From Deseret News archives:
National parks in budget turmoil
Money going to proect 'icon' parks from terror
While Scarlett says more money goes to parks than published budgets clearly show, Wade contends that Interior practices often rob more money from those budgets than is apparent. To demonstrate, he quoted from a letter "from a midlevel manager in one of the NPS areas" who wanted anonymity from Wade's group to protect his job.
"Every year every operational budget in a park is hit by assessments. Here is what we incurred in (fiscal) 2004: an across the board reduction (from Congress of 1.4 percent) . . . , a 0.646 percent Department of the Interior reduction, a 0.59 percent reduction called for in the omnibus bill, a uniform assessment, an assessment for computer software licensing, and a 2 percent assessment from our regional office," the letter said.
The manager added, "And each year, it costs us more to run parks. In short we have been sucker-punched, and it seems that our own leaders have thrown the punch."
Wade said, "When (Park Service Director Fran) Mainella and Secretary Norton say there is more money in parks per acre and per employee than ever before, they are talking about the money appropriated by Congress. . . . It's misleading because that amount of money never gets to parks intact."
Scarlett acknowledged midseason adjustments are made but said they may hurt or help individual parks. For example, she said most regions hold back 2 percent of park budgets as a hedge against unforeseen problems, such as hurricane or flood damage. If that is not needed, it is returned to parks.
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Deseret Morning News graphic
National parks budgets
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