CLEVELAND — The Cuyahoga Valley National Park, a gem of Northeast Ohio, has been faced with hiring freezes and layoffs since January.
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Pam Machuga started working for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in 1991. Machuga decided to take early retirement in April, following hiring freezes and layoffs that had plagued federal workers at the start of the year.
Four probationary workers were laid off at that time, and hiring was paused for any vacant positions at CVNP. Machuga said visitors might have noticed some effects of this.
"If you were hiking the park in April and May, you probably noticed the grass was really, really tall. We didn't have enough people to mow the lawn," said Machuga.
Machuga continued, "they'll notice we have a couple of bathrooms at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, it says out of order, but they're not out of order, we don't have staff to clean those bathrooms."
Machuga said she worked on outreach programs that were canceled. "For 10 plus years, I did campfire programs every Thursday night for six weeks in the summer, you invited our community groups and you invited the public, there are no public campfire programs, there are no Healthful Hikes, or hidden history walks," said Machuga.
Across the country, federal workers were given several options to resign or retire early. Machuga said the folks who are left are probably working overtime to keep things up and running.
"We want to make sure we're giving these park employees the tools to serve the public because they're just going to leave. They're going to get overwhelmed, they're going to get burned out, and they're going to do what most of my co-workers have done, and they're going to leave the national park service, which will leave us even more short-staffed," said Machuga.
Machuga said that if people want to preserve this natural resource for generations of Northeast Ohioans to come, they should call their representative in Congress.
