Seasonal NPS Jobs on Hold

A rollback of the Bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act funds are being considered to pay for immigration enforcement activities. Some of those could impact NPS, as well as NOAA forecasting and potentially wildfire prevention efforts, which are lumped under resiliency projects. This is an excerpt from a much longer list.

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fossana said:
A rollback of the Bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act
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Bipartisan is not in the name of the act. Nor was the support for it:

“On August 7, 2022, following the vote-a-rama, an unlimited marathon voting session on amendments, that lasted nearly 16 hours, the Senate passed the bill (as amended) on a 51–50 vote, with all Democrats voting in favor, all Republicans voting against, and Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.

On August 12, 2022, the bill was passed by the House on a 220–207 vote, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans voting against it.

On August 16, 2022, the bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden.“

fossana said:
being considered to pay for immigration enforcement activities
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That’s not mentioned in your source at all, and wherever the money goes (assuming it’s not just ‘not spent’ in their efforts to cull trillions from the unrestrained annual spending spree we call government) seems irrelevant to the concern over NPS not getting it.

Glad the site isn’t turning political. I was worried some of the more #resist-y members might start turning every outdoor issue into an outlet for grinding on the new administration. Again.

It’s been fun. Best wishes to all.
 
I didn't share this article to point fingers at anyone. I just think it's awful to penalize the NPS when they are already so underfunded and understaffed.
And again, I was very fortunate to have their resources available when I needed them most. I had no idea that so many of the folks who rescued me were seasonal.
 
I did hear from a few people that I work with as a volunteer. Their seasonal wilderness rangers are not getting hired this year, and they lost their only intern. That leaves one wilderness ranger for the entire forest.

Meanwhile, all funds have been frozen, so the contracts to clear and burn high fuel areas of the forest are all cancelled. No pire prevention this year.

And the snowpack is lower than usual. We've had a lot of precipitation in Northern California, but it's been warmer and wetter than usual, so the snowpack isn't as thick as usual. That means an early snowmelt, and a long fire season.
 
zionsky said:
I didn't share this article to point fingers at anyone. I just think it's awful to penalize the NPS when they are already so underfunded and understaffed.
And again, I was very fortunate to have their resources available when I needed them most. I had no idea that so many of the folks who rescued me were seasonal.












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Exactly! The NPS already struggles with funding and staffing, so cutting resources further just makes things worse. It’s incredible how much they do, especially with so many seasonal workers.
 
balzaccom said:
I did hear from a few people that I work with as a volunteer. Their seasonal wilderness rangers are not getting hired this year, and they lost their only intern. That leaves one wilderness ranger for the entire forest.

Meanwhile, all funds have been frozen, so the contracts to clear and burn high fuel areas of the forest are all cancelled. No pire prevention this year.

And the snowpack is lower than usual. We've had a lot of precipitation in Northern California, but it's been warmer and wetter than usual, so the snowpack isn't as thick as usual. That means an early snowmelt, and a long fire season.
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I may be able to add some additional clarity as there are several separate and distinct actions happening that will affect NPS and USFS recreation crews.

USFS has acted on two separate decisions, made at different times:

1. September 2024. The Chief of the USFS issues the directive that for summer season 2025, NO TEMPORARY EMPLOYEES will be hired. This is in response to an Agency shortfall of more than $85 million. Many reasons they so grossly overspent. Very difficult to accept such fiscal irresponsibility.

2. February 2025. DOGE Fires 3400 USFS PROBATIONARY EMPLOYEES from the USFS permament staff. Most of these employees are field level staff in Recreation on trail crews, wilderness rangering, campground maintenance, etc. A significant number also do timber, silviculture, and biological surveys. The key point is that even though this group of workers was probationary, they likely had multiple seasons of experience from prior seasons as Temporary Employees. The USFS held a key hiring event in 2024 that was to bring some life and job security to these highly skilled, experienced and knowledgeable Temporary Employees. This hiring event brought 3400 of those high performing temp employees into the permanent workforce (health care, 401K, job security, upward mobility) nationwide. Due to the oft seasonal nature of the work they became what is called "Permanent Seasonal" Employees. A portion of the calendar year they are placed in non-pay status (sometimes called lay off) with no discontinuity of their benefits (they do have to continue to pay their portion on health care and are obviously not contributing to their 401K during that time).

