From: Government Executive
“After the dual function employees are decommissioned, FWS will have 230 full-time officers. PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch called that insufficient, noting there are 562 refuges in the national system. “Refuge law enforcement is already critically understaffed, so this sizeable capacity reduction makes an already bad situation much worse,” Ruch said. Gavin Shire, an FWS spokesman, said ending the program that enabled employees to work part time on law enforcement duties will enable the agency to hire more full-time officers and in turn enable it to “better meet the safety needs and expectations of the American public.”
