Interior To Rely On Staff With Less Training For Park Law Enforcement

"The Interior Department is looking to increase its reliance on seasonal National Park Service (NPS) staffers who have received less training than their full-time counterparts in order to cut costs, according to a new report.
 
A report by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to be released Monday, finds that the NPS is seeking to implement a new proposal that would shift the reliance from full-time law enforcement officers to seasonal staffers, who require less robust training and frequently pay for the costs out of their own pocket.
 
The plan will ultimately reduce mandatory training time from 16 weeks to 12 weeks, according to the report, by abandoning mandatory attendance of these seasonal staffers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), which is reserved for permanent law enforcement rangers in the academy."

Miranda Green reports for The Hill February 22, 2019.