8 ms·

I'm a camp host for a USFS campground. It takes 3+ seasonal employees to clean the bathrooms, remove the trash, monitor the chlorine content of the drinking wa

by cc101 2y ago

I'm a camp host for a USFS campground. It takes 3+ seasonal employees to clean the bathrooms, remove the trash, monitor the chlorine content of the drinking water and repair things. Together they maintain a dozen or so campgrounds. As a camp host I occasionally do these tasks when these employees are absent as well as my usual duties. For this I theoretically receive a small stipend. I say theoretically because the payroll operation is so understaffed it is five months behind in paying me. Without the seasonal staff, I don't see any way the USFS can keep the campgrounds open as well as do many other functions. I don't think many Americans understand how 40 years or so of declining agency budgets have hollowed out the staffing of many government agencies.

bongodongobob 2y ago
[flagged]
bearjaws 2y ago
Don't worry, soon we will outsource these services to private companies for 5x the price, but then the budget will get approved due to lobbying! Then we will ask why we even have the government owning parks in the first place, and privatize the national parks! You will pay $500 to park and you will like it!
- jonnycoder 2y ago
  I say convert it all to dispersed camping. Leave the zoos, I mean national parks, to the common overcrowding. Let us have our forests back. It’s obvious that their policies have led to many of it burning down in mega fires that get so hot it kills every living thing in its path.
  - desert_rue 2y ago
    Ah, yes, make it harder for people to enjoy and admire nature. Then people will lobby to raze it down as “no one uses it anyway.”
    - trimethylpurine 2y ago
      While you're right, undeniably there are many parks where fencing and parking lots have desertified or made unsightly much of what is in and around the "preserved" areas. Very sad.
  - lazide 2y ago
    USFS campgrounds are setup (generally) in places to reduce the damage caused by the public, because given enough people, the ‘public’ becomes abusive and we can’t have nice things. And in many areas, there will always more enough people that it will cross that threshold, regardless of what anyone calls the place. USFS campgrounds in truly remote areas excepted, but any available camping near a highway is going to be a public safety hazard quickly without someone responsible for keeping it clean and somewhat organized/policed. USFS ‘managed’ campgrounds generally were setup where there was already a problem area. So are you proposing Rangers sit there and drive anyone away trying to do what they want to do? Or we turn these spots into National parks? Because just saying ‘dispersed camping’ doesn’t work either without someone sitting there enforcing it.
theli0nheart 2y ago
> I don't think many Americans understand how 40 years or so of declining agency budgets have hollowed out the staffing of many government agencies. Can you provide a citation for where you’re getting this data indicating that the USFS budget has been declining over time? Based on the data I found, the USFS budget has increased steadily from 2011-2024 [0]. The 2024 budget was $9.3b [1] versus $5.1b in 2011 [0]. The 2025 budget was cut from 2024, but still higher than the 2020 budget. [0]: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46557 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46557 [1]: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12396 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12396
- binoct 2y ago
  While that’s a large change, it’s worth keeping in mind more than half the difference is just inflation. $5.1b in 2011 is $7.3b in ‘24
- alwa 2y ago
  Doesn’t this mainly go to wildfire suppression, and in fact as wildfires have multiplied over that decade, hasn’t the service regularly raided its normal accounts in order to cover its bills for fire prevention and control?
  - lazide 2y ago
    Notably, there has never been a sustainable level of fire fighting and forest management funding in the USFS as far as I know. We just didn’t have to care, but now it is starting to catch up with is.
- Swizec 2y ago
  > The 2024 budget was $9.3b [1] versus $5.1b in 2011 [0] For context: Just keeping up with inflation puts the 2011 budget at $7.1b in 2024. They also claim to have "13 billion dollars contributed to the U.S. economy by visitor spending each year"[2]. Investing $9b into $13b of revenue sounds like a great use of government funds to me. [2] https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/by-the-numbers https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/by-the-numbers
whaaaaat 2y ago
This pattern has been played out time and time again. The next steps will be: "Camp bathrooms are always so dirty, and there's never anyone to staff to help!" "How can the bureaucracy fail so badly, I don't know why we even pay for the USFS if this is the best they can muster" "We should privatize this. Maybe we could even sell naming rights. Colgate campgrounds, anyone?" "(Private companies continue to run shitty camp, citing 'hey, at least we're better than the USFS')" "Remember how the USFS failed so badly? You can't trust the government to do anything!" It's been the playbook of every government agency that has not been funded properly for about a generation now (thanks, Reagan). Slowly defund a service so the quality degrades, then complain about the quality and say you couldn't possibly fund the service if the quality is that low. It drives me up the wall how bleeding obvious this is, time and time again, and yet, here we are, doing it again to the USFS, one of the most important agencies we have in (for instance) ensuring people have access to nature, preventing wildfires, managing our timber stocks, and sequestering carbon.
- starspangled 2y ago
  But this is the government failing! What's more, privatizing it to buddies with uncompetitive corrupt bidding processes and terrible contracts would also be government failure.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    See, there is a difference between 'government' as in the workers who make the government run daily, and 'government' as in the politicians that make the policies. The parent poster you replied to is speaking about the first, and you are speaking about the second.
    - starspangled 2y ago
      No I'm not, I'm talking about the entire machine of government. Politicians don't make decisions in isolation. Bureaucrats and public servants aren't immune from incompetence or corruption.
blindriver 2y ago
This is what happens when your deficit is increasing by $1 trillion every 100 days.

