US Department of the Interior plans to fire over 10% of the Utah BLM workforce

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Department of the Interior announced plans on Monday to fire more than 10% of the staff at Utah’s Bureau of Land Management.

The department discussed cutting around 2,000 jobs for the National Parks and BLM offices nationwide, which could affect 93 workers at BLM offices in Utah.

Steve Bloch, Legal Director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said these cuts could be devastating.

“These are the staff who you interact with,” Bloch said. “And so it’s everything from are the trails maintained, to is there somebody at the office to answer your question for where you can camp with your families?”

Utah’s BLM also manages mineral contracts, including mining for coal and oil on federal lands. Bloch said a reduction in employees could cause problems for those contracts as well.

“If you are part of regulated industry and maybe you have a mining or grazing operation, these are the public servants who you work with to make sure you can you can do your job,” he said. 

Bloch said many offices around the state are understaffed as is.

“They simply don’t have the entry-level staff anymore to handle the public’s day-in and day-out questions for how to find things on the public lands, how to find information,” he said.

He pointed to one office in downtown Salt Lake City where they don’t have the staff to keep the office running, often pulling more senior members off their projects to answer questions at the front desk.

“If you would go to the BLM’s Price or Richfield or St. George offices, they’re already down to a very thin crew of career public servants,” Bloch said. “And firing more of them is just going to make everybody’s life much more difficult if you recreate or do business on public lands.”

At the end of the day, Bloch said it’s also important to remember that these are people whom everyone lives and works with and are now at risk of losing their jobs.

He said they also believe the reported percentage of workers who could be let go might be much higher than what is reported. The Utah BLM has said they have 783 full-time employees in the state, with 93 who could be let go, but Bloch said that includes their fire crew, who are not involved with the day-to-day running of the office.

“The firing of 93 or so employees is going to be that much more impactful because it’s going to be 93 out of, say, 500,” Bloch said. “And so it’s instead of one out of every 10, it might be one out of every five.”

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