The Brief

Some seasonal employees at Yosemite National Park worked for as long as six weeks without pay this spring and summer as park supervisors scrambled to manage hiring amid federal budget cuts, workers told NPR. The employees said they are now receiving hourly wages but have not been paid for the work they were asked to do as volunteers while they waited to be put on the federal payroll.  

Some of the workers said they feel exploited.

"It's definitely taking advantage of people who love their jobs and don't want the park to suffer," said one of the employees, who said they volunteered for three weeks before being hired.

NPR spoke with four seasonal and two full-time workers employed by the National Park Service who described the situation. NPR has agreed not to publish the names of the employees because they are not permitted to speak publicly and feared retribution.

Yosemite depends on seasonal workers to perform a variety of jobs from May through October, when the park receives most of the more than 4
million visitors who typically enter the grounds. The Northern California national park is one of the most visited in America.

At Yosemite, seasonal workers do "anything from campgrounds operations, to wilderness permitting for backpackers, to the seasonal interpretive rangers, seasonal maintenance staff," said Jesse Chakrin, the executive director of the Fund for People in Parks, a nonprofit that advocates for national parks. The National Park Service hires thousands of seasonal workers a year across America. More than 100 are typically hired annually at Yosemite early in the busy season, Chakrin said.

But 2025 was no typical year. On Feb. 14, 10 full-time federal employees at Yosemite were fired when the federal government terminated about 1,000 newly hired employees throughout the National Park Service. In the weeks that followed, additional experienced workers left the park service voluntarily. Since January, the amount of permanent staff across the service has declined by 24%, according to data analyzed in July by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit that defends parks.

Then, after staff members were fired in February, some were hired back. That meant the park service's already straining Human Resources division had to take on additional work to bring those people into the workforce again, federal workers told NPR. Around late spring, when more visitors started entering the park and seasonal workers began arriving at Yosemite to start their jobs, Human Resources wasn't able to onboard all the seasonal staff, Yosemite employees said.

"We had the firing of probationary employees in February and then the rehiring, and this was a huge, huge burden on Human Resources to try to get people in and out," said Emily Thompson, the executive director of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, a nonprofit that supports workers at parks. "And seasonal hiring was delayed."

But Yosemite still needed seasonal workers. An April order from the Department of the Interior, the agency that oversees the National Park Service, said all parks should stay open as usual in 2025, with changes to operating hours requiring special approval.

Seasonal workers needed the jobs too. Many count on their employment at the park to provide them with housing. Because some parts of Yosemite are dozens of miles from the nearest city, accommodations at the park are typically offered to people who work there, for a fee.

"They're dependent upon their job to have a home," said Chakrin.

On May 18, visitors took photos at a viewing point above Vernal Fall, a waterfall at Yosemite National Park.

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In other parks, seasonal employees weren't hired at all. As of July, only about 4,500 of the people expected to fill 8,000 seasonal positions across the Park Service were working in seasonal roles, according to the data from the National Parks Conservation Association. But in late April, supervisors at Yosemite started offering some of the prospective seasonal workers a different option. If they volunteered for at least 32 hours a week at the park, they could stay in Yosemite housing for free until the federal government was able to onboard and start paying them, emails reviewed by NPR reveal.

"My supervisors were emailing people week after week saying, 'Hey, the update is there's no updates and we understand you guys need housing and you're relying on this and we're relying on you. And we don't know what's going on, but one option is to volunteer,'" said one Yosemite worker.

NPR requested an interview with a representative at Yosemite and sent questions regarding how and when seasonal workers were hired this year. The park declined to answer the questions or speak with NPR.

"We are not conducting interviews about staffing levels," said the park's public affairs officer, Scott Gediman.

Gediman recommended that NPR email the National Park Service instead. No one at the service responded to NPR's questions or request for an interview.

But workers at Yosemite told NPR they estimate that more than 50 seasonal workers volunteered for the park service in Yosemite before they were paid later in the summer. Of the four people NPR spoke with who were asked to work for no pay until they could be onboarded, one declined and did not work at Yosemite this season. The other three agreed to volunteer and wait. The workers said they signed volunteer service agreements with the federal government, some of which NPR reviewed.

