National Park Maintenance Stumbles Into Funding Hole

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, March 1, 2004 (ENS) - As a presidential candidate George W. Bush committed to spend $4.9 billion over five years to eliminate the National Park Service's maintenance backlog and his administration is on track to spend that amount, according to National Park Service Director Fran Mainella. But the park service is unable to put a dollar figure on the remaining backlog, Mainella told Congress last week, and it is unrealistic to think the backlog can be fully addressed.

"We have really made a great deal of success in addressing the backlog, but the backlog is not really a number," Mainella said. "It is a snapshot in time."

"It needs to be looked at as an evolving condition of parks. There are always repairs and things to be done and there is no one number that can capture it," she added.

The National Park Service director, who testified Thursday on the agency's 2005 budget request in front of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, said the administration has spent $3.9 billion so far on the maintenance backlog.

The fiscal year 2005 budget will bring that spending to $4.9 billion, Mainella said.

National Park Service Director Fran Mainella says the maintenance backlog is a moving target. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

"If we are to believe the administration the maintenance backlog should be down to about $1 billion but this is not the case," said Donna Christian-Christensen, a U.S. Virgin Islands delegate to Congress and the ranking member on the subcommittee.

The park service's own assessment, Christensen said, shows that "the dollar amount of the maintenance backlog is actually more than when the administration took office."

"It is really important that we address that backlog, and to do that we need to take a serious and honest look at it," she said.

Mainella said the overall park service's budget request of $2.4 billion is a $100 million increase over 2004 appropriations, including $724.7 million for park facility maintenance and backlog.

Add in $310 million for park roads in the administration's legislative proposal to reauthorize the Highway Bill, and the total request is $1.1 billion, Mainella told the House panel.

"This is nearly double the amount for the same categories just seven years ago," Mainella said. "With this request, we are on track to exceed the President's goal of investing $4.9 billion over five years to address the backlog by improving facilities and roads in our parks."

Mainella stressed that a Bush administration initiative to inventory the 17,000 facilities across the national park system is on track to provide a much needed view of what maintenance is critical and what is not.

The park service has nearly completed its initial assessment of the 388 units of the national park system, Mainella said, and is moving forward with its plan to establish a facility condition index.

That index will be coupled with an asset priority index, with the aim of having no more than 10 percent of the system's facilities in need of maintenance at any one time.

The system will allow the agency to "set targets each year to improve facility grades and achieve an overall acceptable condition for facilities," Mainella said.

Critics say the Bush administration is undermining the conservation and education missions of the Park Service. (Photo courtesy National Park Service)

The Bush budget request also includes $65 for cyclic maintenance, Mainella said, "to make sure our parks do not fall into this hole again."

But critics say the parks are still in the hole - and some fear it is getting deeper.

"I am not convinced you are reducing the maintenance backlog at a rate faster than it is being added to," Congressman Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican, told Mainella.

"We can not keep promising the American people that we are doing something and then not do it," Souder said.

A key part of the equation is the agency's annual operating funds - the budget request earmarks $1.7 billion for the annual operations of the park service, an increase of $76.5 million.

Mainella said this figure helps the agency "move forward to make sure our folks have enough money for everyday operations," but critics say it does little to change the agency's historic underfunding and is at the core of the continued growth of the maintenance backlog.

On average, U.S. national parks are operating with only two-thirds of the needed funding, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, which believes the park service needs $600 million more annually to adequately manage the national park system.

The Statue of Liberty is one of the sites the Park Service must provide extra security for because of new requirements from the Department of Homeland Security. (Photo courtesy NPS)

For example, each day the nation is under the Homeland's Code Orange alert, the agency must pay an additional $66,500 in security costs for nine sites designated as critical infrastructure.

For this and other increased security measures, funds must be siphoned off from elsewhere in the agency's budget.

"We do not have flexibility when there is a threat increase," Mainella said. "Without having a fund that addresses that directly, all we can do is shift funds from other operations."

Mainella said the fiscal year 2005 budget request includes an additional $12.4 million for law enforcement and added that the agency is working closely with the Department of Homeland Security to better assess security needs.

Souder cautioned that the additional security responsibilities are "not likely to go away, they are likely to expand and said this comprises the proposed budget increases.

"If we get a $120 million [increase] to the budget and half goes to security, we are not getting that boost," said the Indiana Republican.