NEW TOWN, N.D. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today brought the head of the federal agency overseeing workforce issues to North Dakota to meet with top federal officials in the state and develop a strategy to further build and improve federal workforce retention and recruitment efforts in western North Dakota.

Heitkamp brought U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Katherine Archuleta to the state to speak with North Dakota-based officials from several federal agencies about the problems they face filling and retaining law enforcement and social work positions in Indian Country, jobs at federal oil and natural gas permitting offices, and positions in the natural resources and engineering fields. These needed jobs have become difficult to recruit for as more lucrative jobs in the Bakken, such as working at oil and natural gas companies and for service providers, have become available and housing costs have skyrocketed. Officials from several federal agencies, including the U.S. Bureaus of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), participated in the discussion.

Heitkamp also brought together Fort Berthold Community College (FBCC) President Twyla Baker-Demaray, FBCC students, and Archuleta later in the day to talk about the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, and how studying those fields could help students prepare for needed jobs in the federal workforce across the state.

“Energy development in the Bakken has resulted in enormous growth in the region, but the majority of it has been in the private sector,” said Heitkamp. “Federal workers in western North Dakota are leaving their jobs for a variety of reasons, most notably for better salaries so they can meet the skyrocketing housing costs in the region. We need to turn this trend around by better supporting federal civilian workers who enable growth to continue in North Dakota through needed law enforcement, permitting, and agriculture jobs. By raising federal workers’ salaries when needed, listening to the challenges they face, and preparing students for open jobs in these fields, we can build the federal workforce of the future. Today, Director Archuleta got to hear firsthand about many of the challenges facing our federal workers and I’m hopeful the Administration can make some needed adjustments that work for them.”

The meetings follow a panel discussion Heitkamp and Archuleta held earlier in the day at Minot Air Force Base on the retention and recruitment efforts of civilian employees.

At a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in May, Heitkamp pressed Archuleta on federal workforce efficiency and effectiveness and discussed ways to improve the outlook for federal workers. During the hearing, which Archuleta testified at, Heitkamp noted that the federal government has been slow to address the challenges with retention of federal workers. The slow response has led to workers leaving federal jobs in the state, and it has stymied energy development at some oil wells that have moved off public lands because federal agencies don’t have workers available to approve drilling permits quickly enough.

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