Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told lawmakers recently that just half of his employees at the National Park Service have boots on the ground in actual parks.
The comments, made during a congressional hearing about the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts for Burgum’s department, were part of the secretary’s defense of slashing NPS programs and staffing to cut costs.
“We just have to all agree that we can be more efficient and still deliver great services at places like our national parks,” Burgum told senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee when pressed on lawmakers’ concerns about understaffing at the park service. “We can have … better staffing in the parks, and we can have fewer people working in the National Park System.”
He added: “My best guess is that barely half of the people of that number actually work in a park. The rest are in some other jobs.”
