An eastern Kentucky tourism official said the uncertain job status of local U.S. Forest Service employees is worrisome. Pete Fingerson is the executive director of Powell County Tourism, which includes the Red River Gorge and Cave Run Lake areas. He said about nine Cumberland District workers were fired in February, then were told a few days ago they can return – with back pay.
“They ranged anything from forestry techs to integrative resource techs to back country rangers to volunteer coordinators, that kind of stuff. Those all like pretty, pretty important positions.”
Fingerson said he’s concerned about the impact on tourism if the forest service employees don’t return or get fired again.
“If we lose 25 to 30 percent of the staff here, I mean, it's just going to continue to degrade the trails and that kind of thing. So then people aren't going to come back to visit.”
Fingerson said he’s also worried about the morale of the employees. The forest service office in Winchester forwarded our email about the Cumberland District jobs to the national office, which said they’d abide by the ruling of the Merit System Protection Board. The terminations are part of the DOGE effort to reduce the federal workforce.
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