The three who volunteered said they were assigned a role in a different division than the one they had originally committed to work for. The park service prohibits seasonal employees from volunteering for positions "similar to their paid work" outside of the season. That sort of policy is to prevent the federal government from exploiting workers, the park service's reference manual indicates, and to ensure the park complies with federal labor laws.

"The NPS does not allow an NPS employee to serve as a volunteer in a manner that takes advantage of an employee's willingness to perform their paid work without pay," the manual states.

The federal government also assures people that they can expect competitive pay if they choose to work in public service. But seasonal workers said that's not what they received when they worked for free for weeks. Some believe the federal government did take advantage of them.

"We're here because we need housing," one said. "And there was this urgency to have a place to go, so we did it."

The sun rises over tall granite cliffs that rise from Yosemite Valley.

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It was 'offensive' to work without pay, one worker said

For weeks, before they started being paid by the park in June, the seasonal workers spent hundreds of volunteer hours doing tasks like educating visitors and maintaining trails, they told NPR.

While the employees said they were grateful to have a place to live and understood that their supervisors at Yosemite may not have had control over hiring delays at the federal level, they thought it was unfair not to be paid for their labor.

"The idea of volunteering for the job that we already don't get paid enough to do was offensive," said one of the workers.

A few weeks into the busy season, some prospective seasonal workers were hired and paid by the Great Basin Institute, a nonprofit that promotes conservation and has partnered with national parks on projects before.

"They reached out and said, 'Hey, we've got needs,'" said Peter Woodruff, the nonprofit's chief executive, referring to staff at the Park Service. "So they turned to us for that support during a time of uncertainty."

The institute paid fewer than 30 seasonal workers at Yosemite for a few weeks, said Woodruff. But not all seasonal workers were offered the opportunity. Of the three people NPR spoke with who volunteered, only one received payment from the Great Basin Institute in between volunteering and their employment with the federal government.

Another worker labored without pay for six weeks, from early May until the end of June, before they were onboarded, the employee told NPR. During that time, they stayed in a shared room owned by the federal government that was valued at under $500 a month, their housing agreement reviewed by NPR shows.

The park ultimately onboarded the three workers at different times, from early to late June. After they started being paid by the park, from that point forward, the workers said they earned between $19 and $23 an hour. But none were paid back for the weeks they volunteered, they said, and none were promised back pay.

By asking volunteers to work in different jobs than the ones they were later paid to do, the park service may not have violated federal labor laws, said Kevin Owen, an employment lawyer who represents federal workers. Still, Owen said that the requests to volunteer could harm the park. Since experienced workers might be less likely to agree to work without pay, fewer of them may have accepted the proposal, he said.

"It will lead to either stories of long lines at national parks or stories of missing campers who can't be found when they otherwise should have been," Owen said.

Chakrin, the director of the parks nonprofit, said that parks are currently under strain and struggling with staffing across the West. But he has never heard of seasonal workers being asked to work without pay for weeks because a park couldn't onboard them on time.

"The unprecedented part that I have never seen is, in mass, having seasonals have onboarding dates that are delayed indefinitely and up to three pay periods," he said. "It's just a whole lot of a season when your season is six months long."

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The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles was paired with an equally elaborate arts festival: 10 weeks of programming around the region that included more than 400 performances and led to the launch of the Los Angeles Opera.

Fast forward more than 40 years, and lawmakers and experts are questioning whether L.A. can pull off a similar success in the summer of 2028, with less than two years to go.

“We had an opportunity to have a longer runway leading up to the Games…We had a lot of time,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, who was on the City Council when it negotiated the 1984 Olympic Games and closely observes plans for 2028. “And it just didn’t happen.”

Yaroslavsky and others testified Wednesday at a state hearing on the 2028 “Cultural Olympiad,” the arts and culture programming that will accompany the coming Games in Los Angeles.

