MD FOREST SERVICE 2.0 -“HITTING THE RE-SET BUTTON” 1 Steven W. Koehn, Director / State Forester Kenneth Jolly, Associate Director Don VanHassent, Associate

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MD FOREST SERVICE 2.0 -“HITTING THE RE-SET BUTTON”

Steven W. Koehn, Director / State ForesterKenneth Jolly, Associate Director

Don VanHassent, Associate Director

MD DNR FOREST SERVICE 2.0 “HITTING THE RE-SET BUTTON”

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• What It’s NOT– A Workforce Reduction Effort– Changing Office Assignments

• What It IS– A New Organizational Structure to Better Focus on

MD’s Critical Forestry Issues– Enhanced Integration of Capacity and Resources– Improved Career Advancement Opportunities– A Comprehensive Re-Alignment of All Administrative

Support Systems to Support the New Structure

MD DNR FOREST SERVICE 2.0 What It’s Not & What It Is …

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“We’re not in Kansas anymore

, Toto!” - Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz

The Case for Change: The “New Normal”

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The “New Normal” is: Declining State and Federal Budgets

• Government budgets will not be returning to previous growth levels

• Even if they do recover, limited government funds will go towards other priorities

• Since assuming office, the O’Malley Administration has collectively reduced State spending by $7.5 billion , and eliminated over 5,500 State positions

• During the FY12 Session, Gov. O’Malley approved over $800 million in budget reduction for the FY13 Budget; similar budget decisions will be faced in the current FY13 Session for the FY14 Budget

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The “New Normal” is: Heavy Dependence on Special Funds

• Since 2008, DNR’s General Funds have been reduced by close to 40%

• DNR has been forced to redirect and reduce it’s Agency budget to deal with the “New Normal” of significantly reduced General Funds

• As a direct result, the Forest Service budget is now only about 6% General Funds (previously was about 70%)

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• With the reduction of General Funds, DNR has initiated various fund swap actions to backfill the loss of General Funds with Special Funds

• However, existing Special Fund balances are quickly being “zeroed out,” and without intervention, are projected to go negative in FY15

The “New Normal” is: Heavy Dependence on Special Funds

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The “New Normal” is: Heavy Dependence on Special Funds Maryland Forest Service Budget History

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2,000,000

4,000,000

6,000,000

8,000,000

10,000,000

12,000,000

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

General Fund

Special Fund

Federal Fund

Reimbursable Fund

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The “New Normal” is: Constant Pressure to Stay Relevant

• The Forest Service has to constantly demonstrate it is part of the solution to “big picture” environmental issues, which in turn convince decision-makers the agency is worthy of maintaining funding

• The Forest Service has to constantly demonstrate it is engaged in cooperative partnerships that leverage its funding and resources to maximize impacts

Social

Ben

efits

Eco

nom

ic

Ben

efits

ForestForestSustainabilitySustainability

Environmental Benefits

Bottom line: the agency has to have a “mindset” that is ready to adapt to new challenges on a constant basis

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The “New Normal” is: Constrained Resources/Capacity

• The Forest Service has continuously eliminated positions as a result of budget reductions for over a decade

• Between FY02-FY12, the Unit’s authorized positions were reduced from 135 to 87 (35%)

• Taking into account the transfer of 12 positions from the Park Service associated with State Forests, the genuine Forest Service position reduction for this period is 44%

Forest Service PIN Trend

135127

108100 97 100 101 98 97

91 90 87

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

Fiscal Year (FY)

Num

ber o

f Pos

ition

s

Forest PIN Count By FY

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• This 44% staff reduction has required the agency to eliminate Information & Education services, limit fire suppression assistance to VFD’s, and reduce delivery of forest stewardship planning services

• Existing staff are now required to provide services in a much broader manner on a per staff basis

• The current organizational structure is built for a much larger workforce, and doesn’t facilitate the “organizational nimbleness” necessary for the smaller agency that we have become (and that we will continue to be)

The “New Normal” is: Constrained Resources/Capacity

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The “New Normal” is: Summary of Current/Future Realities

• Declining State and Federal Budgets – Safety, Health & Education (SHE) are always high

priorities– Limited funds for forestry

• Heavy dependence on Special Funds

• Must be relevant to “big” environmental issues

• Constrained resource capacity – Every vacancy only has a “50-50” chance of being filled

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Responding to the “New Normal” is like: ....responding to a heart attack....

