DEC sheds Senior Staff

[Tim Bromund]

DEC sheds senior staff

Department loses 260 to early retirement incentive, looking at another 209 by year’s end

October 23, 2010 - By MIKE LYNCH, Enterprise Outdoors Writer

High-profile biologists, supervisors and fish hatchery staff and are among the 260 state Department of Environmental Conservation employees who recently left the agency after accepting a 2010 early retirement incentive program offered by Gov. David Paterson.

The list includes biologists such as Al Hicks, who worked to reintroduce the moose in the Adirondacks and who first warned of major die-offs of bats; Peter Nye, who worked for decades to bring bald eagles back to the state; and on a local level, Tom Hall, who recently served as the assistant regional director to Betsy Lowe.

"Many of the men and women on that list represent really long-term institutional knowledge," Adirondack Mountain Club Executive Director Neil Woodworth said. "These are 25- to 30-year members of the department."

The 260 are part of the 595 employees who have left the DEC since April 2008 through attrition, a severance program and the early retirement incentive program.

The 595 represent 16 percent of the 3,775 staff members DEC had in April 2008.

Those numbers don't include the 209 positions Paterson told the DEC to cut by the end of this year.

Woodworth said the DEC will miss people like Hicks, pathologist Ward Stone, real estate specialist John Keating and David Forness, chief of the Bureau of State Land Management, who all worked in Albany.

"Out the door with John Keating goes an incredible amount of knowledge about the state's Adirondack land holdings and Adirondack real estate in general," Woodworth said. "Nobody knew those state forests better than Dave Forness."

Adirondack Council spokesman John Sheehan said Stone and Hicks jumped out at him as big losses.

"(Hicks) was largely responsible for the state's work in helping the moose return to the Adirondacks (by) relocating animals that get into trouble and doing their best to keep them alive in transport and finding suitable habitat," he said.

Sheehan also praised Stone for his work on West Nile virus, avian flu and in detecting pollution in the St. Lawrence River. Stone also came under heavy criticism in the last year, however, after it was learned that he had been living in his Delmar office, but some of his proponents overlooked his alleged misgivings.

"He was also one of the first to help us recognize white nose syndrome in the bats," Sheehan said.

Hicks also played a lead role in researching white nose syndrome.

For Jason Kemper, who is chairman of the Conservation Fund Advisory Board, the biggest losses are in the Division Of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources, which had 36 people retire statewide. That includes a turnover of the chief of the Bureau of Wildlife, where Gordon Batcheller has replaced John Major.

Kemper is especially concerned about are those who work at the fish hatcheries. The DEC's website lists seven people who have left fish hatcheries statewide, including Ed Grant, manager of the Adirondack Fish Hatchery in Lake Clear, which raises landlocked salmon and stocks them in Adirondack waterways.

Kemper said the lack of staff at those hatcheries is jeopardizing operations for raising fish.

"We're in a really big pickle right now," Kemper said. "We're starting to take eggs for next spring. Unless we can backfill some of those positions, we're not going to have the fish to stock. The department has to make a decision whether they keep raising those fish or the eggs just sort of don't go."

Kemper said he was frustrated by the loss in DEC fisheries staff because there were across-the-board license fee increases last year and because the Conservation Fund, which funds fisheries staff positions, has a surplus in the millions of dollars. He was unable to provide the exact amount, but it's enough to pay for those lost positions. The only reason the money isn't going to that purpose is because of the governor's mandate to cut positions, he said.

"We sold a huge license fee increase to sportsmen and -women, and they reluctantly accepted it with the promise that there would not be a reduced level of service," Kemper said. "So now we have a huge surplus in the Conservation Fund and no ability, because the state Department of Budget, to backfill any of those positions."

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Contact Mike Lynch at 891-2600 ext. 28 or [email protected].

[kliph]

Tim,

This is just the beginning. Wait until next year.

The state is in a $1 Billion hole. http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news ... t=My+Yahoo

Andy Cuomo said he will not increase taxes,(up-state is over taxed)

and he said he will not cut taxes.

This state has to have a balanced budget.

I just wonder what he will cut to balance the budget.

Watch and see.

[MCF]

Mr. Cuomo is talking the talk, he will need to start walking it in January with or without Sheldon Silver or the new leader of the Senate. Gov Paterson couldn't get anywhere and the whole just got deeper and deeper. They need to roll back medicaid to the level of the other states, that would be a huge step.

[muskybob]

If the State & Feds did some welfare & Social Security reform and cut the slackers off the rolls we wouldn't have any problems with the budget.

[FLXTroutman]

I read this article recently, it is from Oct 2008 but nothing has changed since then, This is just an excerpt but I linked the article:

Dale M. Volker spends nearly $1 million a year to run his State Senate office, while some of his colleagues in the local delegation get by on half as much money.

In the Assembly, Robin L. Schimminger spends nearly three times more money to run his shop than some of his colleagues.

Welcome to the New York State Legislature, which spends more than $200 million a year and employs more than 3,500 to serve the wants and needs of 212 members of the Senate and Assembly.

Put another way, the Legislature employs as many people as the City of Buffalo and the Town of Amherst combined. Cops, firefighters, trash collectors -- the whole works.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... =us&client

I live in Canandaigua and for the last 7 years I have lived here, each year city, county and school taxes have risen. The school board of education will be discussing tonight the referendum necessary to cover the $10,000,000 price tag for upgrading athletic fields and track as well as the kicker: $3.2 million for artificial turf at Exhibition Field.

[kliph]

Muskybob,

>If the State & Feds did some welfare & Social Security reform and cut the slackers off the rolls we wouldn't have any problems with the budget.<

Please don't lump welfare & Social Security together.

Medicaid and Medicare are not the same.

Welfare and Medicaid are for low income (read that as non income tax payers) people.

Social Security and Medicare was paid for by workers for Social Security and Medicare.

Mine and your income has been taxed @ over 15%.

The employee and employer paid an equal amount.

Medicare---tax is equal to 2.9%

(1.45% withheld from the worker and a matching 1.45% paid by the employer)

FICA is 6.2% for Social Security, your employer pays an equal amount on your

behalf every time you pay Social Security.

This state has to cut Medicaid and Welfare.

NY has the highest cost Medicaid and Welfare in the whole country.

http://kliphs-underground.blogspot.com/ ... rever.html

[skipper19]

And the retirement incentives were paid out by Patterson with who's money? The same extra money we paid for sporting licences?....the same money that got us threatened with state park and access closures?....my guess is they will steal the surplus environmental fund for who knows what! Glad I'm not interested in being an en con officer with nothing to enforce. Who's gonna be buying overpriced licenses to fish and hunt for nothing?....oops...did I just mention more cuts in enforcement?

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[muskybob]

kliph, Both were not intended to be lumped together. I realize the Fed is responsible for SS & the State for Welfare. Both entities need reform hence my post.

[tonyb]

So this is the explanation for the NR license fee increase from $40 to $70 last year