Forestry Department will try out workweeks with four 10-hour days

If a tree falls in a forest, will state forestry officials be around to hear it? Not on Fridays.

Beginning Oct. 19, the state’s Department of Forestry will be trying out a new workweek made up of four 10-hour days.

The move is a relatively small part of the changes the department is making to cut costs, but will be a bellwether for the strategy to state government officials.

The office will be open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and employees will take one hour for lunch. The move will affect the department’s Charlottesville headquarters; its regional offices in Charlottesville, Tappahannock and Salem; and all its county offices.

“I think it’s got bigger implications for the commonwealth of Virginia and all the other agencies that are out there,” said John Miller, the department’s director of resource protection.

Emergency response will still be available Fridays.

“We’re not going to stop fighting fire on Friday, just like we don’t on Saturday and Sunday,” said John W. Campbell Jr., department spokesman.

Department employees also respond to other disasters, including helping clear trees after ice storms and hurricanes.

Gordon Hickey, a spokesman for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the Department of Forestry is a good test case for the strategy because it receives a minimum of visits from the public.

“[Wildfire reporting] is not something you get walk-up traffic for,” Miller joked.

A few workers who can telecommute from home will keep eight-hour days, and work from home Fridays.

About 60 of the roughly 260 department employees are office workers, and many of them are likely to use the telecommuting option, Miller said.

The other 200 employees spend most of their time in the field, doing things such as fighting fires, inspecting logging operations, gathering forestry data and conducting controlled burns.

The department fights about 1,250 fires that char a total of about 10,000 acres in an average year, Campbell said.

The department’s budget has been reduced by about $4 million during the last three months as part of state budget cuts, to about $14.6 million, Campbell said

“We were pretty small and lean to begin with, so now we’re real lean,” Campbell said.

The department has estimated the new schedule could save $35,000 through the end of the fiscal year, though Campbell emphasized that the estimate was conservative.

“It’s anybody’s guess right now, and it could be far more than the $35,000,” he said.

Those savings will come principally from gas and utility savings, he said.

Other savings strategies are shaving more dollars. The state has switched from a 20-year cycle for replacing its bulldozers to a 25-year cycle.

Each bulldozer, with its attendant plow and a truck to carry the equipment, costs $235,000.

Firefighters use the equipment to clear the ground around wildfires to stop the blazes from spreading.

The state will also be kicking in only a two-thirds match for the $1.2 million in replanting money that a logging tax brings in, rather than the traditional full match.

The department has lost dozens of positions and some part-time workers. So far, department leaders think they can eliminate the positions through attrition, without laying off any full-time workers, Campbell said.

The new scheduling switch will also affect some other departments that are housed at the state building at 900 Natural Resources Drive in Fontaine Research Park.

While the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control won’t be participating, the new schedule will take effect in the Charlottesville offices of the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy; the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisher-ies; the Virginia Depart-ment of Agriculture and Consumer Services; and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recre-ation; and the Virginia Department of Environ-mental Quality.

Only the forestry department is testing the new schedule in all its offices. The other departments are affected because they use space in the forestry department’s Charlottesville office.

Mike Abbott, a spokesman for the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy said his department had already been experimenting with different scheduling options before the move was announced.

Hickey said the administration is watching the new test with interest.

“Nothing is written in stone here,” he said. “This is just something we’re taking a look at.”

But the trial of the new schedule is slated to run until June 30, by which time Virginia will have a new governor, so it’s unlikely that Kaine will push the program into other departments.