What impact on national parks and their visitors will a reduction-in-force for the National Park Service create?/NPS file

Directions from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management on how federal agencies should craft their reduction-in-force (RIF) plans raise questions of how the National Park Service will go about cutting its ranks.

The document (attached below) claims that the federal government is "costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens."

To rectify that, he continued, "agencies should focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated while driving the highest-quality, most efficient delivery of their statutorily-required functions."

Agencies should also seek to consolidate areas of the agency organization chart that are duplicative; consolidate management layers where unnecessary layers exist; seek reductions in components and positions that are non-critical; implement technological solutions that automate routine tasks while enabling staff to focus on higher-value activities; close and/or consolidate regional field offices to the extent consistent with efficient service delivery; and maximally reduce the use of outside consultants and contractors. When taking these actions, agencies should align closures and/or relocation of bureaus and offices with agency return-to-office actions to avoid multiple relocation benefit costs for individual employees

At the National Parks Conservation Association, John Garder said it could be a futile effort for the Park Service.

"It would be helpful if the people initiating the process laid out in the memo came to understand that there is no fat to cut in the Park Service, an agency that has been initiating efficiencies for years, which one is bound to do when their budget is so squeezed and when parks are so understaffed to begin with," said Garder, NPCA's senior director for budget and appropriations. "The Park Service has dozens of statutory obligations, foremost among them the [National Park Service] Organic Act that obligates park staff to protect irreplaceable resources and ensure the benefit and enjoyment of the American people, so every Park Service employee is mission-critical. Any heavy-handed effort to reduce the Park Service workforce beyond the deep damage that has been already done is the polar opposite of strategic and efficient."

A former Park Service superintendent wondered how much input his former colleagues across the National Park System will have as the agency and Interior Department above it work to finalize its RIF plans.

"Parks may not get any input into the decisions; no one knows who at 'the agency' will be developing the plans or making the decisions. There are no Senate-confirmed assistant secretaries or bureau directors," the retired superintendent said. "If NPS does have input, it’ll be critical to link positions to legislative mandates (as stated in the memo). Tie functions to the Organic Act and park-specific legislation. But will those who make the decisions pay attention to their own directives?

"The wildlife biologist could be safe but woe to the budget clerk or timekeeper who work behind the scenes to keep everyone else functioning."