politics

A recent National Park Service directive to limit high scores on employee evaluations has raised fears of more layoffs after a turbulent year of cuts and resignations.

Staffers at the beloved agency were kept in the dark about why their supervisors were ordered to cap scores. In audio obtained by The Intercept, however, a top regional director said the directives came from top officials in Washington, including the budget office led by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought.

Don Striker, a veteran agency leader who oversees parks in Alaska such as Denali National Park, said the new performance review process was crafted outside the NPS.

“To the extent that they continue to do things that many of us feel are the reign of terror, that deliberately impact our morale in hopes that they’ll drive us out, that’s OMB and that’s OPM, right?” Striker said, referring to Vought’s Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management. “And that’s what the performance thing came under.”

“Ultimately,” Striker went on, “it was not in the hands anymore even of the National Park Service political leadership or the Department of the Interior political leadership.”