OUTCOME: Capacity

Problem

Private workforce capacity is not sufficient to implement all the work now available through increased public and private investments in ecosystem health and climate resilience, much less the projected future workload. Without local businesses, workers, and crews, local communities struggle to act on the opportunities generated from state and federal forest management programs, and forest managers struggle to locate contractors who are able to perform restoration work.

Solution

Private Workforce Support - Support private and Tribal businesses to develop a strong stewardship economy to implement ecosystem and community resilience projects and activities.

Background and Context

The Watershed Research and Training Center 2020 Capacity Assessment study found significant lack of implementation resources and workforce capacity both statewide and in the region. For the North Coast region, 23 of 64 respondents, or 36%, reported the lack of an available workforce to perform work on the ground as one of their top three barriers. There is a real need for long-term career options in ecosystem health as part of building a climate-resilient stewardship economy. Because of the lack of local capacity, crews often come from outside the region to implement projects, often at the lowest possible cost. Although the region may always have some reliance on an outside workforce, especially following disasters or extreme events, there are multiple reasons to prioritize and expand the local workforce. Out-of-area workers impact local communities in a variety of ways, including reducing local employment opportunities for existing and potential workers who can’t compete with low wages often paid to temporary, transient workers. Although outside workers can support local hotels, restaurants, and other related businesses, they may impact the long-term stability of the local workforce by occupying jobs that could go to year-round residents, and support for other population-based community services like K-12 schools.

Several organizations in the region have been working for decades to develop a regional workforce. Many additional Tribes and CBOs are also building their own crews and need a reliable way to access available work. A specific barrier facing Tribal crews is racism and bias in both private and public agency culture, resulting in many private businesses and state and federal agencies not recruiting or retaining local Tribal members in their workforce. Native communities were the first fire managers, before firefighting became an industry. The Tribal workforce needs to be reintegrated into all aspects of the regional stewardship economy. Additionally, for-profit Tribal start-up businesses need strategic support to increase capacity and competitiveness.

Recommendations

The blue-sky goal of capacity building for the region’s private businesses and local workforce is to be able to deploy interdisciplinary contracting teams, especially in under-resourced communities, to do a wide range of climate resilience, wildfire resilience, and community health and safety projects. This type of work could include energy efficiency, drought resilience, home and landscape hardening, fuel management and shaded fuel break creation in the WUI, and other restoration work that improves the health of local watersheds. A well-trained local workforce able to do a variety of projects not only improves local capacity, but also provides the opportunity for local businesses to grow and thrive. A critical part of this equation is the provision of well-paying, career track jobs with benefits and advancement opportunities for local residents.

The establishment of a North Coast Qualified Contractor Pool would provide the opportunity to build an independent pool of qualified contractors who could implement high-priority projects, meet competitive bid requirements for federally funded projects, and help CBOs and others implementing projects to efficiently find experienced, qualified contractors who have a proven track record of doing quality work. Priority could be given to Qualified Contractors who are willing to apprentice local workers into their crews to facilitate training and capacity building for local crews, or other criteria to support sustainable, local economic vitality. Qualified Pool Contractors should also pay their employees a livable wage and provide them with safe working conditions, subcontract locally, and have DEJI (diversity, equity, justice, and inclusion) policies in place.

In addition to creating and supporting the Qualified Pool, support should be provided for local businesses that may lack the experience or proven track record to currently join the Pool (i.e., new businesses, businesses expanding into new fields or changing focus, etc.) and who may need assistance and capacity building in order to qualify. Training and assistance with business management, project cost estimating and bidding, staff recruitment, training, retention and management, prevailing wage compliance, succession planning, and other core business functions could help expand the pool of local qualified businesses and increase job opportunities for the local workforce.

Actions

  • Identify, invite, and review a list of best-value qualified contractors to provide services to regional partners.
  • Create a Qualified Pool Technical Committee–with members of NCRP Ad Hoc Committee and the RFFC consultant teams, including UCCE, forestry, Tribal representatives, and others–to oversee development of the RFQ and review contractor submissions.
  • Before drafting the RFQ, reach out to Tribal and NGO contractors to see how to make this process most effective for them.
  • Review materials from other areas with Qualified Pools and adapt relevant materials for local use.
  • Offer a registration roadshow to ensure smaller less technologically advanced contractors have access and assistance in navigating the process.

Support the meaningful integration of local Tribal workforce into the Qualified Pool, including actively recruiting regional Tribal businesses and the Tribal workforce and supporting business capacity programs specifically designed to enhance Tribal participation.

Work with local business and workforce development centers, economic development councils, and small business development centers to provide technical assistance and capacity building to local businesses that would like to join the Qualified Pool but currently lack qualifications to do so.

Provide support for restoration economy-related businesses modelled on the Sierra Forest Entrepreneurs Program and the Sierra Small Business Development Center.

  • Identify requirements and application process to participate.
  • Identify incentives for Qualified Contractors to take on apprentices.
  • Coordinate with Tribes and NGOs regarding best practices to add apprentices to their crews.
  • Explore other apprenticeship options (beyond the Qualified Pool), see Capacity: Workforce Development Solution.
  • Investigate if insurance is available for newly trained workers that could be subsidized to encourage new worker hiring.

Develop a list of fuel-hazard reduction, prevention, forest health, and ecosystem restoration treatments (i.e., chainsaw thinning, pruning, and ladder-fuel reduction, broadcast burning, pile burning, chipping, loading, hauling, etc.). Develop a database of completed projects and associated costs for various treatments to inform project cost estimating and rate sheets.

  • Support local CBOs, Tribes, and contractors in developing policies that support local hiring, such allowing for best-value contracting rather than requiring low-bid contracting.
  • Engage local cooperators such as Tribes, counties, FSCs, CBOs, and RCDs to facilitate agreements and contracts designed to support private and Tribal fuel treatment, prescribed fire, and ecosystem health opportunities.
  • Increase utilization of cooperative agreements and contracts to facilitate more efficient resource sharing, as described in California’s Strategic Plan for Expanding the Use of Beneficial Fire.

Engage with GO-Biz to provide resources for private and Tribal businesses seeking to engage in forest and fire restoration work. Establish pilot project to demonstrate proof of concept for scaling up treatments on specific landscapes.

Conduct a baseline study of current costs and capacity gaps associated with contracting in order to measure how a Qualified Contractor’s Pool and other plan actions contribute to local economies over time.

Create metrics to track success and measure community economic and capacity benefits over time.

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