The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has long struggled to compete with corporate America to recruit tech workers to maintain the complicated computer systems that track the federal seafood harvests off Alaska.
These chronic staffing shortages at NOAA Fisheries’ Alaska Region have been greatly exacerbated by the Trump administration’s efforts to cut the federal workforce.
As of mid-March, the Alaska Region had 29% of its staffing positions vacant, and the Information Services Division, staffed largely by tech workers, had a vacancy rate of 45%, according to an internal agency memorandum obtained by the Alaska Beacon.
The memorandum offers a window into the impacts of the Trump administration downsizing campaign on the agency’s Alaska Region, which plays a vital role in overseeing federal harvests in a nearly 1.5 million square mile swath of the North Pacific that produce about half of the fish caught in U.S. waters. The memorandum states that the region is “evaluating core functions necessary to maintain minimal functionality to keep the fisheries operating…we are aligning existing staffing resources to maintain and ‘keep the lights on.’”
That task will likely become more challenging in the weeks ahead.
NOAA Fisheries is part of the Commerce Department, which has been instructed by a Trump executive order to shrink its federal workforce in a quest to “eliminate waste, bloat and insularity.”
Some NOAA Fisheries workers who had not completed a probationary period of employment already are off the job. They were let go earlier this year, then placed on paid administrative leave after a judge, in response to a lawsuit, found fault with that move.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department is encouraging employees with long years of federal service to take early retirement. Others can leave and collect “lump sum” exit payments of up to $25,000, according to a copy of the NOAA offer obtained by the Beacon. Employees have until April 17 to decide whether they want to leave NOAA Fisheries voluntarily. If they do not, they will still face the risk of getting laid off at a later date by a reduction in force, according to the offer. As the deadline for voluntary departures approaches, staff members say that morale has eroded. Some who had considered staying are opting to leave as they confront expanded workloads with less support. Three current federal workers who spoke with the Alaska Beacon declined to comment publicly due to concerns about retaliation, but said that there was fear among frontline workers and one worker said that extended to leadership.
The responsibilities of the NOAA Fisheries Alaska region include enforcement of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, marine conservation, and collecting and managing catch data. The regional offices also work closely with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which is charged with carrying out much of the fishery survey work and also has been slammed by staff losses.
The Trump administration cuts to NOAA Fisheries alarm Bill Tweit, vice chair of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal advisory group that develops harvest policies for the 200-mile U.S. fishery zone off Alaska. As climate change intensifies, the council faces an increasingly challenging task of helping to manage the fisheries. And if Alaska staff cuts substantially weaken NOAA Fisheries’ scientific capabilities, then he expects the council may consider tighter harvest limits.
“‘That’s because the less information we have — the more conservative we have to be,” said Tweit, a Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife official who has served on the council for almost two decades.
Sources within the Alaska regional office say some of the greatest concern is focused on the Alaska Region’s Information Services Division. The division staff support an aging computer system, and “Development work to improve our IT (Information Technology) systems is particularly at risk,” said the Alaska Region internal memorandum, which stated that the division’s vacancy rate will soon reach 55%.
The computer division tracks the progress of a multitude of harvests, along with the bycatch of accidentally caught species. Accurate tallying of the rapidly changing harvest totals is essential to preventing overfishing in derby-style fisheries, such as the Gulf of Alaska pollock harvest, which have boat crews who race to grab as much fish as possible before a fleet-wide quota is reached.
In a public document filed March 28 with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the Alaska Region listed eight of the staff who were “lost,” including two supervisors and a software developer from the Information Services Division.
During a Thursday meeting of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, NOAA Alaska Regional Administrator Jon Kurland did not disclose any details about the vacancy rates but acknowledged “some very challenging circumstances.”
“This will be a new paradigm, less staff and less capacity,” Kurland said in testimony to the council. “I can say we will have limitations and delays in delivering things that council and stakeholders are expecting…. Our staff have been under quite a lot of stress, and they have really been touched by numerous, very kind acknowledgements of their public service.”
In later remarks to the council, Kurland said “we are expecting to see some further big changes, and those changes will have impacts on the services that we can provide. But…. I really can’t go into any more detail than that at this point.
Also on Thursday, Bob Foy, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, testified to the council. He noted staff losses, travel restrictions and an effort to keep “any of the core balls from being dropped.”
“That’s really the space we are in right now. A heck of a lot of uncertainty,” Foy said.
