‘Like a gut punch’: Park Ranger at Badlands laid off

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – The country’s largest employer, the federal government, has laid off tens of thousands of employees since February 14th. It’s all a part of the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline government efficiency.

In South Dakota, there are over 10 thousand federal employees, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. It’s unclear how many have been affected by the layoffs, but there have been cuts.

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Lydia Jones at Badlands National Park. Photo courtesy of Lydia Jones

Lydia Jones is originally from Texas, but she fell in love with South Dakota after moving here in 2021 to work at Badlands National Park.

“I had moved to this area with my partner, specifically for this job,” Jones said. “This is what I was planning on doing maybe for the rest of my career. It’s something that I really felt strongly about and really cared about and really enjoyed.”

However, that plan was met with uncertainty on February 14th when she become one of the thousands of federal employees laid off from their jobs.

“I received a call from my supervisor late in the afternoon, around 4 or 4:30 p.m. and he just said, you know, ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve been told that I have to call you and tell you that you’re being terminated effective immediately. You have to immediately come in and turn in all of your badges and everything,'” Jones said. “It was just like a gut punch. I did not see it coming, you know, I had nothing but exemplary performance my entire time in the Park Service. I was being told that I was being terminated simply because I was a probationary employee.”

On February 13, the Trump Administration ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees or those who have been on the job for less than a year.

“It didn’t mean that I was new. I had been working in the Park Service since 2021,” Jones said. “It simply meant that I had been in my current position, the position that I had gotten my permanent status in, for less than a year.”

Lydia Jones working as a Park Ranger. Photo courtesy of Lydia Jones.

Jones worries that lay offs in the National Park Service could impact both the visitor experience and the local economies.

“It can be something as simple as, you know, there not being enough people to pick up trash or there not being ranger talks for them to go to, to something as serious as visitor safety in the case of, you know, search and rescues or injuries in the park,” Jones said. “And then also, you know, national parks play a big role in local economies. They actually have more economic output than they do input. So a lot of these local communities really rely on national parks and their visitors.”

According to reports from the Associated Press, the Trump Administration is restoring at least 50 National Park Service jobs and will hire up to 77 hundred seasonal positions this year following an uproar over the federal layoffs.

Jones is the third laid off federal employee to talk to KELOLAND News. You can find the other two stories by clicking here and here.