Federal cuts roundup: The impact on South Dakota

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Sioux Falls, SD (South Dakota News Watch)

After DOGE job cuts and an ongoing staffing shortage, former National Park Service employee Sydney Hansen isn't sure whether anyone will be available to lead popular cave tours at Jewel Cave National Monument in the Black Hills moving forward.

Or, for that matter, if anyone will be on the job to pull weeds at the park.

Hansen, 24, was hired as a physical science technician at Jewel Cave in June and was using her master's degree in geology to do research on caves, rocks and soil at the national monument site. She also "wore many hats" at the park, leading discussions to educate the public, working to protect habitat of endangered species and managing invasive species at the park, which included removing weeds from the property.

On Feb. 14, Hansen was in the final stages of training to lead cave tours in preparation of the upcoming summer tourist season. Jewel Cave and Wind Cave national parks are both low on staff to take visitors on the tours, she said.

After emerging from a cave, she received a text message to report to the park office, where she found an email saying she had been terminated from her position.

"My heart just dropped," she recalled in an interview with News Watch. "We were told we were safe if we had a good employee evaluation, so I felt pretty good."

According to recent reports, the park service has eliminated 1,000 jobs and accepted 700 early retirement offers from employees as part of the DOGE employment crackdown. The effects of the cuts are being felt around the country, as visitor centers closed at sites in Arizona, some parks restricted open hours and patron wait times have increased.

Hansen worries for the many park service employees who lost their jobs, but also about what the cuts will mean for the parks and the public. A hiring freeze in the park service won't help fill any gaps, she said.

"It's only going to get worse, and I can't even imagine how some of these busy parks are going to operate this summer," she said. "They're going to be hurting."

The most hurtful part of losing her job was the reason the termination letter cited: "The Department determined that you have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment."

In an October job performance review Hansen provided to News Watch, she received an overall rating of "exceeds expectations" and was complimented repeatedly by her supervisor.

Hansen is uncertain about her future and might seek a job as a substitute teacher to make ends meet. When hired at Jewel Cave, she bought a house in nearby Newcastle, Wyoming, and only has enough money to pay bills for about two months.

"I'm still definitely upset about it and unsure where I'm going to go next because there's not a lot of jobs in the geology field," she said.

Obtaining details about job cuts within the NPS has been difficult. The state is home to several parks and monuments, including Jewel Caves, Wind Cave, Badlands and Mount Rushmore.

An official at Badlands National Park directed inquiries to a spokeswoman from the NPS Midwest regional office, which oversees South Dakota facilities. The spokeswoman did not return a call from News Watch seeking information or comment.

The employee cuts in NPS drew the attention and ire of a group of 22 Democratic U.S. senators who wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Feb. 7, urging him to undo cuts to staffing at national parks and monuments.

The letter asked Burgum to rescind deferred resignations, early retirement officers and the revocation of offers to seasonal employees within the NPS.

Beyond those position cuts, NPS had rescinded employment offers to about 6,000 seasonal employees who help manage the surge in visitors to parks and monuments in the summer, though the Trump administration said it has since reversed the seasonal worker cuts.

But if the seasonal workers are not hired as promised, the senators warned that, "visitor centers may close, bathrooms will be filthy, campgrounds may close, guided tours will be cut back or altogether cancelled, emergency response times will drop, and visitor services like safety advice, trail recommendations and interpretation will be unavailable."

The senators noted that in the 2010s, the NPS cut its staffing by 15% at a time when park visitation rose by 15%. The culmination of probationary position cuts, early retirements and threats to eliminate seasonal staffing could put parks and monuments in "chaos."

A Department of Interior report said that in 2023, the national park system attracted 325.5 million visitors and generated $55.6 billion in economic impact. Parks also supported 415,400 local jobs and generated $26.4 billion in revenue for communities surrounding the parks.

This story is provided as a service of the Institute for Nonprofit News’ On the Ground news wire. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) is a network of more than 475 independent, nonprofit newsrooms serving communities throughout the US, Canada, and globally. On the Ground is a service of INN, which aggregates the best of its members’ elections and political content, and provides it free for republication. Read more about INN here: https://inn.org/.

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