Veteran forecasters cut under budget proposal
Thirteen of 42 staff members at the National Hurricane Center in Miami would qualify for the early retirement plan.
By PAUL DE LA GARZA
Published February 11, 2006
Amid one of the busiest hurricane periods in decades, the National Weather Service has drafted a plan to offer early retirement to 1,000 employees, including dozens of veteran workers in Florida.
As part of a cost-cutting move, the agency wants to replace 68 high-paid employees in the state, many of them forecasters, and either cut the positions or replace them with junior staff.
Thirteen of the 42 staff members at the National Hurricane Center in Miami would qualify for the early retirement.
With Florida still recovering from eight hurricanes in two years, and another busy season predicted, the proposal makes some people nervous.
"That's the most ridiculous budgetary policy decision I've ever heard, when you're dealing with a matter of life and death, of inbound hurricanes," said Sen. Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who sits on the Senate subcommittee that oversees the agency.
"That's the kind of thing you don't want to scrimp on because of budget reasons," he said.
The senator said he first heard the agency planned to cut chief meteorologist slots during a trip last October with hurricane hunters monitoring Hurricane Wilma off the Yucatan Peninsula.
He said he had instructed his staff to look into it.
Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said it was difficult to comment on the proposal because it is a work in progress.
"We will review these proposals and see what we can do in the best interest of the state," she said.
The union that represents the employees does not oppose the agency proposal outright but is concerned about losing veteran forecasters, even as the federal government tries to develop better ways to track hurricanes.
"If I had my druthers, they would exclude the operational people from that - the people that issue the warnings," said senior forecaster Dan Sobien of Bradenton, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
The spokesman for the weather service, Jordan St. John, did not respond to a message Friday but in a brief interview last week said the proposal had not yet received approval from the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government's human resources agency. He said cost-cutting moves always are being considered.
The Office of Personnel Management also declined comment.
Documents obtained by the St. Petersburg Times outline the National Weather Service strategy, "based on the need to restructure and reduce overall costs in order to meet current budget targets."
The National Weather Service has 122 weather forecast offices, 13 river forecast centers and nine national centers throughout the United States.
According to the "Voluntary Early Out Retirement Authority (VERA) Implementation Plan," dated Jan. 12, 2006, as many as 1,000 employees out of 4,700 qualify for early retirement.
In Florida 68 employees qualify for VERA, including 13 of the staffers at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, union figures show. At the weather service's Ruskin office, five of 26 employees qualify.
To be eligible for VERA, employees must have completed at least 20 years of service and be 50 years old, or have completed 25 years of service regardless of age. The agency stressed that retirement under the program is strictly voluntary.
Sobien had no solid figures on the number of forecasters that would be affected by the measure but said that, as a rule, three-fifths of employees in weather forecast offices are forecasters.
He also said that weather forecast offices are already strained by tight staffing.
The proposal says: "When an employee retires via VERA, NWS management will determine if the vacant position needs to be refilled (i.e. is this position critical to its core mission; the timely and effective issuance of weather forecasts and warnings).
"If NWS management determines that the position need not be refilled, it will be left vacant."
In an apparent effort to avoid losing too many key positions simultaneously, the proposal says management would limit participation in the program.
For example, the union says, the weather forecast office in Tampa could lose a meteorologist, a hydrologist and an electronics engineer, but not three meteorologists at once.
A chief union concern is what happens afterward, once the position is vacated.
Sobien said he has been unable to get answers from the National Weather Service.
"If NWS management determines that the vacant position must be refilled," the proposal says, "secondary decisions will then be made regarding (1) holding the position vacant temporarily and (2) filling this vacant position at a lower grade, i.e., at the entry level versus senior level or full journeyman level."
The union isn't convinced that management will implement the program successfully. Sobien said he suspects veteran forecasters would be replaced by interns straight out of college.
He said it can take several years before forecasters in Florida master the job.
"I don't see anything in their proposal that makes me feel warm and fuzzy," Sobien said.
--Paul de la Garza can be reached at delagarza@sptimes.com or 813 226-3432.