At that meeting, officials from organizing committee LA28 and the city and county arts and culture departments laid out their plans, which will launch in the summer of 2027. They’ll include neighborhood festivals, a mural program, posters designed by local artists and partnerships with L.A.’s cultural institutions.

The planners presented a vision of arts sprawled across the region, lifting up local artists and bringing performances and installations into L.A.’s public spaces — but they were less clear on how the programming would be funded and who would be included.

The city of L.A. has already set aside $15 million for Olympics arts programming, but further fundraising for the Cultural Olympiad is still ongoing, according to LA28 and the city.

State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, who represents neighborhoods including downtown L.A. and Exposition Park, told organizers she was concerned that without clarity on funding opportunities soon, organizers would leave out community groups and artists in neighborhoods that need the investment, like Altadena, South L.A. and East L.A. She also wanted to know how much money LA28 was earmarking for local artists specifically.

“Given the short timeframe and given some of the structure I’m seeing, I’m a little concerned,” she said.

Dwayne Jones, a LA28 vice president working on the Cultural Olympiad, told lawmakers that they were raising “tens of millions” of dollars for the program, but didn’t offer specifics.

What’s in the works 

L.A.’s Olympics arts programming will launch in July of 2027, with a poster series designed by local artists. LA28 will also facilitate a program for L.A. institutions to apply to be an official part of the 2028 Cultural Olympiad, put on a film series, and offer subsidized tickets to cultural institutions and events.

The city of L.A. is planning its own local arts festivals in each council district, and will install new murals around the city tied to the Olympic and Paralympic Games. L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs has drafted plans to expand to a seven-week citywide festival if it can secure $25 million in additional funding.

“ We want L.A. to know that the Games are not happening to L.A., but happening for L.A.,” said Daniel Tarica, who leads that department, at Wednesday’s hearing.

Lessons learned from past Olympics

The Olympics may bring a lot of spectators to the region, but it does not typically flood local cultural attractions, such as museums. In fact, during the 2012 Olympics in London and 2024 Olympics in Paris, some museums reported a decline in visitors, according to Tawny Paul, a professor of history at UCLA who studied those recent festivals.

Paul told lawmakers on Wednesday that to counteract these lulls, L.A.’s 2028 arts offerings should cater to locals, and institutions would need to bring their offerings out of their normal locations and into the areas around competitions and fan zones.

She also offered lessons from the 1984 arts festival, which she said was lauded as a success, but faced criticism for focusing on international artists, rather than artistic communities in Los Angeles. Some in L.A. were so upset by the 1984 Cultural Olympiad, Paul said, that they put on their own fringe festivals in response.

Like Smallwood-Cuevas, Paul also warned that it would take greater resources to include smaller community-based art groups in the Cultural Olympiad.

“One of the things that the Cultural Olympiad can do really well is help lend visibility to different arts offerings,” she said. “But what I’ll warn is that visibility without resources would favor institutions and communities that already have capacity.”

California has more solar power than it can use during the day, and while the state is increasingly storing that energy in batteries, there’s a simpler strategy to help too: changing behavior.

“If we can better align our consumption with the sun, we use more clean energy, we reduce pressure on the grid in the evening, and we eventually lower costs for everyone,” said Magali Delmas, a strategy professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and Institute of the Environment.

Solar and wind power are also the state’s cheapest source of electricity (our high electricity costs are mostly driven by utilities distributing that energy and shoring up the grid in the face of worsening wildfires and increased electrification).

Delmas is the research lead on a pilot program launched this month by L.A.-based nonprofit electricity provider Clean Power Alliance. For the next two years, 4,000 customers will get lower cost electricity during the day, then Delmas and her team will analyze the data to see if more people actually used it. (Customers don't pay Clean Power Alliance anything for generating the solar electricity but still have to pay the utility that delivers it.)

“The question is whether free electricity in the middle of the day is enough to change habits,” Delmas said.

The work could inform future rate incentives that also reduce stress on the grid during high demand.

It’s not an entirely new idea — Australia has experimented with periods of free electricity.

Time-of-use rates also aim to incentivize behavior. Delmas said this pilot provides a larger financial incentive given the electricity generation cost is set to $0. The Clean Power Alliance estimates it could save customers hundreds on their electric bills per year.