NPS implements this decision:

3. January 2025. DOGE/Trump Administration mandates a hiring freeze on all Federal positions. This I know less about the details of. NPS leadership announces they are not going to hire and/or rehire their traditional summer TEMPORARY EMPLOYEE workforce. This essentially is all field based crews in multiple occupations, as a response to the Hiring Freeze. It is my understanding that this may have been reversed/rescinded either completely or for targeted positions.

A note: the workforce known by most of the public as seasonals is officially hired as temporary employees. Those are synonymus terms in the eye of the public but the agencies have that specific termonology. Permanent Seasonals are those employees that work seasonal field seasons and spend the remaining time in non-pay status. They have the same benefit structure as Permanent Full Time employees

Hopefully that helps folks understand the employees involved in the firings/layoffs/freeze. The upshot is that most of the entire field crew workforce doing so many tasks in Federal Parks, Monuments and Forests will be missing for the forseable future. At the least that includes all of the 2025 summer field season.
 
I don't understand the campground issue. I thought most of the CA ones were concessionaire managed.
 
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I don't think so. But bear i mind that the DOGE cuts also prohibit signing any new government contracts, even if they have been pre-approved. Combine that with a $! limit of employee credit card purchases, and you can see how things have come to a screeching halt.
 
Best to wait till things shake out cutting waste... Then good programs will be rebooted.
 
When I was witht he USFS i was a condintional employee for 2 years, heard pretty much the same those years. Was there thru 2 RIFs. .... People cried but progarms went on. There has always been waste in there. Someone is finally trying to weed that out.

Popular spots are to stay away from anyway, a lot of people trash everything .......
 
Bob said:
When I was witht he USFS i was a condintional employee for 2 years, heard pretty much the same those years. Was there thru 2 RIFs. .... People cried but progarms went on. There has always been waste in there. Someone is finally trying to weed that out.

Popular spots are to stay away from anyway, a lot of people trash everything .......
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I'll take your word for it - you know those departments better than me. I don't like the Silicon Valley vibes I'm seeing at all - talk about reckless mismanagement. Time will tell and I'll keep doing my thing as best I can.

If they can't protect popular sites, I hope they just shut down access until they figure it out though. I'd prefer short-term access loss to long-term destruction.
 
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I was hoping funds get directed/redirected to updating park facilities. Cut bureaucracy but put the money into basic infrastructure. Wouldn't mind added backcountry rangers to pass out tickets to violators. I'm still annoyed by the bonfire I saw right next to Lonesome L and the N. Fk Trail in the Winds.

USFS is peanuts compared to the big budget items anyway. Just ~1% of discretionary spending.
 
Mt Rabbit ....Lol.... Some popular areas need to shut down..... For a rest of the area..... My opinion.....

Oldbill... Unfortunately resource management has always been on the back burner with ALL administrations since I've been around ... Unless it's with the endangered species mess.
 
If you want to get involved more directly, now that the weather is getting better, it's time to get back to work on the trails. I spent Saturday working on the Soscol Headwaters trail system--fourteen miles of new trails in a wonderful area in the hills above southern Napa. Terrific views, great people, and a nice sense of accomplishment. And a big project to manage with a very small budget. Volunteers are making this whole thing possible.

We repaired some of the damage done by recent storms and marauding cattle, grading the trail for better drainage, installing a couple of stone drains, and generally making the trail more secure against future problems. We're keeping an eye on the big storm forecast for next week, but we think we've resolved most of the cattle issue. And once these trails get a chance to settle in a bit, they should be good to go for the summer, and many summers beyond.

Here's a link to some photos of the crew at work, including a few beauty shots of what the views and terrain up there are like. Wonderful spot.

photos.app.goo.gl

2025 Trail Crew Photos

12 new items added to shared album
photos.app.goo.gl photos.app.goo.gl
 
From a personal perspective …

My DIL works for the National Park Service in Fairbanks, Alaska, as the Lead Park Ranger in the Alaska Public Lands Information Center. Well, now she’s the sole employee of the APLIC as her two other employees were terminated per the purge of probationary employees. And the GSA has notified the Cultural Center where the APLIC is located that the lease will be terminated at the end of this year. Not sure what’s going to happen next but there has been a pretty significant backlash from the Fairbanks community about this as well as much of the other bs flowing down from DOGE. To top this off it appears that the termination of the lease is a violation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act which states that the APLIC must be located in a visitor center (the Act also created the APLIC) and there are no other visitor centers in the Fairbanks area. The closest Center would be in Denali, 140 miles away, and it’s not large enough to house anything near what the current APLIC has in Fairbanks. The Fairbanks APLIC serves about 25,000 visitors each year.
 
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