New Trump Layoffs Could Put Hundreds More National Park Service Employees on the Chopping Block

The Department of the Interior plans to lay off at least 272 additional National Park Service employees, according to a court filing published Monday.

The filing, from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, outlines the DOI’s plans, which include the proposed elimination of 2,050 positions within the agency across 89 units.

That includes more than 450 potentially affected employees from the Bureau of Land Management and nearly 150 staff from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

And the planned firings outlined in the order may just be the start, said Kati Schmidt, communications director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

The numbers come out of a court document filed in relation to the U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s decision to grant unions representing federal workers a temporary restraining order as part of their lawsuit aimed at halting the Trump administration’s move to lay off 4,000 federal employees during the ongoing government shutdown.

But Schmidt cautioned that the information provided in the court filing may not even represent all of the staff who are at risk — including those not represented by the unions involved.

“The overall number of planned staff reductions is likely much larger,” she warned.

Schmidt said that right now, since it’s unclear how many parks staff aren’t represented by the unions in this particular case — or how many unions representing park staff are as yet uninvolved — the exact number of additional workers who could be affected by these layoffs remains unknown.

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in January, the National Park Service has lost 24% of its permanent staff, according to estimates from the National Parks Conservation Association.

“This court filing confirms our worst fears,” NPCA President and CEO Theresa Pierno wrote in a statement on the group’s website. “No matter the size, any additional cuts to the Park Service will be devastating.”

In an email to KQED, a DOI spokesperson confirmed these plans for layoffs within the agency “predate” the shutdown.

NPCA’s Schmidt said the stalling of the shutdown-related layoffs due to the court order currently also prevents the DOI layoffs from being enacted until the shutdown ends — or a higher court steps in.

In late August, federal park workers at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks unionized under the National Federation of Federal Employees — one of the unions whose members the order protects.