National parks to reinstate seasonal hiring after outcry, but firings still hit Colorado sites

The National Park Service will resume hiring seasonal workers after a freeze on hiring for the positions — which are crucial to operations during the upcoming busy season — prompted nationwide outcry.

The Department of the Interior this week sent a memo to park leaders stating that they could hire 7,700 seasonal employees for the year — up from the 6,300 positions hired in recent years, according to the Los Angeles Times, which obtained a copy of the memo.

The department, which oversees the park service, had not made any public announcement about seasonal hiring as of Friday afternoon. Other media outlets have reported on the likely reversal of the decision to rescind seasonal positions in recent days.

A worker at Great Sand Dunes National Park told The Denver Post on Friday that park officials had received verbal approval to hire seasonal positions for the summer. The worker spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for the safety of her job.

The National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment from The Post about the apparent change in seasonal hiring plans. A spokeswoman for Rocky Mountain National Park — Colorado’s busiest park — referred questions to national staff.

A freeze on all federal hiring implemented Jan. 20 by new President Donald Trump’s administration panicked parks advocates and staff, as The Post reported earlier this week. The freeze is part of an ongoing broad effort by the administration to slash the size of the federal workforce. It also has initiated mass firings across federal agencies, including public lands agencies like the park service and the U.S. Forest Service.

Seasonal workers are the backbone of the parks during their busiest months, advocates said. Their responsibilities are wide-ranging and include cleaning restrooms, providing visitor services, collecting entry fees and keeping visitors safe.

Advocates worried that parks would close visitor centers, trails and campgrounds if seasonal staff could not be hired.

In Colorado, the park service manages four national parks covering 713 square miles: Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Rocky Mountain and Mesa Verde. The service also manages three historic sites, five national monuments and a national recreation area.

The ability to hire seasonal positions is a relief to park employees at Great Sand Dunes but doesn’t cover the loss of two full-time, permanent rangers as part of the mass firings last week, said the worker who spoke with The Post. The Trump administration fired about 1,000 permanent National Park Service employees who were probationary, which means they were newly hired or newly promoted.

The two rangers made up half of the team that collected fees, the worker said, and the loss of the positions could impact the remaining staff’s ability to manage entrance lines and the campground and to collect the fees that support the park’s operation. The park employs about 30 full-time employees, who are tasked with managing more than a half million visitors every year over an expanse of 232 square miles.

“We don’t want people to have a miserable or unsafe time in the parks,” she said. “We’re also very worried about protecting the natural and cultural resources of the parks themselves.”

Officials at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, which is also managed by the park service, on Friday announced they would close the park two days a week due to a lack of staffing.

It was unclear from the monument’s announcement whether the closures on Mondays and Tuesdays were connected to the Trump administration’s staffing changes. A woman who answered the park’s phone referred a Post reporter to the park service’s national office.