Secret Plan to Cut National Park Funding by 30 Percent in Five Years

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Monday 17 April 2006

Parks "glide path" to impoverishment breaks Bush campaign pledge.

The Bush administration has directed the National Park Service to substantially decrease its reliance on tax-supported funding, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In a turnabout from the last two presidential campaigns when candidate Bush promised greater funding of parks, new "talking points" distributed last week to all park superintendents urge to begin "honest and forthright" discussions with the public about smaller budgets, reduced visitor services and increased fees.

Using a new approach called Core Operations Analysis, each park is asked to develop budgets based on a 20 to 30% reduction in appropriation support. In this exercise, park superintendents decide which visitor services or other functions can be jettisoned ("staffing and funding alternatives based on realistic funding projections," in the words of the Park Service). Whatever shortfalls in support for essential operations that remain must be made up for with fee hikes, cost shifting or increased reliance on volunteers.

Once the Core Operation Analysis is finalized, each park is then put on a "glide path" to implement the agreed upon reductions during the next five years.

In the talking points memo issued on April 11, 2006, park public affairs and budgetary staff provide coaching as to how individual parks should spin shrinking budgets and reduced visitor services, including:

* "The National Park Service, like most agencies, is tightening its belt as our nation rebuilds from Katrina, continues the war on terrorism and strives to reduce the deficit" and

* "Our satisfaction rating is over 96 percent nationally, and has remained high for several years. That's a clear indicator that budgets have not reduced visitor enjoyment."

By contrast, prior to the 2004 election, park officials were ordered to avoid mention of cutbacks and instead use the euphemism "service level adjustments." In talking points distributed on April 7, 2004, park managers were instructed to counter charges of lower budgets by declaring "NPS has fared well under President Bush."

"Rather than being honest about planned budget cuts, the Bush administration once again makes stealth policy decisions cloaked by management reform mumbo jumbo," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "If our national parks are going to be reduced to performing only the bare minimum of 'core operations' the public ought to be given some say as to what is considered essential."

For More Information:

Read the April 2006 Park Service budget cuts talking points.

Compare the 2004 talking points.



Go to Original

Parks Feel "80 Percent" Squeeze
By Matt Stearns
Knight Ridder

Monday 17 April 2006

Visitor services getting pinched in move to cut costs.

The Bush administration has ordered America's national parks to show that they can function at 80 percent or less of their operating budgets, which is forcing some parks to cut services for visitors as summer approaches.

National Park Service officials said the initiative was an effort to cope with the rising costs of salaries, utilities and other management expenses without harming the parks' "core" missions of protecting the nation's natural treasures and enabling visitors to enjoy them. The Park Service has more than 270 million visitors annually.

But park officials in the field said the initiative was forcing "gut-wrenching" decisions that visitors will notice. At many parks, volunteers will take on larger roles, and there will be fewer interpretive ranger programs, the officials said.

At Glacier National Park in Montana, three campgrounds no longer will have potable water or trash service.

"We have high ideals here," said Stephanie Dubois, deputy superintendent of Glacier. "We know how to provide top-quality service. It's a very difficult decision every time you take a step backward from what you've been doing."

Glacier officials will consider raising backcountry and campground fees, Dubois said.

At Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, one of six visitor centers was closed and two water stations were shuttered as a result of the initiative.

Kyle Patterson, a park spokeswoman, said the decisions prompted "soul-searching" but that one of the park's most popular visitor centers was able to stay open four more hours a day thanks to the money saved by closing a less-used one.

President Bush is proposing to cut an additional $100.5 million from the parks' $2.1 billion budget next year. According to a report this month by the Government Accountability Office, the parks have an estimated $5 billion maintenance backlog, and even before the cost-cutting began, many of them had moved from slashing back-office operations to trimming visitor services.

At the same time, the parks are facing rising costs. Payroll, utilities, fleet and other fixed operating costs have increased yearly. Pay raises have been about 4 percent a year. At Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, utility costs increased 46 percent from 2003 to 2005.

If the financial pressures continue to grow, the parks will have no choice but to cut more services, reduce access for visitors or rely more on private funds. The Park Service receives as much as $250 million a year from fees, donations and concession royalties.

Twelve parks in the West began the 80 percent budget process, known as "core operations analysis," last year. All the national parks are expected to complete it by 2011.

"This isn't about giving up 20 percent of your resources," said David Barna, a Park Service spokesman. "It's ... making sure the mission comes first. They'll continue to have the resources they have." Park Service officials emphasize cuts in areas such as administrative jobs, which most visitors wouldn't see.

But an internal Park Service analysis of the initiative provided to Knight Ridder says "there is no analysis of effectiveness - efficiency was primarily defined as reducing costs." The memo concludes that the initiative "is less of a planning tool to manage effectiveness or efficiency but more of a tool to reduce cost."

Blake Selzer, legislative director of the National Parks Conservation Association, an independent advocacy group for the national park system, said he supports looking at ways to be efficient, but "not as a justification for an insufficient budget request. Do we really want our Park Service to be the bare minimum?"

"If you're looking to trim it back to 80 percent of current funding, you're going to go below core operations," said Bill Wade of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. Parks entrusted with cultural and historic resources would be especially hard-hit, Wade said. "If you can't care for historical records, structures, artifacts - once they deteriorate, they're no longer historically accurate," he said.

Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania, which just began its "core operations" analysis, no longer has a historic architect and a monument preservationist, said Katie Lawhon, the park's spokeswoman. "We're already extremely efficient," she said. "... All the easy fruit's already been picked."