MARQUETTE - Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment Director Rebecca Humphries said the Upper Peninsula might notice less change than the rest of the state as the newly-created department develops.
That's because some of the concepts being used in recombining the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality are already in place here.
One of those concepts is having a regional director for each of the four lake basin divisions around the state. Stacy Welling has already been serving in that post for the U.P.
Another part of the recombining effort is to create citizen advisory committees across the state. The U.P. was the testing ground for these groups that help filter ideas to DNRE decision makers.
But the U.P. advisory councils will be changing.
"Up here, what we've been talking to the citizens groups about are how do we expand those to include the environmental programs,"Humphries said.
Humphries said reforming the DNRE so far has been "interesting," following a developed transition plan.
"One of our goals was to try and rebuild the agency as one and it includes parts of History, Arts and Libraries (Department) but to not have like a resource bureau and an environmental bureau like we did before and never the two shall meet, but try and merge those on the landscape," Humphries said. "And that's causing a little consternation amongst employees and some of our stakeholders because we've combined that in some ways that are a little non-traditional.
Humphries expects the physical recombining of facilities to take some time. She moved her office into the former DEQ headquarters at Constitution Hall in Lansing.
"Quite frankly, (I did that) because that staff didn't know me as well as my old staff in DNR and I thought I needed to reach out to them," Humphries said.
The executive division of the DNRE will be in Constitution Hall.
"My hope is we'll be able to consolidate that building, plus buildings out in field offices. As leases come up due we can move people in together or even before that where we own offices and try and get us put back together again. But that's going to be a long term project, in all honesty."
Humphries said the new combined agency will "narrow up" the two previous agencies and there will be staff reductions.
"It eliminates several divisions between both of the prior departments, combines those, and so what you'll have is you'll have fewer division chiefs, you'll have fewer of the managers out in the field operations because the number of divisions is narrowed down," Humphries said.
Currently, the agency is going through a selection process to determine who will fill positions in an upper organizational chart.
"We have a number of positions where we had programs in both agencies and you had leadership individuals in both those running, for instance law enforcement programs or water programs," Humphries said. "So what we're doing right now is going through a selection process to get those positions filled. Then we'll be rolling out to the various divisions."
Humphries expects budget issues to be a serious challenge, especially next year. For 2011, the agency will be taking more reductions in the general fund budget, with the recombined agency.
An early retirement plan is expected to be unveiled in the weeks to come, which between 300 and 400 DNRE employees will be eligible for, Humphries said.
Humphries said that plan will likely involve a lot of work with succession planning - with people in critical positions being able to backfill fill those and set priorities and think about how the agency is going to do business.
"Whenever you have those retirement plans, you can't fill all those positions financially because you've got the retirement payouts but also usually government uses that savings to finance the deficit," Humphries said. "And so we're going to be looking at that closely as we put this organization in place and move through that retirement package. We'll be smaller yet."
But Humphries said the agency will be downsizing management structure as well as hiring new employees at entry levels.
"By narrowing-up this organization and also being able to fill some of those positions, my hope is at the end of the day we'll be able to maintain or maybe even increase boots-on-the-ground positions, those entry-level field biologist and field employee positions," Humphries said.
Humphries said she's been trying to bring together the two cultures of the DNR and DEQ, trying to realign the structure and try to bring out the best in employees so they look at the positives.
"It's been busy. I think it would have been impossible for somebody outside the agency to come in and try and get grounded and get this done in a short time. Knowing half the agency very well and knowing state government very well, even with that, it's challenging," Humphries said.
Humphries said she's received a lot of support both inside and outside the agency. She said she thinks people want to see the DNRE be a better agency as it comes together.
John Pepin can be reached at 906 228-2500, ext. 206. His e-mail address is jpepin@miningjournal.net