How federal hiring freeze could get 'scary' for Great Smoky Mountains National Park
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Drive along the Foothills Parkway's Missing Link and see the fall colors in the Smokies
Drive along the Foothills Parkway's Missing Link and see how the fall colors look in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as of October 11, 2022.
Brianna Paciorka, Knoxville News Sentinel
Visitors looking forward to a trip to Great Smoky Mountains National Park this spring and summer could encounter unkempt trails, unclean bathrooms and fewer park rangers.
The National Park Service was forced to rescind more than 2,000 seasonal and permanent positions nationwide under the widespread federal government hiring freeze enacted by the Trump administration Jan. 20.
Park advocates are raising the alarm about what the cuts will mean for visitors.
'Seasonal park rangers serving the public, (employees) giving programs or maybe working on maintenance crews, or working with the resource management crews, working with people who control the wild hogs and so forth: all of those jobs could be postponed or maybe not ever filled,' Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, explained to Knox News on Feb. 3.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park relies on 200 permanent employees and 140 seasonal employees, according to park statistics from 2024. Additionally, more than 1,600 people volunteered their time for the park to help staff between Oct. 1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024.
Francis, who served as deputy superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 11 years and as superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway for eight, also noted that local businesses would feel the effects of the hiring freeze.
'When you combine the Smokies and the Blue Ridge Parkway and visitation to the (Cherokee) National Forest in our region, you're talking about billions and billions of dollars of economic benefits. These are economic engines, you know, they're serving the American public.'
National parks generated $55.6 billion in economic output in 2023, the park service reported.
What the federal hiring freeze means for Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The park service typically posts spring and summer job openings between October and February and hiring for those positions ramps up in January and February, former park service director Jon Jarvis said to Politico.
Search and rescue and other emergency response positions might be the only hiring that will continue during the pause, Francis said. But even that's not a guarantee.
'So, that would have an adverse effect on the visitor experience. It might make the park a little less safe and it could have an impact on park resources,' Francis said.
Understaffing heading into the spring and summer season could interfere with operations at Sugarlands and other visitor center; educational and safety programming; trail and facility maintenance; bear management; and other projects.
It's a 'scary time' for national parks facing uncertainty
National parks, including the Smokies, have seen record-breaking visitation in recent years. Visitation at national parks has increased 16% since 2010 even as staffing is down 20%, making it hard for parks to keep up with demand, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most-visited national park in the country. Just over 12 million people visited during 2024. And the park had a 42% increase in visitation from 2013 to 2023.
Added uncertainties because of the hiring freeze include whether parks can begin to hire again for the season and whether applicants who had job offers rescinded must restart the federal hiring process.
'It's a scary time,' a park ranger told Politico's E&E News. The person, who was granted anonymity because of fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, also said the first two weeks of the new administration have been 'brutal' for the park service.
Francis also is concerned about the federal budget. The government avoided a shutdown in December, but the resolution signed then by President Joe Biden only runs through March 14.
'It would be nice to know what the prognosis is for a continuing budget (to fund the park service) for the remainder of the year,' Francis said. 'Is it going to be the same, is it going to be more, is it going to be less? The quicker the better for those folks who are managing the parks, who are still active and need to plan for the remainder of the year.'
The executive order halting hiring of federal civilian employees says that within 90 days the U.S. Office of Management and Budget "shall submit a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government's workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition."
National parks faced a similar hiring freeze situation in 2017 at the start of Trump's first term. In that instance, however, seasonal and short-term temporary employees were deemed exempt a week after the executive order was signed.
'I think the difference (now compared to 2017 is) more positions have been lost due to lack of adequate budgets. And so, it just exacerbates an existing problem,' Francis noted.
Devarrick Turner is a trending news reporter. Email devarrick.turner@knoxnews.com. On X, formerly known as Twitter @dturner1208.
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