“There is a lot of dismay and exponentially more talk of transitioning to different agencies and to the sector, more so than I’ve ever heard before, even during the Trump administration,” he said. “I can speak from experience in my office, there are people doing the jobs of one-and-a-half to two employees on a regular basis with no relief in sight,” Teddy Bruce, an EPA employee who attended the union rally, told Federal News Network.īruce added that management in his office is considering ways to increase morale, engagement and activity between employees, but so far, he has not seen those efforts come to fruition. The increased work causes exhaustion, burnout and low morale for many EPA employees. “More responsibilities are coming onto our plate to implement the great programs in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the IRA, and our staff keeps getting smaller and smaller,” Matt Castelli, a legislative advocate for AFGE Local 3607, representing EPA employees in Denver, told Federal News Network at the rally. 10, EPA announced an additional $1 billion investment going toward clean-up projects across the country under the BIL. Specifically, the IRA provides $27 billion in climate funding, and on Feb. The understaffing at the agency, AFGE said, is exacerbated by a rapidly increasing workload from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as well as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commonly called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Of the agency’s current staff, about 3,000 employees - or one-fifth of the total EPA workforce - are eligible for retirement. Graph created by Federal News Network using data from the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA enacted budget and workforce size from fiscal 1970-2022. In addition, Greg Schlichter of TransUnion will provide an industry perspective. Insight by TransUnion: During this exclusive webinar, moderator Jory Heckman and guest James Ross of the VA Office of Inspector General will explore fraud investigation and data protection strategy at the VA Office of Inspector General. At its peak, EPA had 18,110 employees in 1999. We have 3,000 employees that have more than 30 years of experience … We simply cannot afford to have that wealth of knowledge walk out the door.”ĭuring fiscal 2022, EPA had 14,581 employees, a slight improvement from the past couple of years, but still several thousand workers below staffing in the 1990s. “We need to not only hire new staff, but the bigger problem from our point of view is retaining the staff that we have. “We are facing a staffing crisis,” AFGE Council 238 President Marie Owens Powell told Federal News Network at the Feb. “We are facing a staffing crisis,” AFGE Council 238 President Marie Owens Powell told Federal News Network. In light of growing workforce challenges, the American Federation of Government Employees, the federal union representing more than 7,700 EPA employees under AFGE Council 238, held a rally outside the agency’s D.C. Amid rising workloads and understaffing, employees at the Environmental Protection Agency urged senior leaders and Congress to make some significant changes for the agency’s workforce.
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