Stunted park service budget hurts park programs

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

RIVER VALLEY — As a cultural resources specialist at the National Park Service, Mary Curtis often worked with citizens and property owners to help them understand pieces of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River history.

Towards the end of her career in 2001, she compiled and wrote a complete administrative history of the park service’s presence in the river corridor, and through various outreach programs, she taught many groups about resource management.

She lost her job in 2001 because the Zane Grey Museum curator position and hers were consolidated. The history text she wrote remains unpublished, and when her position lapsed, so did the park’s ability to provide adequate education for local people, Curtis said.

“If I said that one person could perform both jobs, I would admit that I was not doing my own,” she said, insisting that the consolidation created a void of historic interpretation in the corridor.

According to National Park Service (NPS) Superintendent David Forney, losing people like Curtis has become an unstoppable trend. If Congress continues to stall growth of the park’s general operating budget, positions will continue to lapse. Assistant Superintendent Sandra Schultz said interpretive and park operations and maintenance positions are the first to go.

Three operations and maintenance positions lapsed last year, and now only one regional historian is employed.

Rocky Aguerri lost his interpretive ranger position in 2003, “a position that was vital for youth education about subjects like water quality,” Forney said.

“In essence, we have to lose one position a year to stay within our authorized budget. I have no intention of filling Rocky’s job. That would be impossible,” Forney said.

He explained that Congress has appropriated money to the NPS for operation, but there is only so much it can spread out across 388 units, the vast majority of which are in competition for budget increases.

While Congress approves hikes in the cost of living, it does not approve corresponding budgetary increases, and paying for the cost of living comes out of existing park funds, Forney said. The Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River has not received an increase in its operating budget since 1990.

“We have lost a huge portion of our ability to provide education about preservation of the river corridor,” Forney said.

Fewer seasonal employees are hired each summer at the Zane Grey Museum in Lackawaxen, PA. In 2002, five seasonal employees were hired, and in 2003, the park service could only hire one full-time person and had to supplement the museum’s work force with five university interns.

On a national level, recent reports indicate that NPS units have begun to review contracts with private, commercial businesses. A spring 2003 article in PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) Review claims that 11,000 NPS permanent workforce positions could eventually be replaced by employees of private contractors.

“Positions subject to contracting include operations and maintenance staff but also park biologists, archeologists, environmental specialists and interpretive park rangers,” according to the article.

The privatization of civil service positions is an outgrowth of President Bush’s Competitive Sourcing program, overseen by the Office of Management and Budget.

Forney said the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River is not subject to the outsourcing movement, which tends to target urban areas where corporate competition is available.

The main reason for the present deficit is a recent decision that requires all federal agencies to contribute more money to the national retirement system, he said.

So what do the people who work with NPS say? Lori McKean of the Eagle Institute said one reason her interpretive program works as well as it does is that it relies very little on NPS staff. Others that relied on NPS are probably long-gone by now. “They still keep us plowed in the winter the best they can,” she added.

Kittatinny Canoes co-owner Dave Jones said NPS does a good job on the river for the most part. However, he said staffing should be considered in the same way that private business does, increased or reduced according to the season.

“I’d like to see more safety briefings at launchings, whether at private or public launch sites. And I think they need to show a more visible focus on the river, on the water not the shoreline, give helpful hints and advice, certainly during the river season. That would help deter problems and be better for everyone,” he said.