Utah parks feel pinch

Second in a three-part series

Ask any national park superintendent in Utah what new or expanded government-funded services their parks provided visitors this year. Their answer is almost always the same: none.

But they usually can list several cuts — ranging from slicing staff to reducing visitor center hours, reducing law enforcement patrols and even cutting back on garbage collection.

That comes even though the Bush administration claims election-year credit for park operations budgets that — as stated in a recent Park Service pamphlet about administration accomplishments — offer "more funds per employee, per acre and per visitor than any time in the history of the National Park Service."

A Deseret Morning News analysis of published base park budgets shows that 10 of the 13 National Park Service units in Utah were cut between 2003 and 2004. (The first installment of this series, which ran Sunday, detailed that three of every four parks nationally also had base budgets cut this year — even though overall, combined funding was up slightly.)

The administration says those published budgets did not include money from several national programs for resource improvement or repair projects. It says if that project money is added, most parks had budget increases this year — including eight of 13 Utah NPS sites.

No matter whether budgets are actually up or down, park superintendents and Interior Department data indicate cuts at Utah parks are common, and service enhancements are rare.

Following is a park-by-park look at budgets and resulting service cuts (listed in order of those with the biggest cuts in base budgets to the smallest).

Glen Canyon

• Base budget: $163,000 decrease

• Budget with project funding: $2.8 million decrease

This Lake Powell national recreation area had the 11th-largest cut to its base operations budget of any park in the nation: $163,000. (Interior Department data that included additional year-to-year project funding showed a far greater cut this year for the park: $2.8 million — but project funding can vary greatly annually.)

The Interior Department, in a written response to Morning News inquiries, said resulting operations cuts there include, "Permanent staff is taking on more responsibilities often performed in the past by lower-level seasonal staff. The contracts for garbage removal have been reduced from daily pickup to every other day."

The Interior Department did not say how many seasonal staffers were cut at Glen Canyon, although that information was sought and promised.