Hiring Freeze in National Parks May Curb 250th Events
Per the Washington Post, the new administration’s hiring freeze was explicitly not supposed to include “seasonal employees and short-term temporary employees necessary to meet traditionally recurring seasonal workloads.”
The Park Service has long depended on seasonals and interns, as everyone in the federal government knows. Every year the agency hires more people to cover the busiest months. Even so, its staffing level is pretty skeletal.
The Post story, filed by an environmental reporter, focuses on the big nature parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. But a hiring freeze will also affect the historic parks, which get less attention.
Here in Massachusetts, we have several Sestercentennial anniversaries coming up. Local governments and organizations are planning events for their communities and expecting large influxes of tourists. In most cases, those events involve or require fully staffed national parks.
The Salem Maritime National Historic Site will have an exhibit on “Leslie’s Retreat,” due to open on 15 February, to complement events around the city.
Minute Man National Historic Park offers a full slate of events about the Battle of Lexington and Concord, running from presentations on spies on 22 March through a Battle Road Anniversary Hike on 21 April—with the big military reenactment in between on 19 April, of course.
The weeklong series of events in Charlestown to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June will of course be centered around the Monument, under the care of the National Parks of Boston. Even before then, the parks are sharing events like this 27 February talk on how Boston harbor helped to shape that battle.
Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge is preparing to commemorate the anniversary of the arrival of Gen. George Washington in July.
Looking further ahead, we’re all eagerly awaiting the reopening of the Dorchester Heights Monument to people visiting that crucial site in the siege of Boston.
I don’t know how much each of those initiatives depends on seasonal hires. But I know some parks absolutely need augmented staffing to handle their ordinary schedules, much less special events for larger crowds in an anniversary year.
Nobody in Washington is saying how long this hiring freeze will last. Hopeful N.P.S. managers have told people who’d received offers for seasonal jobs only to see those yanked away that the positions might open up again. But of course those managers thought they’d finally gotten through the federal hiring process and found qualified and eager staffers, only to have to pull back. As of this evening, the only N.P.S. job openings at USAJobs.gov are in security, firefighting, and other public-safety departments.
2 comments:
"and other duties as required" being common in job descriptions, we could expect area parks to post scores of firefighter jobs. ;-). And in truth additional security will be needed for the big events
I can tell you that many a national park site is running at huge deficits already and has been doing so for years. Congress and the President give the parks the amount of money they feel they need to operate with. Inside that amount of funding, the park leadership has to make some very tough decisions. The park in question has been level-funded for many years, despite inflation. The first mission of the NPS is to preserve and protect sites of natural and cultural significance to the American people and pass them on to generation yet unborn. What is amazing is how much park staff have been able to accomplish anyway. If you want parks to be better funded, harangue your senators and representatives in Congress. Let them know loudly and often how you feel!
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