Furloughs for the U.S. Park Police forced by the budget cuts known as sequestration will end June 1, the National Park Service announced Friday, because the agency was able to find other savings.
“We’re ending the furloughs,” Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said in an interview, a month after the force of 747 sworn officers and support staff members in three cities began staying home one day per pay period in order to take 12 to 14 unpaid days off by Sept. 30. “We have resolved this within the Park Police budget.”
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| Tower Falls, Yellowstone National Park |
In other words, they weren't getting sufficient attention to the cuts by furloughing personnel, so they looked around at the NPS budget, and found some other waste that they would rather trim than have their employees suffer loss of income. I would call that a victory for the sequester and cut more next year.
The decision does not stave off staffing shortages through the Memorial Day holiday weekend, when tourists will flood into Washington and the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally is expected to bring 400,000 bikers to the city. But Park Service officials said that security would not be compromised on the holiday.
The U.S. Park Police force was the only federal law enforcement agency furloughed under the $85 billion in budget cuts.
The police union had brought public attention to the furloughs for months, saying staffing shortages were compromising safety.
However, I would still maintain that the sequester is working less than ideally. The size of government needs to be cut, and people working for the government need to back to jobs that produce goods and services instead of consuming tax dollars. While furloughing workers, and cutting back on perks of government jobs will save some money, it doesn't really address the problem of swollen government very much. However, it does signal that the easy ride is over.
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