• When a patient suffers a heart attack, emergency medical technicians respond quickly to stabilize the patient, and hospital doctors implement emergency medical procedures to address the immediate crisis

• If this is successful, the patient is released from the hospital and goes back to their regular home environment – where they are faced with a critical choice:

– Do they make the necessary – and often difficult – lifestyle changes prescribed by their doctor to avoid a second heart attack?

– Or do they return to the way they used to live, and ignore the “New Normal” that they are now much more susceptible to another (potentially fatal) heart attack?

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Responding to the “New Normal”: Making “Lifestyle Changes” • Over the past several years, the Forest

Service has done what it had to do to deal with the “emergency” budget crisis situations....

• But we’ve also committed ourselves to make the “lifestyle changes” that we need to make to deal with the “new normal” – We completed a statewide Resource

Assessment to identify priority landscapes

– We then developed a Forest Action Plan that identifies and prioritizes five “Critical Issues” for forestry in MD

– We used the Forest Action Plan to develop a Unit Annual Work Plan

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• We eliminated the long-standing “first come, first serve” approach to providing Stewardship Planning Services, and have adopted a new Operations Order delineating priority areas for this service (and areas where we do not provide this service)

• We have forged a much stronger alliance with Chesapeake & Coastal Service in accomplishing GDU’s and priority TDML objectives

• We’ve “re-habilitated” our Unit image to a “Can Do” Unit that has a much broader perspective on trees and forests

Responding to the “New Normal”: Making “Lifestyle Changes”

High Priority

Urban

High Priority

Rural

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• In addition to all of these actions, Forest Service leadership has also been quietly engaged for the past several years in designing a new Organizational Structure – a structure that is more nimble and capable of responding to the “new normal” conditions of the future

• Although the process has been lengthy, we purposely took our time to ensure we “get it right,” and we’ve kept the Office of the Secretary (OOS) fully informed of our process – and the result is that the new structure is viewed very favorably by the OOS – and by the Department of Budget & Management (DBM - which has the final approval authority over Agency re-organizations)

Responding to the “New Normal”: Making “Lifestyle Changes”

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Making Lifestyle Changes: Summary of Ongoing Actions

• Completed Resource Assessment / Forest Action Plan • Used to develop Unit Annual Work Plan • Basis for new Stewardship Planning policy

• Stronger GDU / TDML partnerships

• Improved Unit image – “Can Do” attitude with a broader perspective

• Re-aligning Org. Structure and Systems Implementing NOW

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The New Organizational Structure: Forest Service “2.0” • The new structure has been

intentionally designed to be “in sync” with the new direction that State and Private Forestry (S&PF) is headed at the National Level – e.g., with the “USFS ReDesign” effort

• ReDesign identified three “National Themes” for S&PF efforts

• Further, as part of the ReDesign effort, allocation of federal SP&F funding was partially changed – from a strictly formulaic, program-based system (Stewardship, Fire, Urban) – to a funding allocation that now incorporates an evaluation of how well the states are addressing the National Themes

Conserve Working Forest Conserve Working Forest LandscapesLandscapes

Protect Forests Protect Forests from Harmfrom Harm

Enhance Benefits Enhance Benefits From Trees and ForestsFrom Trees and Forests

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• Another major factor in designing the new organizational structure is to align resources in such a way as to better address the five Critical Forestry Issues facing the state, as identified in the Forestry Action Plan:

– Restore and Sustain Forest Landscapes

– Ensure Healthy and Resilient Forests

– Ensure Clean and Abundant Water

– Create Jobs and Sustainable Communities

– Make Landscapes More Resilient to Climate Change

The New Organizational Structure: Forest Service “2.0”

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No “Sacred Cows”

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• Consequently, a major emphasis of the new Forest Service Organizational Structure is to create a Structure that moves beyond current “silos”– Program silos– Geographic Regional / Project silos– Public / Private land silos

• Into a more flexible structure that promotes– A higher level of integrated teams and

programs– Focused on addressing the three National

Themes and the five MD Critical Issues


Bottom Line: the new structure is designed to move away from Regions/Programs, and move towards Teams/Themes

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Why we need a new structure: The perils of not making this “Lifestyle Change”

• Forest Service becomes Dysfunctional– The form of an organization should be tailored to its function (“form follows

function”); if an organization’s structure gets in the way of achieving it’s strategic goals, the agency becomes dysfunctional (“structure follows strategy”)

• Current structure limits adaptability– A new structure is needed to better respond to the actual workforce size of

the Forest Service, and to better facilitate the integrated work of various resource specialists to address identified priorities

• An in-grained silo-structure limits adaptability to respond to future challenges

• Dysfunctional + Non-adaptable = Irrelevance– A dysfunctional / non-adaptable organizational structure ultimately leads to

Unit irrelevance and further resource loss• Just the opposite of where we want to be!!


