Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nuclear security agency's reorganization plan calls for job cuts at Nevada Test Site

WASHINGTON -- The government's nuclear security agency announced a major reorganization Tuesday that downgrades its Nevada operations and cuts or transfers more than 150 state jobs.

The plan outlined by the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration would reduce the 237-person federal workforce of the Nevada Operations Office by more than 60 percent over the next two years and shift some of its responsibilities to New Mexico.

NNSA operations in Washington, D.C., and California also will be cut back while New Mexico will gain and other outposts in the sprawling nuclear weapons complex will see smaller changes.

NNSA Acting Administrator Linton Brooks said the reorganization will achieve efficiencies sought in Congress and by the Bush administration in the agency formed 33 months ago to manage the nuclear weapons stockpile.

A new organizational chart becomes effective on Friday while managers begin carrying out job transfers and cuts to be phased in by Sept. 30, 2004, according to a Linton memo distributed throughout the nuclear weapons complex and on Capitol Hill.

Brooks said NNSA consolidation was inevitable.

"We are doing this because it had to be done," he said in an e-mail sent to Nevada workers.

Brooks said reductions will be achieved through attrition and buyouts, but he held out the possibility of layoffs if not enough workers leave voluntarily.

The reorganization shifts NNSA balance to New Mexico. A 500-person NNSA "service center" will be created in Albuquerque, staffed by 89 workers who would be transferred from Nevada, as well as transfers from Oakland, Calif., and the Albuquerque field office.

Albuquerque was picked "because it already has a strong employee base and a large population of NNSA employees (about 500) there. It makes more economic sense," said Anson Franklin, NNSA director of congressional, intergovernmental and public affairs.

Franklin said cost-savings have yet to be quantified because of worker transfer costs and uncertainty over the number of buyouts that might be required. He said the agency likely will be asking Congress to reprogram its budget to carry out the reorganization over the next two years.

The Nevada Operations Office would be downgraded to a site office staffed by 80 employees to manage weapons stockpile and national security activities conducted at the test site by contractors and nuclear weapons laboratory technicians and scientists.

Besides potential transfers, more than 50 people lose their jobs to achieve the agency's personnel goal for the Nevada office, according to calculations by one NNSA official.

"I know that most of you are disappointed and many of you are angry," Brooks said in the e-mail to Nevada employees.

Brooks said the proposal was not political, but added, "I would be dishonest to pretend I wasn't conscious of politics." He did not elaborate.

A dozen emergency management workers and 34 people who work on test site environmental management would be unaffected by the reorganization.

About 2,700 contract workers at the Test Site also would be unaffected although some officials said it was possible that Bechtel Nevada, the test site management firm, could wind up increasing its workforce to offset federal reductions.

Brooks said reorganization will shrink the NNSA federal workforce about 20 percent, from 1,696 employes to 1,359. Washington headquarters will see a reduction from 421 to 292 workers, the agency said. The Oakland office will close entirely.

At the agency's North Las Vegas office complex, the announcement came on a day some workers were celebrating their Christmas party.

A spokesman said Manager Kathy Carlson called a meeting and talked to the federal workers about controlling their futures and deciding over the next 21 months about what will be the best course to follow for them and their families.

"It was very disconcerting to many of the employees," spokesman Darwin Morgan said. He noted that many of the workers took the rest of the day off to collect themselves.

Franklin maintained the changes will not affect the national security framework as Nevada workers have charged in previous interviews.

"This will have no impact on future missions," he said. "We expect the test site to be a vibrant center for NNSA for a long time. All we are doing here is applying more effective federal oversight."

Nevada lawmakers said they will press for more about the plan, which they observed goes beyond administrative personnel and affects dozens of technical jobs at the Nevada operations office and the test site.

The cuts in Nevada are disproportionate to others in the nuclear weapons complex, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., complained in a letter to Brooks on Tuesday.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will explore the possibility of blocking the move.

"I don't think they can do this administratively," he said. "They will have to deal with me and people on the appropriations committee. There's no way you can look at this as good but that doesn't mean it's going to happen."

Reid said neither he nor Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., was notified by the Bush administration of the impending reorganization. He said he waited for a call from the administration after Nevada employees began reporting the impending moves last week.

"That's their burden, not mine," Reid said of NNSA leaders. "I've never known business to be done this way."

Reid also absolved Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., an influential voice on the nuclear complex who some Nevadans believed may have had a hand in tilting the service center to New Mexico.

"He wouldn't take my people from me," Reid said. "We work together on the (energy and water) committee."

In a statement, Domenici applauded the reorganization as good for Albuquerque and the NNSA site office at Los Alamos.

"The end result will be a greater NNSA presence in the state," he said.

Ensign was traveling in California. Spokeswoman Traci Scott said he planned to use a new assignment on the Senate Armed Services Committee to investigate the plan.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she will gather lawmakers from other states affected by the reorganization when Congress reconvenes next month.

"I would think that when Congress comes back into session and has an opportunity to focus on this effort, there will be enough members with questions that (NNSA) will have to come before a committee to answer questions," she said.

Review-Journal writer Keith Rogers contributed to this story.