DOI Prepares To Fire 1,500 Further National Park Staff

Reduction in force would take total park service losses to 25 percent of full-time workforce

According to internal communications leaked to me, DOGE is preparing a “reduction in force” for the National Park Service that would remove a further 1,500 full-time members of that agency’s workforce. That would take total workforce losses to approximately 5,000, or one-quarter of all NPS staff. The cuts could begin as soon as tomorrow.

“Internal communications confirm these cuts will target regional and national offices and programs which provide critical support to parks,” states Resistance Rangers, a group of NPS employees working against the administration’s attempts to destroy the park service. “In a bid to make these cuts less visible to the public—while hamstringing the agency behind the scenes—firings may focus on regional and national programs, instead of park-based staff.”

Backing up a bit, NPS—with an annual cost to taxpayers of $3 billion—accounts for only 0.044 percent of the $6.8 trillion federal budget. That spend then provides $55.6 billion in annual economic activity, while supporting 415,000 jobs.

But, because the only major piece of legislation that this dysfunctional Congress will be able to pass into law this term is a budget reconciliation package—in which any addition to the deficit must be offset by equivalent savings, through faulty math—it’s being targeted for cuts as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to deliver $5 trillion in tax relief to billionaires.

In order to help achieve those tax cuts for billionaires, 1,000 NPS staff were fired on February 14th. And, since that time, a further 2,500 have accepted voluntary buy outs or early retirements. Before Trump entered office, NPS had 20,000 full-time employees, already 20 percent lower than staffing levels from 2010.

Unlike a lot of work at federal agencies, national parks are highly visible, and serve as symbols of national pride. Impacts to the visitor experience, attraction closures, and general bad news around NPS may serve to embarrass the administration more than news of, say, reductions to Internal Revenue Service staffing. So, on April 3, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum issued an order declaring that any closures in national parks must be approved by him, or a designated representative only.

That was before an April 17 order, in which Burgum ceded all secretarial authority to a political operative from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency. It appears as if DOGE is now calling the shots at NPS, and other agencies managed by DOI.

That brings us to today.

“Regional and national NPS offices provide essential scientific, cultural, administrative, and technical support and leadership across 433 disparate park sites across the country,” explains Resistance Rangers. “Many small parks have fewer than 15 employees and rely on these offices for specialized support.”

Resistance Rangers has identified over 80 programs and offices that may be impacted by these cuts. You can view a complete list of those at this link. Highlights include:

• “The Volunteer Program supports the work of over 138,000 volunteers in parks nationwide, who donate millions of dollars worth of labor every year. They perform search and rescues, trail maintenance, wildlife surveys, ecological restoration, and more.

• The National Register of Historic Places lists special places worthy of preservation as mandated by federal law—sites that are located in nearly every county in the nation.

• The Office of Partnerships and Philanthropy facilitates local and national partnerships that contribute billions to parks annually, saving taxpayer dollars and enhancing the NPS’s ability to carry out its mission.

• The Historic Preservation Training Center teaches the skills needed to preserve irreplaceable historic structures, from Revolutionary War forts to pre-contact Tribal sites.

• The Inventory and Monitoring Program tracks long-term health of park ecosystems, providing the data and knowledge for park managers to make science-based decisions.

Additionally, an internal memo shared with me by an NPS employee (above) states that employees at NPS headquarters in Washington D.C. and at regional offices may be targeted. An employee explained to me that those administrative positions are thought to be less visible than actual visitor-facing roles in parks themselves.

That memo also states that the Natural Resources Stewardship and Science Directorate (which provides science in support of park operations) and Cultural Resources department (which assists “regional park units in identifying, evaluating, preserving, protecting, and managing their varied cultural resources”) ‘will look very very different,’ after this RIF.

Cuts at NPS will likely come in addition to wider RIFs across DOI, which manages 11 total agencies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I’ve previously estimated that staffing cuts of this nature could cost the tax payers tens of billions of dollars every year in damages to infrastructure and ecosystems alone, along with billions more in annual lost activity for the economy.

Jon Jarvis, who served as Director of NPS under President Obama, told me, “Something has to give: either the resource or the visitor safety.”

Top photo: NPS

Wes Siler is your guide to leading a more exciting life outdoors. Upgrading to a paid subscription supports independent journalism and gives you personal access to his expertise and network, which he’ll use to help you plan trips, purchase gear, and solve problems. You can read more about what he’s doing on Substack through this link.