Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The Haines Borough has gone several months without a park ranger, and Alaska State Parks’ other full-time employee in Haines — a natural resource technician — recently resigned, leaving the division currently unstaffed.

The ranger position, which has been vacant since November, might stay so until July, said Preston Kroes, Southeast area parks superintendent.

Kroes said the division is currently devising a hiring plan for both positions.

“The reason that’s being delayed is that there are four other ranger positions in the state open, along with a slew of other positions in the state from admin to maintenance personnel to grant administrators to everything else,” he said.

The state is planning a “mass hiring” statewide, rather than filling each position through individual applications, Kroes said. He added that July is “the deadline that we wanted to have all the positions hired” but that there are “no guarantees” of a timeline given the bureaucratic hiring process.

State Parks currently has a 4.4% vacancy rate, which is not abnormal, according to division spokesperson Wendy Sailors. “But we are running a much higher vacancy with Law Enforcement currently,” Sailors said in an email. “This LE vacancy at Parks is due to better deals (aka signing bonuses and overtime eligible) working elsewhere. We don’t currently have enough wiggle room in our budget to compete with this.”

Shannon Spring, former natural resource technician in Haines, said he had to resign because he needs to take two months off for family matters and hasn’t accumulated enough paid leave time.

Former park ranger Travis Russell left the position in November, after six and a half years, to join the Haines Borough Police Department. He declined to comment on why he made the switch.

The ranger oversees operations and maintenance at four parks in the borough — Chilkat State Park, Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site, the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve and Portage Cove State Recreation Site.

Parks only has two full-time positions in Haines — the ranger and the natural resource technician. The division formerly had a second seasonal technician but got rid of that position several years ago and now, instead, hires a few Alaska Conservation Corps (ACC) members each summer.

Kroes said one of last year’s ACC members is slated to return this summer, and the division will hire one more. There were three corps members here last summer.

To compensate for the understaffing, Kroes said Parks employees from Juneau will make periodic visits to patrol Haines’ parks and do maintenance work.

Spring said that staff from Juneau play an integral role in maintaining Haines’ parks but he said he wasn’t sure they would be able to cover all the duties of full-time employees in the borough. “The situation is that there’s nobody to run anything, so I don’t know what they are planning for this summer,” Spring said.

When asked if he was worried about the effect of limited staffing during the tourism season, Kroes said he’s “concerned about the tourism season everywhere this year. I have a feeling that everyone’s going to try to make up for the last two years in one season.”

But he said he thinks the ACC members and staff from Juneau will be able to fulfill Haines parks’ basic needs.

The amount of funding that the division allocates to Haines parks has stayed steady over the last six years, Kroes said. More funding would help ease the division’s staffing troubles. Statewide the division of parks manages more park units (156) than it has employees to manage those units (135).

The state estimates that Parks has $69.6 million in deferred maintenance needs statewide. That number grows about $3 million each year, according to the state’s budget report.

When it comes to spending on staff and maintenance in Haines, Kroes said, “I’ll admit it’s not enough, but it’s all our budget can afford.”