The National Park Service will exempt some workers from President Donald Trump’s freeze on the hiring of civilian employees across the federal government, according to two people familiar with the matter and an email obtained by The Washington Post.
The exemption will apply to seasonal employees with law enforcement positions, including law enforcement rangers and public safety dispatchers, according to the email and the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public.
The move comes after congressional Democrats warned that national parks could be short-staffed during the summer season, when more than 100 million Americans and international tourists typically visit. Conservation groups also raised concerns that a shortage of law enforcement workers could prevent park visitors from receiving lifesaving medical evacuations and care.
“While public safety positions do fall under an exemption from the hiring freeze, the National Park Service still had to request an exemption and obtain approval to move forward in the hiring process,” said a Tuesday email to someone whose job offer for a seasonal public safety dispatcher was rescinded last month. “Your position was approved to continue on with the hiring process on Friday.”
It is unclear whether the exemption will eventually be broadened to include all seasonal employees. Spokespeople for the Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The exemption is narrower than congressional Democrats had recommended. In a letter Friday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, 22 Senate Democrats had urged the Park Service to exempt all seasonal workers - and to rescind buyout offers that allow federal workers to resign with the promise of pay through September.
“Without seasonal staff during this peak season, visitor centers may close, bathrooms will be filthy, campgrounds may close, guided tours will be cut back or altogether cancelled, emergency response times will drop, and visitor services like safety advice, trail recommendations, and interpretation will be unavailable,” the letter said.
Still, hiring more law enforcement workers could help save lives, former Park Service officials said. An average of 358 people died in national parks per year from 2014 to 2019, according to Park Service data. The leading causes were motor vehicle crashes, drownings and falls.
“There was probably not a year that went by where someone was not, at a minimum, burned badly,” Dan Wenk, who served as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park from 2011 to 2019, said in an interview.
“Most years, people would lose their lives by falling into thermal pools,” Wenk added. “Unfortunately, even with quote-unquote full staffing, those things happen. If you cut that staffing dramatically, that would be exacerbated in terms of the number of injuries and deaths that would happen throughout the national parks.”
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order that instituted a sweeping freeze on federal hiring, with exceptions for military personnel and jobs “related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety.” A subsequent White House memorandum said the freeze should not apply to “seasonal employees and short-term temporary employees necessary to meet traditionally recurring seasonal workloads.”
Despite this guidance, the Park Service last month rescinded roughly 400 job offers for seasonal positions at parks across the country, The Post previously reported. It is unclear how many of those positions were in law enforcement.
“Your job offer has been rescinded at management request,” said an email last month to the person with the public safety dispatcher offer. “Should the bureau be able to fill the position again, another announcement will be posted in due course.”
Days after Trump’s executive order on the hiring freeze, the Department of Veterans Affairs also announced exemptions for “essential positions that provide health care and other vital services to Veterans and VA beneficiaries.”