The Trump administration is preparing to restructure the National Park Service, granting major parks influence over the agency’s smaller or less popular sites, according to reporting by NOTUS, a Washington DC-based media outlet.
The plans, published Tuesday and revealed in internal Interior Department documents, suggest the park service could shift to a hub-and-spoke model, which would give “hub” parks decision-making authority over “spoke” sites. The reorganization was developed secretly — only the department’s top leadership was involved in the process, NOTUS reported.
Acadia National Park could be a “hub” park, given its popularity on the East Coast. While the Interior has not yet publicized which sites would be hubs, it is likely to be the country’s most visited parks, according to John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association, a parks advocacy group. Acadia recorded more than 4 million visits in 2025.
The news of restructuring comes at a turbulent time for the park service and marks the department’s second major reorganization since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025. In under two years, the park service has lost roughly 25% of its permanent workforce, Garder told the Bangor Daily News.
“One of many concerns is the lack of transparency and lack of any consultation with the career staff who manage national parks, work in regional offices or are out in the field,” Garder said. “This is part of a pattern of the Interior taking a top down approach that has led to a chaotic reorganization. Given that track record, we’re greatly concerned that this could be just one more action that undermines the ability of park service superintendents, staff in the field and support offices’ to effectively manage our parks.”
The park service oversees 433 sites.
The new model could compromise the discretion of “spoke” park superintendents over how they manage resources effectively, Garder said, adding that those superintendents — who likely oversee smaller sites — may be viewed as site managers instead of career professionals.
“You cannot put all parks in one convenient box— there are parks large and small, historic and natural,” Garder said. “That’s the case in Maine and throughout the country. With a model like this, we’re afraid that they are going to try to take a one-size-fits-all approach that fails to recognize there’s significant differences in how you manage a site like Katahdin Woods and Waters [National Monument] compared to a site like Acadia, which has significantly different infrastructure, visitation etc.”
Park superintendents currently report to regional directors, which would continue, but agency documents suggest the Interior will centralize power in hub parks, according to NOTUS.
Many details surrounding the plan have not yet been made public, including which sites would be hub parks and how many spoke sites their superintendents would oversee.
It was not immediately clear if the restructuring plans would spike park layoffs, or when the plans would be implemented. A meeting scheduled next week between park superintendents and regional leadership, at which the plan was expected to be unveiled, has been postponed indefinitely, Garder said.
The planning documents indicate there will be no immediate reduction in force or deferred resignation program, however the records left the door open to future dismissals, NOTUS reported.
If the plan is adopted, superintendents at the country’s most visited parks would be responsible for overseeing an undetermined number of smaller sites, Garder said, noting that most of the service’s superintendents are already under-resourced given park service funding cuts over the past year.
Congress had previously requested that the Interior provide the Appropriations and Natural Resources committees with notice of reorganization. No such notice has been given as of yet, according to Garder.
An inquiry sent to a general press email did not receive a response Tuesday afternoon. Acadia has not had a dedicated park spokesperson since spring.
Last year, Interior leadership ordered park superintendents to prioritize visitor services to minimize the impact of the staffing shortage on visitor experience.
“This past summer, your average visitor hasn’t been seeing the decimation of the park service in terms of the loss of institutional knowledge and the loss of capacity to protect and research resources,” Garder said. “It’s important for people to understand that they may not see what’s happening but it is very much a fundamental threat to the long term ability of the park service to do its job at protecting these amazing places.”