The news about staffing at the National Park Service is mixed at the moment: The service plans to fire roughly 1,000 probationary employees who’ve been on the job for less than one year while also reinstating about 5,000 seasonal job offers that were rescinded last month due to President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze.
So what does this mean for national parks in Texas?
Cary Dupuy, the Texas regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said staffing levels have also been impacted by buyouts.
“We’re actually still learning the specific impacts at parks across the country,” she said. “[Among] the positions that are being impacted are maintenance staff – those people who take care of the trash, that take care of the wastewater systems – administrative staff, cultural resources rangers, the interpreters who are actually there teaching you about the park when you visit, and also going into schools and providing education in the schools as well.”
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Dupuy said visitors will feel these changes — not just in Bend Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks, but in other federally managed lands, including national recreation areas and national seashores across Texas.
“The parks were already critically understaffed,” she said. “With these cuts, the parks are going to have to make tough decisions, and going into a very busy season. Do we have reduced park hours? What does that look like to public safety? What does that look like for resource protection? So visitors could see longer lines and shorter times where they’re able to visit the visitor center.”
Dupuy said she is still gathering information from affected employees, but stories have started to come out in the news about people devastated to lose their dream jobs in the parks system.
“These decisions are being made from the Office of Personnel Management and not going through supervisors,” Dupuy said. “Really just reckless decisions that are being made that could have long-term impacts on the parks and the safety of the visitors.”
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Texas is also approaching its busy season for outdoor activity, Dupuy said.
“I think spring break will be very, very difficult for our parks. Spring break in Texas is a high season. It’s the longest continuous busy season that our parks have – much busier than this summer,” she said. “Because [parks] have less staff to protect their resources, [we expect to see] degradation in the resources.
“The beautiful, iconic and inspirational national parks that we all love, that are parts of many of our spring vacations, summer vacations, stories of our families. That will have a long-term impact. I also anticipate that the parks will be losing many, many years of experience. People who work in these parks know the stories deeply of these parks and are able to share that.”
