A reduction in force coming to the National Park Service reportedly will be "deep and blunt."

A reduction-in-force coming to the National Park Service within the next two weeks has been described internally as being "deep and blunt," according to a social media post Thursday. 

Additionally, the cuts will be "aggressive and swift," said the post on the r/fednews channel of Reddit that is closely followed by federal employees.

An email to Park Service headquarters in Washington (WASO) regarding that report was not immediately answered, though the agency typically does not comment on personnel matters. 

According to the post, which was deleted within a half hour of being posted Thursday morning, the focus of the RIF will be in the Park Service's Washington headquarters and regional offices. Also near the top for dismissals are the Park Service's Cultural Resources staff and its Natural Resource Stewardship and Science arm (NRSS), the post noted. 

Many of the agency functions said to be targeted are in the Park Service's Fort Collins, Colorado, office, which essentially is an extension of the Washington headquarters operation. 

"NRSS and its Cultural Resources counterpart in WASO are where the Service’s scientific and scholarly experts are concentrated; most park units are too small to have more than one or two resource 'specialists' who, despite their job titles, must cover the gamut of natural and/or cultural resources and issues their parks face," said Bob Krumenaker, a retired Park Service veteran of four decades whose many roles with the agency included serving as chief of natural resources for two regional offices. "Most of the natural resource group are in Fort Collins, from where they serve the whole NPS system.

"Paleontologists, air quality scientists, veterinarians and brucellosis experts, groundwater hydrologists, volcanic hazard geologists, etc., are available to parks when they need that kind of specialized expertise," added Krumenaker. "This is where the databases are maintained that track resource inventories and conditions. On the cultural side, WASO (and to a greater extent than in natural resources) the regional offices maintain curatorial experts, cultural landscape architects, agency historians, restoration experts, historical architects, and the like. If these programs are decimated, all but the largest parks will be on their own for expertise in their attempts to achieve the fundamental purpose in the NPS Organic Act — to conserve the natural and cultural resources of the parks unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

One who replied online to the Reddit post wrote that, "[M]y heart cries for the (Park Service's) Fort Collins (Colorado) office. They were the first to collate and study the air-quality whiffing of coal plants as well as the Utah, Montana, Nevada water adjudications as well as Colorado’s rolling adjudications."

Targeted employees will reportedly have their last day of work on the day they receive notice of being let go.

The Department of Government Efficiency set up by businessman Elon Musk at President Donald Trump's order "received a waiver that lets them skip the usual 60-day notice, so affected employees may get very little warning. The day someone is told they’re being RIF'ed will also be their last official workday. After that, they will be placed on administrative leave for 30 days, then separated from service," the post pointed out.

The post — which attributed the information to Rita Moss, the Park Service's associate director for Workforce and Inclusion; some associate directors; supertinendent; and union officials — added that, "[B]y direction of DOGE/DOI, all hiring and personnel actions have stopped, and most contracts have already been canceled this week."

"This RIF affects the entire Department of the Interior (DOI), not just one office or team, so be prepared for some chaotic couple of weeks," the author of the post wrote in closing.

Just last week all Interior employees were asked to update and submit their resumes to the Interior Department, which oversees roughly 70,000 workers across the Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Indian Education, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

What remains to be seen is how the upcoming RIF affects the Park Service's ability to ensure that the National Park System "is properly staffed to support the operating hours and needs of each park unit," an order Interior Secretary Doug Burgum gave the agency a month ago.

Trump since taking office in January has worked with Musk to downsize the federal goverment. At first the Park Service was forced to rescind offers for seasonal positions; on Valentine's Day some 1,000 NPS employees who were on probationary status were fired; while at the same time the administration encouraged federal employees to take the "fork in the road" offer that would allow them to resign but remain on the payroll through the end of the fiscal year in September. A Voluntary Early Retirement offer was later added to the mix.

While the seasonal job offers were later extended and a federal judge ordered the probationary employees to be reinstated, a sizeable percentage of the Park Service workforce already has left the agency since Trump took office. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, which has been tracking the dismissals, nearly 13 percent of the Park Service workforce has been eliminated this year so far. In past years, the workforce has approached 20,000 employees when seasonal workers were included.

Additionally, Burgum has ordered a massive consolidation of operations across all the bureaus under his oversight, such as information technology, human resources, finance, and communications, rather than have those roles filled within each bureau.