The Trump administration's federal workforce reductions includes thousands of probationary workers at several government agencies, including the U.S. Department of the interior, which oversees the National Park Service.

Our Laura Rogers speaks with a journalist who has covered this story and its potential impact here in Kentucky.

Derek Parham is a reporter and host of All Things Considered for Wgcu Public Radio.

And Derek, you filed a report earlier this month about those federal funding cuts at Mammoth Cave National Park.

We did see some layoffs there.

There are some new developments to this story, but let's begin.

Set this up for us.

You interviewed a cave guide who had lost her job near the end of her probationary period.

Tell us more about her situation.

That's.

So Emily Wheat had been a cave at Mammoth Cave for about a year.

She had received her permanent job offer in August of 2024, but before that, she'd already been at the Park Service.

She's been with Mammoth Cave for a little over three years before that, in a few different roles.

She was there as a seasonal cave guide and started her job in the gift shop at the visitor center, so she wasn't a stranger to the Park Service.

Her father has been a cave guy for about 27 years too, so she was a legacy over there.

And yeah, like you said, she was within ten days of her probationary period ending and her really being cemented at the park when she got an email telling her that her service was not vital to the park and that, that she's going to be fired.

And since then, a federal judge did issue that order that I think about a thousand of those workers who were fired would have to be reinstated.

Is Emily one of those workers?

Yes.

Emily, let me know that she does get to go back to being a cave guide.

She gets go back to her dream career, which in the short term is a very happy ending, at least for Emily and for mammoth Cave.

They're gaining a really excellent cave guide in Emily.

There is still a reduction in force order across the National Park Service that would essentially get rid of 30% of the park's payroll.

That doesn't mean 30% of the personnel, but it does mean 30% of the payroll.

So anybody, all the way from national park superintendents down to maintenance workers are kind of still on the chopping block.

And it's really uncertain at a lot of parks right now.

There's a feeling of people not feeling very comfortable in their jobs and knowing that those probationary employees whose offers were rescinded, who were fired, they were a part of that 30%.

And now that's going to need to be made of somewhere else in the Park Service.

And it's now officially spring in Kentucky, which means spring break.

And we know this is just gradually then rolling into tourism season, meaning that operations are going to be especially busy at our national park.

So is there some concern that this could affect how smoothly those operations are able to work right now?

From what I can tell, everybody is taking this on a day to day basis.

They're doing what they can every day to make sure the park operations are running smoothly, even when those probationary employees were fired.

Leadership at the parks didn't know until that day that those orders were going to be coming down.

So they can prepare as much as they want to.

They can make sure that day to day operations are running smoothly.

The cave guides like Emily are able to do their jobs that day, but until those orders come down, they don't really have much to prepare for.

Like I said, it's a 30% payroll decrease across the National Park Service.

So how hard Mammoth Cave gets hit by that?

We really aren't able to tell until that day hits.

The National Park Service has, of course, been inundated with media requests.

I know that you have reached out wanting more information.

You were able to talk with a contact at the National Park Conservation Association.

What can you tell us about what you learned from your conversation there?

Absolutely.

Kristen Pringle is the VP of government relations for the National Park Conservation Association.

She has kind of worked hand in hand between the federal government and the National Park Service for over 20 years now, and she told me what she's seeing right now really is unprecedented.

She's worried about the protections of public lands.

She's worried about protections for, endangered species.

She's worried about hunting regulations for parks out west.

She was able to enlighten me a lot on just the number of dollars that parks bring to communities within.

She used the figure of 60 miles within national parks.

That's around $70 million annually.

Kind of fluctuates year to year for communities like bowling Green, Cave City, Park City, obviously Edmonson County, things like that, where these communities build their entire identity on Mammoth Cave National Park.

And if there's less personnel to bring people to that park, then that means that's less dollars going into those communities.

Derek Parham with Wgcu Public Radio, we appreciate your reporting, and thank you for sharing some more perspective on this with us.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Laura.

And thank you, Laura.

The fate of some 16,000 probationary employees is still up in the air.

Today, the Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court to halt a ruling ordering the federal workers be rehired.

The appeal claims the federal judge didn't have the authority to order employees back to work.