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• A Unit that is structured to focus our work on addressing MD’s priority forest conservation challenges / Critical Issues

• No more silos – a more effective, integrated, adaptable, and relevant Forest Service

• Enhanced integration of available staff resources at all levels

• Improved efficiencies in workforce recruitment and advancement

• A comprehensive alignment of all administrative support systems that are necessary to solidify this “new way of doing business” into the future

The New Organization: Forest Service “2.0” What are the desired outcomes for the new organization?

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Achieving These Desired Outcomes• The new structure is designed to deal with the “new

normal” of a much smaller workforce and fewer program specialist positions

– Reduces the Unit’s top leadership from 13 to 9 positions (a 31% reduction, which corresponds fairly closely on a percentage basis to the overall reduction in the Unit’s available positions)

– Replaces the current “Region/Project” structure with a more flexible “Ecosystem/Landscape” structure, and replaces the current “Program” structure with a smaller number of integrated teams charged with a broader “thematic” function

– The current four Regions and five Program areas are re-organized into three Teams and three Themes

The New Organization: Forest Service “2.0”

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• In addition to organization structure changes, a comprehensive re-alignment of administrative support systems will be implemented:

– An overhauled and simplified budget structure

– “Fixed” job classifications for the “Forester/Forestry Manager” series

– The creation of two completely new job classification series for Forest Technicians and Program Specialists

– Enhanced career ladder for staff / greater opportunities for professional advancement

– A new approach to performance measures, directed by the Forestry Action Plan (as synthesized by the Unit Annual Work Plan)

Achieving These Desired Outcomes

The New Organization: Forest Service “2.0”

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State Forester/Unit Director

S. Koehn

Stewardship/UtilizationD. Rider

Sustainable Forestry Council

ForestConservancy

District Boards

Associate Director Statewide Programs

D. VanHassent

Associate Director Field Operations

K. Jolly

Urban ProgramsM. Honeczy

Central RegionW. Merkel

Eastern RegionK. Powers

Southern RegionD. Gailey

Fire ManagementM. Mitchell

Western RegionB. Webster

Forest Res. PlanningJ. Perdue

Watershed Mgmt.A. Hairtston-Strang

Finance and Admin.S. Allen

P. CressmanMgmt. Assoc.

State Forester/Unit Director

S. Koehn

Rural and Community Forestry

Program Manager

ForestConservancy

District Boards

Sustainable Forestry Council

Associate Director Statewide Programs

D. VanHassent

Associate Director Field Operations

K. Jolly

Forest Health and Protection

Program Manager

AppalachianForest Area

Program Manager

Coastal Forest AreaProgram Manager

Piedmont Forest AreaProgram Manager

Finance and Administration

Program Manager

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Associate DirectorField Operations

K. Jolly

State Forest Mgr

Western RegionB. Webster

Central RegionW. Merkel

Admin. Asst.

Eastern RegionK. Powers

Southern RegionD. Gailey

Forest Res. PlanningJ. Perdue

Project Manager Project Manager

Admin. Asst.

Project Manager

Admin. Asst.

State Forest Mgr

Planner/GIS

Project Manager

Project Manager

Project Manager

Project Manager

Project Manager

Project Manager

Project Manager

Project Manager

State Forest Mgr

State Forest Mgr

Associate DirectorField Operations

K. Jolly

Piedmont Forest AreaProgram Manager

AppalachianForest Area

Program Manager

Area Mgrs / Staff

Working LandscapesManager

Priority EcosystemsManager

Eco Mgrs / Staff

Coastal Forest AreaProgram Manager



Area Mgrs / Staff

Area Mgrs / Staff



Eco Mgrs / Staff

Ecosystems Staff

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Associate DirectorStatewide Programs

D. VanHassent

WR Wshed Coord.

Watershed Mgmt.A. Hairtston-Strang

Stewardship/UtilizationD. Rider

WR Wshed For.

