With the Trump administration culling potentially thousands of park rangers from the federal ranks, some within the National Park Service are bracing for a tough summer as crowds descend on understaffed park facilities.
The effects of the new order in Washington are already being felt across the nation’s parks with maintenance staffs cut to single digits, a major park reservation system to help slow congestion taken offline and warnings from congressional Democrats that thousands of seasonal workers need to be hired in short order. Those temporary staffers do everything from collect entry fees — a significant portion of park income — to guide tours and pump toilets.
The Trump administration has made sweeping efforts to cut the size of the U.S. government by cajoling for voluntary resignations, freezing new hires and threatening — or carrying out — widespread layoffs. Its “Fork in the Road” offer of deferred resignation that promised to pay employees until September if they commit to leave federal service gained roughly 75,000 participants, including 2,700 from the Interior Department. But that falls short of the White House’s goal of cutting 5 to 10 percent of the more than 2-million-strong federal workforce.
It was unclear Tuesday how many National Park Service employees took the “buyout” offer, but the administration has reportedly rescinded job offers for roughly 2,000 seasonal hires and perhaps fired almost as many recently hired staffers who were in their probation periods. An email viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News indicated there were around 1,900 probationary employees within NPS, although the exact number of people who were terminated is unclear.
