(The following article by Jeanie Senior was posted on the Portland Tribune website on June 21.)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Dozens of federal jobs in the Portland area could be on the line if a move to cut funding to Amtrak succeeds, adding to a decline caused by downsizing in the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies.
A budget plan approved Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on transportation set aside $550 million for Amtrak, less than a third of the $1.8 billion in funding sought by Amtrak’s board.
The plan directed the elimination of all of Amtrak’s long-distance trains, including two that serve Portland: the Empire Builder, from Portland and Seattle to Chicago, and the Coast Starlight, from Seattle to Portland to San Diego.
In a memo to employees, Amtrak President David Gunn said the $550 million subsidy wouldn’t be enough for Amtrak to keep operating, except for its commuter service in the Northeast corridor.
The budget still has to be approved by the full House and by the Senate, which could restore a higher level of funding.
There are more than 100 Amtrak employees in Oregon.
Any reduction in Amtrak’s work force still would leave thousands of federal workers in the state — from the Bonneville Power Administration to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The number of federal jobs in Oregon grew from 16,700 in 1947 to a high of 34,100 in 1990. Last year there were 30,200.
Although numbers have climbed over the years, federal jobs are a declining percentage of total employment, according to a state labor economist.
Almost 60 years ago, federal jobs in Oregon made up 4 percent of the state’s total nonfarm jobs, but in 2004 they represented about 2 percent of the total, said Amy VanderVliet, an Oregon Employment Department regional economist.
“I think what’s telling, not only the overall level is interesting, but also its share of overall employment,” she said.
In the seven counties that make up the Portland metropolitan statistical area — Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Yamhill and Columbia counties in Oregon, and Clark and Skamania counties in Washington — federal employment has changed little in several years. Total federal jobs in 2004 numbered 18,300.
“It was 18,800 in 1990, it’s gone as low as 17,900 and as high as 19,100, but basically it’s been in the 18,000 range for the last 10 to 14 years,” VanderVliet said. “That’s 1.9 percent of total employment.”
The BPA, another big federal agency based in Portland, counts about 3,165 employees, but spokesman Ed Mosey said the total employed at the BPA’s head office is fewer than 900.
“Most of the employment in Bonneville is in the transmission business; we operated 15,000 miles of transmission line in four states and have to maintain all that. Most of those employees are linemen, technical people, engineers who work through that far-flung service area,” he said.
The Forest Service, by comparison, began reducing jobs in the early 1990s when federal mandates lowered the amount of timber that could be cut from national forests.
The Willamette National Forest in Eugene had about 1,000 employees in 1990.
“Now we have maybe 400,” said Patti Rodgers, public affairs specialist. “I think we were hit probably earlier than many, but all around the region you’ll hear the same kind of story.”
Mount Hood National Forest has lost about 50 percent of its employees in the past 10 years or so.