
Already short-staffed, the National Park Service could find its ability to safeguard visitors impacted by further staff reductions/NPS file
Public safety in the National Park System could be jeopardized if a significant number of key National Park Service personnel decide to take the deferred resignation offer being dangled by the Trump administration as a way to reduce the federal workforce.
While search-and-rescue efforts could be compromised by a loss of qualified rangers, other areas that involve public safey involve everything from law enforcement to wastewater treatment plants.
Phil Francis, who spent four decades with the Park Service, including years as superintendent of both Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, said the latest moves by the Trump administration — including the deferred resignation offer and the withdrawal of seasonal job offers — are hammering down the morale of Park Service employees, who already have about the lowest morale among federal government agencies.
Beyond morale, Francis, who heads the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, said a significant move by employees to accept the resignation offer — if it's deemed legal — could lead to "fewer people to serve visitors and respond to incidents that may occur, vandalism could increase, facilities may not be able to open as normal."
Filling holes in the ranks of law enforcement (LE) rangers could be especially problematic, according to one former superintendent, who said "it’s become almost impossible to fill LE jobs, even before the change in administration."
"The central hiring process they instituted the last few years to get new LEs through [Federal Law Enforcement Training Center]" hasn't improved the process, he said. "FLETC has so few training slots for NPS that parks are being held up. It’s a fiasco. The old system was awful, too, but the solution did not fix the problem."
Many key jobs are out of public sight but have great impacts on public safety. Positions such as the plumbers, electricians, truck operators who collect garbage and plow roads, and elevator repair operators who keep the elevators at the Washington Monument, Wind Cave National Park, Gateway Arch National Park and other parks that move visitors by elevator.
"If [Commerical Drivers License] operators left in sufficient numbers, or plumbers or electricians, who will plow roads or repair utility systems?" the retiree asked. "That’s even more of an issue with certified water and/or wastewater systems operators."
Too, there are wildland firefighters on the NPS payroll, emergency medical staff, public safety dispatchers, and structural firefighters.
Staff at the Interior Department and National Park Service did not respond Thursday when asked whether public safety could be impacted by the deferred resignation offer. A lack of guidance could put Park Service employees in an untenable position.
"Unless the courts intervene quickly, employees will have to make these life-altering decisions before they know if the deferred resignation scheme is even legal," the retired superintendent said. "What if they take the offer it and later it’s determined to be illegal? The damage will have been done to the national parks, and good luck to those employees who were looking for full pay and benefits for not working."
At the National Parks Conservation Association, President and CEO Theresa Pierno said the Trump administration's flurry of executive orders directed at federal employees have left "[P]ark staff across the country ... rightfully afraid about their future and the future of our parks."
“When taken together, the cumulative impact of these actions and orders on our national parks and park staff could be devastating and long-lasting," said Pierno. "Our parks already have thousands fewer staff than they did a decade ago, and these actions risk further straining an already overwhelmed Park Service and impacting millions of visitors and local communities.
“In the near term, the hiring freeze means our national parks will struggle with insufficient staffing as parks across the country need to begin hiring critical seasonal staff for spring break and summer," she added. "Ranger-led programs, resource protection, maintenance, trash pickup and visitor needs could be compromised. In the long term, buyouts could lead to a devastating loss of expertise and experience. And when national parks struggle, gateway communities and economies feel the effects too."