Park Service Tried to Conceal Service Cuts, Files Show

Officials urged to call them 'adjustments.'

by Zachary Coile
Fresno Bee - March 18, 2004

While boasting of modest budget increases this year, the National Park Service was quietly instructing park superintendents to cut services by deferring maintenance, closing visitor centers for parts of the year or eliminating interpretive programs by park rangers, new internal agency memos show.

Top agency officials, fearing an outcry if the cuts in services were publicized, urged park superintendents across the country not to issue press releases and to describe the changes as "service level adjustments" not as budget cuts.

"We will need to be sure that adjustments are taken from as many areas as is possible so that it won't cause public or political controversy," said a memo sent from the Park Service's regional office in Philadelphia last month to superintendents of all the Northeast national parks.

The memos were released Wednesday by a group of retired Park Service officials, who hope to dramatize what they consider inadequate spending for the agency, which they claim has diminished the experiences of park visitors and hurt employee morale.

The memo to Northeast park superintendents detailed a Feb. 17 phone call from the agency's No. 2 official, Deputy Director Randy Jones, to regional directors in which Jones warned that press releases about cuts in services would be problematic.

"(Jones) suggested that if you feel you must inform the public through a press release on this year's hours or days of operation, for example, that you state what the park's plans are and not to directly indicate that 'this is a cut,' " the memo said. "If you are personally pressed by the media in an interview, we all agreed to use the terminology of 'service level adjustment' due to fiscal constraints as a means of describing what actions we are taking."

A spokesman for the National Park Service in Washington denied the agency was trying to muzzle its regional officials. At the same time, he said the agency "didn't want to come off sounding ungrateful" for the relatively small budget increases it has received from Congress.

"We have 387 different units in the national park system across the country," spokesman Al Nash said, "and we weren't looking to have potentially 387 press releases telling the public that we didn't have enough money."

Critics of the agency blasted Park Service officials for preparing cuts in services at the same time they were announcing a new initiative to lure more visitors to the national parks, called "See America's National Parks."

"In other words, it was trying to jam more people into the parks at the same time it was setting the stage for cuts in essential services," said Denny Huffman, a former superintendent of Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado who is now with the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees.

Earlier this year, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella praised President Bush's proposal for the agency, which promised to increase its budget by $100 million to $2.4 billion a year.

But internal memos among top agency officials paint a much grimmer budget picture: The agency is facing rising costs -- to pay for cost-of-living salary increases for employees and rising homeland security expenses, as well as to oversee an ever-growing national park system. At the same time, the amount of money from Congress to pay for those added costs has in recent years remained about the same.

"A number of parks and offices in our region are in serious financial difficulty and began the fiscal year not being able to meet fixed costs," Ernest Quintana, the agency's Midwest regional director, wrote in a March 1 memo.

Several heavily visited national parks are already warning of new cuts this year. At Everglades National Park in Florida, 20 percent of permanent staff positions remain unfilled and the park has cut evening programs for visitors. Olympic National Park in Washington plans to close one visitor center and eliminate most seasonal ranger jobs this summer.

In California, which has 22 national parks, from seashores to historic sites, officials at each park are preparing to send the regional office their spending plans on Monday. Those proposals could include cuts in visiting hours and other park services.

Holly Bundock, a spokeswoman for the Pacific West region, said personnel costs make up at least 85 percent of the costs at most parks. With cost-of- living salary increases -- 4.1 percent this year -- park superintendents have to cut services a little bit each year just to stay solvent.

"That's been going on for 20 years," Bundock said. "We're definitely tightening our belts."

At Yosemite National Park, officials have been unable to fill open positions for several years, but have benefited from increased funding from Congress for its Yosemite Valley Plan. Park Service officials have also tapped outside groups, such as the Yosemite Association, to provide extra money.

"We've had to be a lot more creative," spokeswoman Deb Schweizer said.

The memo to superintendents in the Northeast suggested the kinds of cuts that may be made this year at some parks: "Close the visitor center on all federal holidays. Eliminate life guard services at one of the park's three guarded beaches. Eliminate all guided ranger tours. Let the manicured grasslands grow all summer. Close the park every Sunday and Monday. Close the visitor center for the months of November, January & February."