Bureau Of Mines Closes Scores Losing Jobs As Cuts Leave Agency Without Funds
Suds and bubbly couldn’t wash away the bitter taste of politics for about a hundred Bureau of Mines employees Friday who lost their jobs to Republican budget cuts.
Despite years of local efforts to salvage the 160 high-paying jobs at two offices, the bureau has run out of time.
Employees sipped beer and wine at Gonzaga University at a Northwest Mining Association reception honoring the bureau’s 85 years of work.
A new federal budget year begins Sunday. Though the new budget has yet to pass, language in spending bills before Congress has no money for the bureau, with no plans to revive the $150 million the bureau uses in some other way.
The Bureau of Mines, a resource for mining companies big and small, will die technically overnight. About 1,200 geologists, researchers and administrators will eventually lose their jobs, said Dave Brown, director of external affairs for the bureau in Washington, D.C.
For mining companies like Coeur d’Alene’s Hecla Mining Co., it means the end of a great resource for mine safety and mining education, said Vicki Veltkamp, Hecla’s manager of corporate communications.
“There’s some great people down there that have really helped us out,” she said. “We’re going to miss them.”
The 160 employees in Spokane won’t be cleaning out their desks immediately, said Rod Rosenkranz, deputy chief of the Western Field Operations office.
The remaining money from last year’s budget should carry the employees through the end of this year.
“We’re focusing now to find out the kind of meaningful work we can do in that time period,” Rosenkranz said among glum companions. “I think it’s tremendously sad.”
The appropriations bill that holds the final nail in the bureau’s coffin was temporarily derailed Friday. The House of Representatives sent the bill back to a conference committee because of disagreement of a mining patent moratorium.
The delay doesn’t represent a chance for Republican Congressman George Nethercutt to try to revive money for the Spokane offices, said Ken Lisaius, Nethercutt’s press secretary in D.C.
Even if President Clinton were to veto the bill once it reaches his desk, the chance that the Bureau of Mines would be revived would be tiny, Brown said.
“I’ve heard that some in the Senate are making rumblings about trying to save the bureau,” Brown said. “But at this point they’re just rumblings.”
Nethercutt, Spokane’s Chamber of Commerce and others did manage to salvage a small piece of what the offices do here. Mine worker health and safety programs will be transferred to the Department of Energy.
Perhaps 25 employees could stay in Spokane if Congress follows through with money for those programs, Brown said.
At the reception at Gonzaga, workers donned black veils, hats and costumes to mourn the passage of what they once considered permanent jobs.
“It’s funny to think that when I first came here in 1971 I took the job precisely because I thought it would be here forever,” Rosenkranz said.
“I just don’t know why the politicians couldn’t see the value of our work,” said Rod Minarik, whose 20 years in the mining business included two stints with the bureau. “I think our customers - the companies who relied on us for information - realized how valuable we were. But beyond that, I don’t think people did too much.”
Western Field Office Chief Richard Grabowski said the office will do everything it can to help out-placement as the bureau shuts down. The jobs paid well, averaging more than $35,000, he said.
Most workers would likely have to leave the area to stay in the mineral research industry or to be re-employed in the federal system, he said.
“It’s kind of funny in a way because there’s a lot of relief in the staff now,” Grabowski said. “They’re glad a decision is there, even though they’re not happy about the decision itself.”
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