BLM staffers face looming deadline to relocate or quit

The Bureau of Land Management is expected next week to hand employees in its D.C. headquarters formal notices of relocation to Colorado and other states in the West, according to multiple sources. The letters will kick off a 30-day period in which staffers must decide to move or potentially leave the bureau. BLM managers have been instructed to ensure that as many staffers as possible are in town the week of Nov. 12, when the notices will be hand-delivered to the roughly 30 positions moving to BLM's new headquarters in Grand Junction, Colo., and to the nearly 200 others being relocated to state offices across the West as part of a broad reorganization plan, the sources said. Delivery of the formal "management directed geographic reassignment" forms — as outlined by BLM acting chief William Perry Pendley in an email to staff last month — starts the 30-day clock for affected employees "to decide whether to accept reassignment." Those who check the box on the standard forms committing to relocate will then have "an additional 90 days in which to report to your new duty station," Pendley wrote in the email that notified employees the forms would be delivered "in the coming weeks". A BLM spokesman declined to confirm that the reassignment letters would go to employees next week. But the bureau said in an emailed statement to E&E News, "We sincerely hope employees will be able to follow their positions to the new locations but there are many factors that an individual may consider when deciding whether or not to relocate." The BLM statement also echoed previous assurances by Pendley, both in the email to staff last month and in testimony to Congress in September, that Interior and BLM would help employees who want to stay in D.C. find jobs within the bureau if possible. "Our desire is to retain the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our experienced staff, but we recognize that your personal desires or situations may not be compatible with our decisions," Pendley wrote in the staff email. "We stand ready, willing, and able to be of assistance to you."...MORE 

"We expect many employees to leave the agency, and, in fact, several already have," said Ed Shepard, president of the Public Lands Foundation, a BLM retirees' group. "The loss of talent at the BLM headquarters will have a long-term impact on the management of the public lands."

Talent to do what?? Cuddle up to enviro lobbyists and Congressional staffers? 

Shepard is right about one thing: there will be a long-term impact on the management of federal lands. A very positive impact.