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Parks Group's Analysis Shows Promise and Shortfalls in President's Plan for National Parks Funding
Funding Needs to Focus on Resources, Not Roads
Introduction
For decades, the National Park Service (NPS) has lacked the funds needed to manage adequately the wildlife, landscapes, and historic and cultural artifacts protected within the National Park System. President George W. Bush has proposed to correct this burgeoning problem by providing $4.9 billion for park management. This commitment could solve many of the threats to natural and historical resources that have plagued the parks, but only if more of the money is directed toward programs designed to enhance resource protection and visitor education. Currently, the President's proposal fails to balance these priorities.
Background: The Problem with Parks
During the past three years, a series of detailed park budget studies by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and NPS has revealed just how deeply the decades of funding shortfalls have eroded the Park Service's capacity to protect parks. Called the Business Plan Initiative (BPI), these studies team graduate students from the nation's top business and government-
management schools with park managers to analyze park administrative and financial needs. Studies and business plans have been completed for two dozen national parks.
BPI has identified two fundamental problems: 1.) park operations suffer an annual funding shortfall of at least 35 percent, or about $600 million yearly; and 2.) the money the Service does receive is not used as strategically as it could be, emphasizing short-term visitor needs instead of long-term park protection.
Adequately funding parks will enable staff to provide a level of resource protection and visitor service that supports the NPS mission and responds to visitor needs, including completion of basic inventories of park resources and establishing effective programs to protect or improve air and water quality, to restore altered landscapes, and to manage native plants and animals effectively.
Increased funding solves only the most immediate park problems. Improvements in NPS financial management also are needed. Only a handful of parks include well-trained financial managers on staff, and only a few of these staffers possess graduate credentials in business, government, or other organizational management. Attracting, retaining, and promoting staff with graduate-level business and government management training will significantly improve the agency's capacity to manage the financial resources at its disposal.
The President's Proposal
The President's current plan calls for pumping $4.9 billion into fixing the backlog of Park Service projects over the next five years—a financial infusion that is sadly necessary. But that approach fails to address either the serious and growing threats to park resources or the need for expanded visitor education and park interpretation. NPS also needs an influx of cash into its annual operating budget to ensure that the agency can keep up with new repair needs as they arise. Otherwise, the maintenance backlog will simply reappear. The breakdown of the President's plan appears to follow these lines:
1.) Over the next five years, Bush has pledged to eliminate the road-repair and road-building backlog, which according to NPS stands at $2.7 billion. The President has indicated that this item will be covered with money from the TEA-21 fund, the largest highway and mass-transit funding program in U.S. history. TEA-21 currently provides $165 million annually to park transportation, or $825 million over the next five years. The remaining $1.9 billion is proposed to come from an increase in TEA-21 funds when Congress reauthorizes the program in 2004.
2.) The source for the remaining $2.2 billion of the $4.9-billion pledge comes from annual appropriations totaling $460 million for FY2002. The proposed spending of this funding as requested for FY2002 includes $440 million for maintenance backlog and only $20 million for research, science, and resource management.
Clearly, if dollar allocations are any indication, the Administration proposal favors roads over wildlife. Virtually all of the recommended funding is aimed at reducing the maintenance backlog. The President's plan will not significantly improve natural and cultural resource protection or visitor experience needs such as interpretive programs. The current budget proposal appears to include only $50 million in new funds, all to be spent on the maintenance backlog, and calls for an essentially flat funding of park operations compared with FY2001.
Recommendations
Protection of the national parks requires that a substantial amount of the President's $4.9-billion pledge be redirected from backlog retirement and toward funding the operating budget, allowing improved protection and interpretation of park resources. Money also should be redirected from road building to wildlife. In short, less money for bricks and mortar and more for plants and animals.
Of the $440 million that the Administration is requesting for maintenance and construction, $120 million in the coming year should go into the operating budget. Of that amount, $50 million should go to parks with BPI plans, and the remaining $70 million should go to park system resource protection needs already identified by NPS.
Within five years, the annual parks operating budget must be ramped up to at least an additional $600 million to allow the Park Service to protect park resources and to improve visitor enjoyment, goals currently impossible to meet. At least 55 percent of the $600 million should be used to protect park plants, animals, and historical and cultural artifacts and to improve park interpretation. Remaining funds can be allocated to reducing the maintenance backlog.
Finally, Congress and the Administration should adopt a framework for increasing NPS budgets that holds the Service accountable to targets for improved resource protection. This includes increasing the financial expertise of park staff and generating business plans for all parks. | 
