA mentioned.
In February, the Interior Department blazed ahead with a reorganization plan that will consolidate its wildland firefighting operations.
Those plans, nevertheless, cease brief of merging wildland fireplace personnel or applications from the Forest Service with related assets on the Interior Department.
An inner memo states the Wildland Fire Service “will unify wildland fire management within DOI only.”
“The success of these efforts will rely on ongoing support from Congress to secure the necessary funding and authorities needed to implement and sustain these important reforms,” the memo states.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last summer requiring the Interior Department and USDA to consolidate their wildland fireplace applications “to the maximum degree practicable and consistent with applicable law.” The Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request famous that wildland fireplace response has been cut up throughout 5 companies in two departments.
A complete spending deal to fund the Interior Department through the end of fiscal 2026 didn’t endorse the Trump administration’s plans to consolidate federal wildland firefighting operations right into a single company.
Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a summary of the Interior spending invoice final month that the spending package deal “specifically provides funding to continue wildland firefighting using the longstanding practice of funding both the US Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to allow Congress to consider legislative proposals for such a major change.”
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