An employee at Gateway Arch National Park told St. Louis Public Radio that the Trump administration, with its ongoing workforce reduction measures, is “terrorizing” the park’s federal employees.
The employee, who spoke to STLPR on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, is one of about 200 National Park Service workers on staff at the Arch.
The National Park Service owns and operates the Arch, the visitor center, the Old Courthouse and more than 90 acres of land beneath it all.
The employee told STLPR that several colleagues have been terminated in recent weeks. They declined to elaborate on a number but said the terminated workers were probationary employees, as defined by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
The terminated workers were told they were being let go due to performance issues, though some had not been there long enough to have received a formal employee review. The anonymous worker said some of those employees had uprooted their lives for what was supposed to be a promising career move. NPR reports about 1,000 federal park employees were laid off Feb. 14 nationwide.
The employee said those left are in fear of changing directives from Washington and additional job cuts that may not align with legal requirements for personnel reduction as outlined by the personnel office. Official word can change multiple times over the course of the day, they said.
Park Services employees at the Arch were among those confused by the weekend email from the Department of Government Efficiency asking them to justify their jobs and unsure of the implications of a response.
Ryan McClure is the executive director of the Gateway Arch Park Foundation, which works in conjunction with the National Park Service to enhance the park and its amenities.
Among other support initiatives, the foundation raises money to fund renovations and improvements like the 2018 visitor center redesign. He also serves as board chair for the National Park Friends Alliance, which is made up of groups like the Gateway Arch Park Foundation supporting parks around the country.
“We serve a very important purpose, but if you left it completely up to privatization, there is no guarantee that those places remain protected. It's in the National Park Service's mission to preserve and protect America's special places for the American people, they are in the ‘forever’ business,” McClure said. “[National Parks] are some of the most important public spaces in our country, and you need to have an organization that is running them, that is accountable to the American people.”
He said partner and supporting organizations around the country are worried the recent cuts to the park's workforce are making a preexisting problem worse.
“We are concerned at what we've already seen, and we are concerned for the unknown,” he said. “Now I'm all for efficiency—like, we run an organization here. No one wants waste, no one wants fraud, and we want our tax dollars to go as far as they can go. But that's not what I'm seeing here. There are ways to do that, and we would support those ways, but these policies are exacerbating an existing issue within the park service, which is short staffing.”
The Trump administration has gone back and forth over hiring freeze directives. The latest guidance, according to a memo obtained and reported on by NPR, allows for seasonal positions to be filled, but the employee told STLPR there’s still confusion over whether and how the park will be able to hire for them ahead of peak season, which starts in March with spring break travel.
Typically, up to 150 additional staffers are hired on at the Arch and the Old Courthouse for the spring and summer. Around 2 million people come to see the Arch each year.
McClure said workers are critical to keep visitors flowing during the busiest months.
“The folks in the green and gray at these national parks serve a very, very important purpose. They have made a career out of public service for a reason: because they love it,” he said. “They love these parks, they love these places and they love serving visitors. And these are real people, they're not just lines on a balance sheet. And without them, we have a real problem.”
The anonymous employee said visitor-facing operations are running as usual for now, including moving forward with the reopening of the updated Old Courthouse and museum on May 3. However, the employee and McClure both separately said hours and access may have to be reduced to make up for staffing shortages, as is already happening at other National Parks.
“We're going to do everything that we can to help as a philanthropic organization to support our park during this time, as we've always done,” he said. “But I think it's important that folks realize what it looks like is going to happen through these changes.”
The National Park Service office in Washington did not respond to requests for details on the number of and type of jobs eliminated or the status of the seasonal hires.