by cc101 2y ago

bongodongobob 2y ago

[flagged]

bearjaws 2y ago

Don't worry, soon we will outsource these services to private companies for 5x the price, but then the budget will get approved due to lobbying! Then we will ask why we even have the government owning parks in the first place, and privatize the national parks! You will pay $500 to park and you will like it!

jonnycoder 2y ago
I say convert it all to dispersed camping. Leave the zoos, I mean national parks, to the common overcrowding. Let us have our forests back. It’s obvious that their policies have led to many of it burning down in mega fires that get so hot it kills every living thing in its path.
- desert_rue 2y ago
  Ah, yes, make it harder for people to enjoy and admire nature. Then people will lobby to raze it down as “no one uses it anyway.”
  - trimethylpurine 2y ago
    While you're right, undeniably there are many parks where fencing and parking lots have desertified or made unsightly much of what is in and around the "preserved" areas. Very sad.
- lazide 2y ago
  USFS campgrounds are setup (generally) in places to reduce the damage caused by the public, because given enough people, the ‘public’ becomes abusive and we can’t have nice things. And in many areas, there will always more enough people that it will cross that threshold, regardless of what anyone calls the place. USFS campgrounds in truly remote areas excepted, but any available camping near a highway is going to be a public safety hazard quickly without someone responsible for keeping it clean and somewhat organized/policed. USFS ‘managed’ campgrounds generally were setup where there was already a problem area. So are you proposing Rangers sit there and drive anyone away trying to do what they want to do? Or we turn these spots into National parks? Because just saying ‘dispersed camping’ doesn’t work either without someone sitting there enforcing it.

theli0nheart 2y ago

> I don't think many Americans understand how 40 years or so of declining agency budgets have hollowed out the staffing of many government agencies. Can you provide a citation for where you’re getting this data indicating that the USFS budget has been declining over time? Based on the data I found, the USFS budget has increased steadily from 2011-2024 [0]. The 2024 budget was $9.3b [1] versus $5.1b in 2011 [0]. The 2025 budget was cut from 2024, but still higher than the 2020 budget. [0]: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46557 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46557 [1]: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12396 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12396

binoct 2y ago
While that’s a large change, it’s worth keeping in mind more than half the difference is just inflation. $5.1b in 2011 is $7.3b in ‘24
alwa 2y ago
Doesn’t this mainly go to wildfire suppression, and in fact as wildfires have multiplied over that decade, hasn’t the service regularly raided its normal accounts in order to cover its bills for fire prevention and control?
- lazide 2y ago
  Notably, there has never been a sustainable level of fire fighting and forest management funding in the USFS as far as I know. We just didn’t have to care, but now it is starting to catch up with is.
Swizec 2y ago
> The 2024 budget was $9.3b [1] versus $5.1b in 2011 [0] For context: Just keeping up with inflation puts the 2011 budget at $7.1b in 2024. They also claim to have "13 billion dollars contributed to the U.S. economy by visitor spending each year"[2]. Investing $9b into $13b of revenue sounds like a great use of government funds to me. [2] https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/by-the-numbers https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/newsroom/by-the-numbers

whaaaaat 2y ago

This pattern has been played out time and time again. The next steps will be: "Camp bathrooms are always so dirty, and there's never anyone to staff to help!" "How can the bureaucracy fail so badly, I don't know why we even pay for the USFS if this is the best they can muster" "We should privatize this. Maybe we could even sell naming rights. Colgate campgrounds, anyone?" "(Private companies continue to run shitty camp, citing 'hey, at least we're better than the USFS')" "Remember how the USFS failed so badly? You can't trust the government to do anything!" It's been the playbook of every government agency that has not been funded properly for about a generation now (thanks, Reagan). Slowly defund a service so the quality degrades, then complain about the quality and say you couldn't possibly fund the service if the quality is that low. It drives me up the wall how bleeding obvious this is, time and time again, and yet, here we are, doing it again to the USFS, one of the most important agencies we have in (for instance) ensuring people have access to nature, preventing wildfires, managing our timber stocks, and sequestering carbon.

starspangled 2y ago
But this is the government failing! What's more, privatizing it to buddies with uncompetitive corrupt bidding processes and terrible contracts would also be government failure.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  See, there is a difference between 'government' as in the workers who make the government run daily, and 'government' as in the politicians that make the policies. The parent poster you replied to is speaking about the first, and you are speaking about the second.
  - starspangled 2y ago
    No I'm not, I'm talking about the entire machine of government. Politicians don't make decisions in isolation. Bureaucrats and public servants aren't immune from incompetence or corruption.

blindriver 2y ago

This is what happens when your deficit is increasing by $1 trillion every 100 days.