A request by the union representing forest rangers in New York seeking pay equity with environmental conservation officers is raising concerns about whether it could lead to a merger of the two divisions. While the DEC emphasizes there is no plan to change the structure, others say a letter issued last fall could be interpreted as a merger plan. WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley, who spoke with a forest ranger a few weeks ago, looks at the environmental conservation officers’ perspective.
This is not the first time the Civil Service Commission has reviewed a salary parity request from forest rangers. In 2015 the board rejected a union appeal stating “…Forest Rangers retain their significantly different mission and a lesser scope of direct police officer law enforcement responsibility than Environmental Conservation Officers.”
In a November 2018 letter urging parity, the Department of Environmental Conservation suggests that “…the Forest Ranger title …be consolidated with the Environmental Conservation Police Officer title.” The Adirondack Council was among those interpreting it as a move to merge the two divisions.
Retired DEC Division of Enforcement Director Joe Schneider says he shares concerns raised by some environmental groups and the confusion about what is intended. “I have absolutely no objections, and I don’t think most anybody in the department has any objections to the rangers making more money. That being said they have made several attempts over the years that I was in service to try to get pay increases and they were unsuccessful. So I think the department wanted to help them get a pay raise. But ultimately I think what happened with this last, people are calling it a merger, people are calling it a parenthetical through Civil Service, now that what they have proposed is coming out I think many of the rangers are going woah, woah wait a minute, does this mean one our title’s going to be eliminated, two this is a merger, three that that you’re changing our duties. There’s a lot of questions that come with the way this was described.”
Schneider adds that the proposal’s ambiguity is also creating tension among EnCon officers. “Because they see it as why are rangers taking over our job and tension on the rangers side because they’re like well why are they making us do that? It sounds like they’re going to do away with the ranger jobs. As far as a merger of the two divisions it’s been talked about for years. I just think that this was an attempt to get the rangers a raise that kind of took a curve, if you will, and that only now that everybody’s bringing out the problems with the way it was done is it starting to cause some friction.”
Lieutenant William Van Slyke retired after 25 years with the Environmental Conservation Police. Earlier in his career, he served seven years as a forest ranger. He says ECO’s are not concerned about salary parity, but a merger could be problematic due to the differences in job responsibilities. “It’s peaked right now because they’re talking about a change of title. From what I’ve seen they’re talking about Environmental Conservation Officer and Environmental Conservation Officer-slash-Forest Ranger. That’s the concern I believe at this point. You can’t just plug somebody into that job. That’s why we have the two year training period after the academy for ECO’s. All these things are completely different than what the Forest Ranger’s job is. So what I’m trying to get at is you just can’t take a Forest Ranger and plug him into an ECO’s job.”
A DEC spokeswoman said in January that the classification for job titles are being reviewed to determine salary parity and there is no proposal to change departmental structure.
Changes are scheduled to go into effect April 1st if approved by the Department of Civil Service.