The pilot also focuses on customers who have already electrified their homes to a certain extent — they can’t have rooftop solar, but maybe they swapped a gas stove for induction, a gas water heater for an electric heat pump, or have an electric pool pump or electric vehicle they charge at home. Though the pilot isn’t adding customers, qualifying customers can sign up any time for the pilot’s rates.

“We're also in the business on the climate side of trying to actually incentivize electrification,” said Ted Bardacke, chief executive of the Clean Power Alliance.

Though it may seem impossible to reschedule when you charge your EV or run the A/C or dishwasher, Bardacke said increased automation can be key to managing the future grid.

“Most dishwashers today have a delay setting, so why not hit that delay setting to run beginning at 8 o'clock in the morning?” Bardacke said. “Let's say you have an air conditioner with a programmable thermostat. Why not run the air conditioning from 2 to 4 [in the afternoon] when the electricity is not costing you [as much] and have it nice and cool when you get home?”

The Los Angeles Unified School District is taking the first steps to reshape the country’s second-largest school district and the education of more than 300,000 students.

More than 40% fewer students attend LAUSD schools than in the early 2000s, yet the district operates nearly the same number of campuses.

“Our goal is not just to have fewer schools,” said Superintendent Andrés Chait during a September board meeting. “Our goal is to have stronger schools.”

LAUSD concluded the first round of public meetings Monday in a process that could lead to a board vote on school closures within the next year. And under growing scrutiny from state and L.A. County officials, district administrators are also considering a series of budget cuts that could lead to the elimination of thousands of jobs to avoid running out of money.

Gates Street Elementary parent Maria Tellos attended a community meeting at Roybal Learning Center Monday.

“I want to see accountability from LAUSD,” Tellos said. “I want to ask questions and see what their answers are.”

But at this point, the district doesn’t have answers to many of the questions Tellos and others are asking about which schools could be closed and when — and that’s by design.

“Right now it's about just establishing the ‘why.’ Like, why do we even need to have this conversation?” said Pedro Salcido, a deputy superintendent, at the start of the meeting.

The district’s budget problems

The decision to close schools is among the most controversial and emotionally charged decisions a district can make. School closures can displace students, shutter community gathering places and fan outrage from families, community members and alumni.

The district started its campaign — “Stronger Schools Together” — with a series of in-person and virtual community meetings across the district.

LAist attended Monday’s meeting, which was targeted toward families in the eastern part of the district and a virtual meeting on Oct. 7 for those in the south.

In both, the district outlined the factors officials say are at the root of its upcoming decisions.

LAUSD enrolled more than 700,000 students in the early 2000s. The short-term solutions to overcrowding included building temporary classrooms (called bungalows) and operating more than 200 campuses year-round.

The district asked voters to approve more than $20 billion in bond funding between 1997 and 2008 — paid back through property tax increases — and built 131 new schools.

By the time the last school opened in 2017, enrollment was already falling.

Declining birth rates, Southern California’s high cost of living for families and competition from publicly funded charter schools mean fewer students attending LAUSD schools. More recently, the district has linked widespread and sometimes violent immigration enforcement actions to a decline in students who are new to the country or concerned about the safety of themselves or family members.

In the last decade, statewide enrollment has decreased by 8%, about 500,000 students, according to the most recent data from the California Department of Education.

What happens when schools lose students?

In California, enrollment drives school funding and helps determine the resources a school gets, including teachers and other support staff. And that means schools can lose resources as a consequence of enrolling fewer students.

For example, small elementary schools may not have enough students to fill each grade level and may have to combine two grades into a single classroom.

Smaller high schools may not be able to offer as many electives or advanced classes where students can earn college credit and bolster their applications to competitive schools.

The district outlined some scenarios for reducing the number of schools:

• Merging schools, including some that already share a campus, into a single school
• Closing a school and repurposing the campus

The next step in the process is for the district to seek more community input and create a framework for evaluating which schools would be targeted for closure or consolidation.