Urban ProgramsM. Honeczy

Reg UCF Coord.

Fire ManagementM. Mitchell

Finance and Admin.S. Allen

R. EstepAdmin. Spec.

Ayton Nursery Staff

TreeMend/MPT

Ches. Bay/ SpecialRivers Coord.

Reg UCF Coord.

Reg UCF Coord.ER Fire Manager

ER Fire Spec.

WR Fire Manager

WR Fire Spec.

Associate DirectorStatewide Programs

D. VanHassent

AppalachianWatershed Coord.

Forest Health andProtection

Program Manager

Rural and CommunityForestry

Program Manager

AppalachianWatershed For.

Urban Programs

Urban Program Coordinators / Staff

Certification/GIS

Finance andAdministration

Program Manager

Stewardship/Utilization

Cert / GIS Staff

Fire Mgmt/Firewise

Ches. Bay/ SpecialRivers Coord.

Fire Mgmt/Firewise Staff

Finance andAdmin. Staff

Nursery Mgr / Staff

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The New Organization: Forest Service “2.0” So – now that we know what the new Organizational Structure looks like, what does the new “personnel support system” (revised Job Classifications) look like?

Current Specification Job Title NEW (Currently under DBM review) Specification Job Title

Forester I (Grade 13) Forester I-IV (Grade 13-16)

Forester Licensed (Grade 14)

Forester Supervisor (Grade 15)

Forestry Manager I-IV (Grade 16-19) Forestry Manager I-III (Grade 17-19)

Forester/Forestry Manager series:

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The New Organization: Forest Service “2.0” So – now that we know what the new Organizational Structure looks like, what does the new “personnel support system” (revised Job Classifications) look like?

Natural Resources Technician / Program Specialists series:

Current Specification Job Title NEW (Currently under DBM review) Specification Job Title

Natural Resources Technician I-VI (Grade 8-13)

Forestry Specialist I –VI (Grade 9-14)

Forestry Specialist Manager I-IV (Grade 15-18)

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The New Organization: Next Steps

• Overhaul the existing Budget System – We have begun preliminary work on this, which will be fully realized

during the development of the FY15 Budget (FY14 will be a transitional year)

• Get the new job classification series approved by DBM – The new job specs are currently under review by DBM-Personnel,

and at present, the approval process appears to be going smoothly• The fact that the new Organizational Structure has already

been approved by DBM-Budget helps greatly in this process

• Draft the specific job descriptions (MS-22’s) for new Organizational positions, and have them approved by DBM using the new job classifications– This step goes “hand-in-glove” with the approval of the new specs

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• “On-the-ground” implementation of the new structure– Advance communication of new structure to partners /

stakeholders– Coordinate with DNR-HRS on proper procedures for filling

new Organizational positions– “Fill in the boxes” via interviews and appointments

(appointments at top levels only) – Have the new organization in place July 1 (if

administratively possible)

– Build the new organization through team development and

celebrating success

The New Organization: Next Steps

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Closing Summary

• The “New Normal”: The Need For Change

• “Lifestyle Changes” that Address the “New Normal”

• Forest Service 2.0– New Organizational Structure– New Budget Structure– New Personnel Systems / Enhanced Career Opportunities– New Performance Planning and Evaluation Systems

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• A great deal of effort and thought by the entire Forest Service Leadership Team has gone into designing this new and comprehensive approach – why? To ensure the Forest Service will remain relevant and thrive into the future as a result of these changes

• Be confident that the intention of this new approach is to proactively place the Forest Service in the best position possible to face the challenges that we know lay ahead of us

• We know that the transition process will be difficult, emotional, and will take all of our collective creative energy to pull it off successfully – but we’re confident we can do it together!!

• We know there will be “glitches” as we move forward – the expectation is that we collectively attack the issues, not each other, and that we will fix the problems, not the blame

• We recognize this is a major change – however, our desire is that it will be a major positive change for the Unit, and we are likewise confident that we will make this a resounding success as work together to build the Forest Service of the future!

The New Forest Service: Parting Thoughts

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Moving Forward

“We must be more than careful stewards of the land; we must be constant catalysts for positive change.”

- Gifford Pinchot

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Questions?

Documents

MD FOREST SERVICE 2.0 -“HITTING THE RE-SET BUTTON” 1 Steven W. Koehn, Director / State Forester Kenneth Jolly, Associate Director Don VanHassent, Associate