In February, the Trump administration fired approximately 1,000 National Park Service, or NPS, employees with support from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The layoffs aimed to downsize the federal workforce and cut government spending.
In an email to The Daily Iowan, Regional Spokesperson from the Midwest National Parks Meredith Mingledorff wrote, “The National Park Service is implementing President Donald J. Trump’s policies across the federal civilian workforce. The NPS is assessing our most critical staffing needs. However, it is NPS policy not to comment on personnel matters.”
Local reactions in Iowa City have been much less neutral.
Johnson County Conservation Director Brad Freidhof voiced his disapproval of the mass layoffs. Freidhof said the firings could complicate the implementation of the Johnson County trails program, which aimed to develop a network of multi-use trails that gave residents recreational opportunities across the county.
“My ultimate goal with the trails program is to connect the Amana Colonies and the National Park Service, but they have to be there, right?” he said. “There is probably a lot of [federal] funding that’s not being spent appropriately, but I think we’ve taken a knife where we needed tweezers.”
University of Iowa Political Science Professor Sara Mitchell shared a similar sentiment.
“It is very shortsighted since it is one of the agencies that make way more money than it costs to run,” she wrote in an email to the DI.
To UI associate professor Robert Peck, the hundreds of national parks and historic sites the NPS manages are important beyond measure. Peck regularly visits local sites such as Effigy Mounds and the Herbert Hoover Museum and out-of-state sites, like Texas’ National Wildlife Refuge.
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“I’m a wildlife person,” he said. “So, those kinds of sites in particular, but [sites] like the Presidential Museum are enormously significant as well. One of the things I really admire about the NPS is just the huge diversity of the kinds of sites that it takes, thinking about what is worth protecting, and how do we protect it?”
With only two NPS sites in Iowa, Peck believes Iowa may not be as harshly affected as other states. However, he believes their smaller sizes could make the cuts all the more drastic.
“I can’t imagine that the sites are going to operate as well as they were before. And it’s a real loss. It cuts me deeply,” he said. “Can these sites continue to function with their full capacity without their staff? And my guess would be that they probably can’t.”
Peck believes the federal cuts make conservation at the state and local levels more vital than ever before.
“In times like these, local and state governments and entities like the university continuing to be dedicated to that stuff is all the more important,” he said.
In the face of this roadblock, the NPS has adopted a temporary fix.
In an email to the DI, the NPS referred to a statement from an NPS spokesperson: “The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.”