What information will be used to make decisions?

The school board would need to vote to approve the framework and any recommended closures.

In a September school board meeting, Chait said that any school identified for potential closure would be notified at least one academic year before shutting down or merging with another campus. However, Chait said there could be an exception for school communities actively seeking consolidation.

At this same meeting, district staff presented the plan for closures and consolidations; board members’ reactions ranged from enthusiastic to unhappy.

“I’m excited we’re getting started on this,” said Tanya Ortiz Franklin, a board member who represents District 7, from South L.A. to the harbor area. “As hard as it’s going to be, I know it’s important.”

Ortiz Franklin was also one of several board members who raised concerns that schools serving low-income, Black and Latino students could be disproportionately targeted for closure or consolidation.

Research shows school closures can have a negative impact on students' academic outcomes in the short term and beyond graduation — and these closures have often disproportionately hurt Black and Latino students.

“It’s been mostly vulnerable communities that have been historically disadvantaged, that have suffered school closures,” said Karla Griego, a board member who represents District 5’s Northeast and Southwest L.A. neighborhoods. “So this doesn’t make me happy, and I’m going to be very honest.”

It’s also unclear how much money — if any — might be saved if LAUSD closes schools.

The district’s $3.5 billion budget-cutting plan outlines $30 million in savings from school consolidation starting in the 2028-29 school year. But the money saved from campus closures could be lost again by students leaving the district as a result of the shutdowns, according to a Stanford review of California public school data between 2011 and 2019.

‘We just don’t know’

At Monday’s community meeting at Roybal Learning Center, about a dozen community members were outnumbered by district staff in a room set up for more than 100. A district spokesperson said in a statement that more than 1,400 people attended the eight meetings spread across L.A. Meetings targeting the Eastside had the lowest participation.

Tellos, the Gates Street Elementary parent, is part of Reclaim Our Schools LA, a coalition that advocates against privatizing public education. She said the recently announced federal immigration enforcement crackdown in California deterred Eastside families from attending.

Tellos said she hopes future convenings will be held at more local schools where families feel safer gathering.

“It just feels very overwhelming to think that our schools could no longer be there,” Tellos said. “We just don't know what's gonna happen.”

An LAUSD spokesperson said in a statement that the district will hold more informational sessions through November, with more in-depth meetings in the late fall and winter.

Jewel Brown, principal at Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts, said she was leaving the meeting with a “sense of urgency” to figure out how to shield her campus from potential cuts.

“This feels almost like the greatest budget deficit that I would say I've navigated through in my 25 years of experience [in LAUSD],” Brown said. “I'm worried, but I also know I just need to equally be prepared.”

Kimberly Soto, 16, a junior at Roosevelt High School who’s part of an activism club called Students Deserve, was one of the few students at the meeting.

She left with a long list of questions about what life on a consolidated campus would be like: How will students get to school? Will the hallways be crowded?

“I want to get more students involved in, like, knowing what's happening also so they could have a say,” Soto said.

Share how you feel

Childcare costs continue to rise, and recent surveys have shown that families with children struggle with affordability. In California, the average annual cost of childcare for an infant at a childcare center was more than $23,000 in 2025.

And voters are paying attention. A recent poll found that nationwide, 3 in 4 voters saw the cost of childcare for families with young children as a “crisis” or “major problem,” and more than 8 in 10 voters saw it as part of the affordability crisis. It’s one reason childcare has become a hot political topic in places across the country, from New York City to New Mexico, policymakers have recently unveiled universal childcare initiatives.

At the same time, the Trump administration has said childcare should be left up to states. “We're a big country. We have 50 states. We have all these other people. We're fighting wars. We can't take care of daycare,” President Donald Trump said earlier this year.

So what can elected officials in California — from the Los Angeles mayor to the governor — do to help? We asked local and statewide candidates what “affordable childcare” means and how to make it happen.

Here’s where they stand.

Governor

What can the governor do?

The governor’s office has major authority over how — and which — services get funded in the state. Each year, the governor proposes a budget, outlining the office’s priorities. The budget is then turned over to the state Legislature, which can make its own changes and negotiate with the governor before approving it.

