C IL | Yeah, you can lead a horse to water ... Again, I think some districts with adequate local and/or private funds are doing okay, the money USDA was kicking in to pay a GS-12 director of each RC&D went away which probably killed some districts. Pretty sure existing directors had rights to keep being GS-12's with NRCS, which was a riot for everyone else, as many of the RC&D guys no longer had relevant technical skills, nor any expertise within the programs, and kind of hard to send a 50-year manager-type old out into a field office to learn how to be a soil con with the other 25 year-olds. Kind of a bad deal all around, but change isn't easy. I'm sure some nice people really felt like their worlds were upended at that time. |