President Trump on Monday put a freeze on federal government hiring, an action that could have wide-ranging impacts for the National Park Service as it moves to hire thousands of seasonal rangers and other employees for the upcoming summer.
Beyond seasonal positions, there are many vacancies involving permanent positions that parks are trying to fill. Then, too, there are personnel who have been offered permanent jobs but haven't begun working and are wondering how the hiring freeze will impact them.
At the National Parks Conservation Association, President and CEO Theresa Pierno said the hiring freeze would adversely affect the National Park System.
“Protecting our national parks requires the dedicated efforts of tens of thousands of rangers and other Park Service employees every day, but much of their staffs are edging closer to retirement. Parks already have 10 percent fewer rangers and other staff compared to a few years ago," said Theresa Pierno in a prepared statement. "They cannot continue to be hampered by low staffing, and that’s exactly what will happen with this hiring freeze.
"Park rangers are already forced to do more with less because they don’t have enough staff to handle record-breaking crowds. If Congress and the administration don’t work together to better staff our parks, this will only make it harder for those remaining park staff to care for and manage America’s favorite places.”
Traveler has reached out to Park Service officials for their interpretation of the scope of the hiring freeze and will update the story when possible.
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Below is Forbes' 2014 list of the richest counties in America:
Falls Church City, Va.
Loudoun County, Va.
Los Alamos County, N.M.
Howard County, Md.
Fairfax County, Va.
Hunterdon County, N.J.
Arlington County, Va.
Douglas County, Colo.
Stafford County, Va.
Somerset County, N.J.
Hunger Games redux
News this morning that the DJT administration has put a gag order on the Environmental Protection Agency.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/4858011-155/trump-admin-orders-epa-media-blac...
I hope you understand that the majority of federal programs are incredibly popular. People just hate the idea of a government because it makes them feel like children. However, it works. Just so you know, Reagan cut this type of federal spending to record lows which inflicted irreversable damage yet the national debt over his 8 years trippled (more debt pilled on compared to the 27 years before he took office).
Yes Rouge, the programs are popular. Who doesn't like a freebee. But as popular as they may be, they are unsustainable. Reagan's term may have seen a increase equivalent to the prior 27 years, Obama's saw an increase equivalent to the prior 200 years, including the eight of Reagan's. Further, spending was not cut during Reagan's years. In fact it nearly doubled from $672 billion to $1.143 trillion driven by a Democrat controlled house. Please tell me how a near doubling in spending over 8 years "inflicted irreversable damage". The irreversable damage was the increase in spending, not any cuts.
i thought he was all about jobs! Liars dont know the truth or how their actions will impact society!
On the whole past hiring freezes (Carter and Reagan) were dismal failures. They did not lead to dramatic decreases in Federal employees nor did they save a damn dime in the long run. They do, of course, make good political optics.
The effectiveness (if any) of the hiring freeze will come from OPM once they determne just what the language means - if it is a hard freeze based simply on a point in time (e.g. any position that was vacant as of Jan 20th) it will fail. This is a terrible way to undertake position management in any kind of a logical way and it leads to swiss-cheese organization chart. If I have a position that earns $40,000 a year that is vacant but I can only fill that hoe and get those duties performed is to have someone that makes $75,000 a year perform those duties it makes no sense at all - I'm paying too much on the one hand and likely neglecting higher-level duties on the other hand.
If we must have a hiring freeze it would be far better to give the agencies a ceiling on the total number of FTE and total dollars expended on payroll and allow theme the latitude to manage accordingly withing that ceiling.
Yes and maybe no. Yes they did not obtain their near term intent of reducing the # of federal employees. If you read the GAO report on those freezes, however, you will learn it was because the OMB basically ignored the freezes. They were failures not because they couldn't work but because those responsible, didn't try to make them work. Also, we have no real measure of the longer term impact. Did the freezes send a message that led to lesser spending (relative not absolute) than might have otherwise been? No real way to know one way or the other but very much a possibility.
That all said, I like your idea of dollar rather than # caps. It may be that due to the anti-impoundment act that wasn't an option in the near term but could be in the next budget cycle.
Pay to play......I love the national parks! I would pay fees in ALL the parks to see. If our parks became self-sufficent then this would be a moot point.