“The governor is the chief administrator of all the major agencies,” said Stacy Lee, senior managing director for early childhood with Children Now. "So the governor can use their administrative and executive authority to align priorities. We saw this in New Mexico."

During his term, Gov. Gavin Newsom made early childhood education and care a key part of his agenda. One landmark initiative was the implementation of a brand new grade for 4-year-olds in the public school system. But implementation hasn't been without hurdles — and privately run preschools have been closing in the state at the same time.

What do the candidates say?

Neither candidate for this office responded to LAist’s survey.

Democrat Xavier Becerra’s campaign website promises he would “[expand] help with childcare and essential costs,” but did not specify how.

Republican Steve Hilton’s website outlines actions he would take, including creating a home visiting program to support families and expanding paid family leave from eight to 12 weeks.

Read more about the California Governor race.

State Assembly and Senate

What can state legislators do?

Members of the California state Assembly and state Senate hold the power to introduce bills to help address the childcare system in the state. “They could be part of policy bills that streamline, reduce bureaucracy, eliminate barriers for children, families, providers and others in the system,” Lee said.

They also ultimately approve the governor’s budget and can advocate for funding through the process. This past year, for example, lawmakers opposed the governor’s proposal to cut funding for subsidized childcare slots for low-income families and eventually approved funding for more spaces.

Lawmakers have also taken on some novel ideas to address childcare costs: in Riverside County, a state Assemblymember secured funding to try to create a "special district" for childcare — the first of its kind in the state.

• Read more about the State Senate races.
• Read more about the State Assembly races.

LA Mayor

What can the mayor do?

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani made headlines over the last year in promising universal childcare for all in the city — and other cities have taken on their own efforts to try to make childcare more accessible.

L.A.’s mayor doesn’t have some of the same powers that mayors in other cities, like New York, have. For example, the mayor doesn’t have authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District — a significant provider of preschool options and the largest city where the mayor doesn’t have direct power over the school system. But the mayor proposes the city’s $14 billion budget, can issue executive orders and oversees the city’s departments, like the Department of Recreation and Parks, which ran free childcare centers with federal COVID relief funding before it ran out of money.

Cities have also found revenue streams to fund childcare initiatives in their jurisdictions. Washington, D.C., for example, has used a tax on residents earning more than $250,000 a year to boost the pay of childcare providers — similar to San Francisco, which uses a commercial property tax.

There are things mayors can do for their employees as well. For example, New York City opened up a free childcare center for city employees.

• Read more about the L.A. Mayor race.

LA City Council

What can Councilmembers do?

The L.A. City Council approves the city’s budget, proposed by the mayor, and can advocate for how those funds are allocated. City Councilmembers also create and adopt local laws, or “ordinances,” that regulate life and business in the city.

“If you think at a city level … people think of potholes and roads and things, right? There's a lot of basic infrastructure things that they're responsible for, and that includes rules and laws around building codes, licensing,” Lee said.

That could also mean addressing issues around permitting and zoning for childcare facilities, and identifying city buildings that could be put to use for childcare. The City Council was also the body that approved using federal COVID relief money to open 10 licensed preschools at Recreation and Parks facilities.

• Read more about the L.A. City Council races: District 3 | District 9

OC Board of Supervisors

What can the Supervisors do?

The Orange County Board of Supervisors decides how the budget is split up each year toward county departments and services.

Counties, like cities, can also find ways to create revenue streams to provide services. San Francisco is both a city and county, and it used a commercial property tax to fund childcare. “Just like people raise funds for their local library, you could do that for childcare,” Lee said. Similar to other offices, supervisors can also advocate for childcare at the state and federal level.

The board also appoints the members to the Orange County Child Care and Development Planning Council. Every county in California has such a council, which serves as a body to discuss and plan childcare needs in the county.

Supervisors can also issue discretionary funds. Earlier this year, the county awarded $75,000 to First 5 Orange County for a “childcare business incubator” program.

What do the candidates say?

• Read more about the OC Board of Supervisors race.