Supporters of the National Park Service say the agency has lost nearly a quarter of its permanent staff across the nation since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The National Parks Conservation Association says it conducted an analysis of Park Service staffing and found a 24% loss in the agency’s permanent employees this year.
"Those are going to be folks who were terminated or laid off for various indiscriminate reasons. And it includes people who opted to take early retirement," said Cassidy Jones with the organization.
"So it’s all of these things that the administration has placed in front of National Park Service and other federal employees to reduce the federal workforce," she said.
Seasonal employees, who perform many of the base visitor services like search and rescue and interpretation, are reduced by nearly half this year. Normally, there’d be 8,000. Jones says now it’s 4,500.
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Traffic at Arizona’s largest food bank is starting to decrease after the government shutdown and a pause on food stamp benefits led to a surge in demand earlier this month. -
The metro Phoenix area has a shortage of housing, and a pretty good amount of empty office space. Now, there’s a new idea about how to turn one into the other. -
Congressional Democrats’ demand to extend marketplace health insurance subsidies set to expire Dec. 31 was at the center of the longest government shutdown in history. -
Union leaders for federal employees said they're glad the shutdown is over, but morale remains low. -
With the government shutdown ended, Gov. Katie Hobbs says most Arizonans who rely on food assistance already have their benefits restored.
