USFS to close research and development facilities
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) As part of its ongoing reorganization, the U.S. Forest Service will close 23 research and development facilities around the nation, but three will continue to operate in Montana.
On Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service announced that it had conducted a review of regional offices and research and development facilities and identified 23 facilities that are minimally occupied. The agency plans to shut those facilities down in order to save $16 million. The announcement said the Forest Service can close the facilities using existing authorities and currently available resources.
The 23 facilities are in 15 states, including four in California and two each in California, Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Employees at affected locations will be shifted to other facilities within local commuting areas.
Of the 61 facilities that will remain open, three are in Montana: Missoula, Hungry Horse and Bozeman. The facilities that survived the review are those that “host state office or service centers, are operational spaces for the National Forest System, operate under zero-cost arrangements, have critical research and infrastructure, and/or are part of the experimental forest network” according to the announcement. Missoula is home to an operations service center.
The Forest Service is also proceeding with previously announced regional office shifts for Regions 6, 8 and 9, moving them out of Atlanta, Ga., Milwaukee, Wis., and Portland, Ore., to Athens, Ga., Madison, Wis., and Salem, Ore., respectively. Other state offices are being set up in several state capitols. The announcement didn’t mention what facility will house the state office in Helena.
So far, no state directors have been assigned in 10 of the 15 states, including Montana, according to a Forest Service organizational chart. The state directors for most Western states will answer to a Deputy Chief of Field Operations West in Salt Lake City, Utah, although that position is still vacant. Strangely, the state directors for Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico have been placed under the Eastern Deputy Chief.
But the reorganization changes are far from finished. The Forest Service is evaluating other facilities associated with the National Forest System and other agency operations as part of a broader facilities review. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz plans on being able to close other facilities to save money.
“Local facility consolidation will help us put more of our funding toward mission delivery and cutting-edge research, rather than brick and mortar we no longer need,” Schultz said in the announcement. “And importantly, this produces more than $8.8 million in annual lease savings and more than $8 million in deferred maintenance savings – ensuring American taxpayers receive the maximum value for every dollar entrusted to us.”
On the Forest Service’s social media post, many scoffed at the $16 million savings, noting that the Trump administration spent that much to repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Margaret Gorski, a former Forest Service employee in Stevensville, said the agency has done hundreds of facility reviews and none have led to shutting down so many facilities.
“It comes down to recognizing you don’t run the government like a business. It’s supposed to be a service organization. The organization needs infrastructure to work from, especially on the more remote districts,” Gorski wrote on the Forest Service post.
The Forest Service owns more than 16,000 facilities and holds more than 500 leases and space-occupancy agreements. Half are rated in “poor” condition and deferred maintenance exceeds $3 billion, according to the Forest Service announcement. This is hardly surprising since Congress has regularly squeezed the Forest Service budget to where there’s a maintenance backlog on almost all federal property.
The Trump administration seeks to continue the budget cuts. Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget request would slash the Forest Service’s discretionary budget by approximately 75%. That includes cuts to National Forest System management and overall operations. It would also eliminate funding for several major firefighting programs. Meanwhile, the proposal would boost funding for the commercial logging program by nearly 450%.
The Forest Service also claimed it’s cutting facilities because one-third of agency office space falls below the 60% utilization standard set by the USE IT Act. The USE IT Act was passed at the end of the Biden administration and requires federal agencies to show that they’re each using at least 60% of their building space, otherwise they must develop plans to downsize their office space.
Had the Forest Service done such a review in 2024, the result would have shown that the agency was using more of its facilities because it had more people. But then the Trump administration took over in January 2025. Due to cuts carried out by DOGE and early retirements, the Forest Service lost almost 6,000 employees - 16% of the workforce - in 2025 alone and more losses have occurred since. So it should come as no surprise that some of the offices are a little empty. Eliminating facilities based on slashed staffing means the agency won’t return to pre-Trump administration strength.
In addition to that, some buildings aren’t intended to be fully occupied at certain times of the year. So some, such as Andrew Heller, acting commissioner of General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service, say the USE IT Act is an inappropriate tool.
“The USE IT Act was really focused on total space, and so you’re counting things like auditoriums, conference rooms, libraries, spaces where people shouldn’t be reasonably expected to work during a given day,” Heller told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in early June.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.