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Is Outsourcing Parks A Key To Solving The National Park Service's Financial Woes?

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Would it make sense to turn management of Bryce Canyon National Park entirely over to a business?/Kurt Repanshek

With a park system that is being strangled by its maintenance backlog and operating costs, would the National Park Service, and the system, be better off if the agency outsourced entire parks?

That isn't necessarily a ridiculous idea on its face. Already the Park Service contracts with others to manage its lodgings, restaurants, and many campgrounds, and it relies heavily on volunteers to cope with visitors. So why not go all in? Would it make a stronger, more efficient, and better managed park system if individual units were treated, say, as franchises that were independently managed? 

The idea was raised last month in Bozeman, Montana, during a three-day workshop the Property and Environment Research Center held on the next century of the National Park Service. The topic certainly is timely, as the Park Service's centennial arrives on August 25, 2016, and, at least outwardly, more emphasis so far has been placed on how to celebrate the agency rather than what can make the agency better going forward.

Understandably, with a maintenance backlog estimated at more than $11.5 billion, congressional appropriations relatively flat, and unwieldy concession operations, fiscal fitness should be a key aspect of any long-range planning by the agency.

From the perspective of one of the workshop's presenters, Holly Fretwell, the Park Service appears to be an inefficient agency that likely could benefit by placing the day-to-day operation of some, if not many, of its units into the hands of the business community.

'œTo me, if we thought about this from some sort of economic perspective, the point of the National Park Service, the reason that you would want sort of that umbrella entity, is to lower the transaction cost of having these parks function," Ms. Fretwell, a research fellow at PERC and an adjunct economics instructor at Montana State University, said in a follow-up interview. "If it'™s not doing that, if it'™s actually increasing the transaction costs, then it'™s not serving its purpose. And I think at this point it might be increasing those transaction costs."

Whether the Park Service's staggering fiscal morass is due to managerial pitfalls or congressional underfunding has been, and will continue to be, debated. By placing some units under outside managers -- franchisees could be one descriptor -- not only could lead the units to become economically viable, but also help control Congress's appetite for creating park system units that might not quite fit the mold.

Would a First State National Monument be any less if a non-profit organization ran it, much like the Mount Vernon Ladies Association runs George Washington's home? Should $8 million-$26 million in tax dollars be spent in the coming years to fund the proposed Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, or should an outside group step forward with a plan to raise those funds on its own and operate such a park under the NPS umbrella?

'œWhy do we have a National Park Service anyway? What is the NPS, and what is it doing for us?" questioned Ms. Fretwell. "Is it providing a great service and helping us lower the transaction costs for us to have these wonderful parks, or is it not?"

There still would be a need for a Park Service, she went on, to manage park units that don't quite fit a business model but which we as a society still want preserved, either for their historical significance or natural resources. Units that might fit that description could include Buck Island Reef National Monument in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mojave National Preserve in California, or St. Croix Island National Historic Site in Maine.

"I have a concern for these areas that are worthy of protection, but they can'™t pay for themselves. I don'™t want to cut those out and say everybody should be able to run as a franchise and everybody should be self-sufficient and everything'™s fine and dandy," Ms. Fretwell explained. "I do think that there are places worth protecting that will not be financially self-sufficient. I do think there are places for protecting that we do want people to recreate in that, sort of as a general populace, if they were privately run and managed the fees to go in there would be so high that most of us wouldn'™t be able to go.

"... I guess my big goal is to try to say how can we manage for those that can be better managed as a private sector or as public entity with sort of this franchise idea, because I don'™t think it'™s politically feasible or even politically appropriate at this time to say privatize them. I think that just turns too many people off. We'™re not going to get anywhere that way."

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Buck Island Reef, which protects "one of the finest marine gardens in the Caribbean Sea," might not lend itself to private management/National Park Foundation

While she sees possibilities for creating "franchises," if you will, Ms. Fretwell also believes prospective units of the park system could be better evaluated than they currently are if they had a groundswell of support and also met a currently undefined set of standards or parameters for being a "national park."

"If there'™s a big enough group that says we really should be protecting this because it'™s a wonderful recreation area and we don'™t want it to be developed ... in that sense then we should be able to make it reasonably self-sufficient and then by golly let'™s create a business plan," she said. "The way that you get into the National Park System now is you create a business plan and you figure out how you'™re going to manage this, and you apply for a franchise."

That approach already can be seen, to a certain extent, across the country. The Nature Conservancy manages many of its own properties, and even owns the majority (nearly 11,000 acres) of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas and co-manages it with the Park Service. The Audubon Society owns and runs the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary on Cape Cod. These non-profits have developed successful business plans to operate lands that would seem natural additions to the National Park System.

"If it really is worthy to be there, then people need to see it'™s worthiness and its value for the long-term period, and you need to be able to generate revenues for it to cover the costs for the long-term," said Ms. Fretwell.

While the "national park" cachet is potent, and has led to efforts to rebrand units of the park system as "national parks," Ms. Fretwell doesn't fear that a unit operated by a business rather than the National Park Service would lose its drawing appeal.

'œIn my mind, it'™s still going to be a national park. It'™s under the National Park Service, and if you'™ve gotten that franchise then you've said, 'I am worthy and this area is worthy of National Park System status,'" she said. 

'œIs it (the NPS) helping us, helping the parks be more functional today, or is it making them more costly? I don'™t have an answer to that, it'™s sort of a rhetorical question. But I think it needs to be addressed.'

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Lee, the NPS websites in general are difficult at best if you're searching for items. The Morning Report site is particularly bad. I've been following it for years and a quick search this morning failed to return any specific legislative proposals, let alone the Park Service's position.

I can tell you that originally the agency opposed Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park, and that it supports the proposed Blackstone River Valley site. 

Rick, we don't need necessarily to credit or discredit the source of the idea, but to consider the idea by itself as a possible solution for the Park Service's funding issues. The idea offers more than a few possibilities, both in the profit- and non-profit worlds, as well as state park systems.  


Three cheers to Kurt for writing this article. It proves that The Traveler believes in ideas and not just a "party line." The ideas we oppose deserve to be debated, too. Now, what is so bothersome about the idea of "privatizing" the parks? Simply, they would no longer reflect a national consensus that our heritage deserves PUBLIC care.

The point is: It is not just the privatizers questioning that consensus. It is rather our "educators" often leading the pack. Beginning in the 1960s, college revolutionaries taught that everything American was suspect, then in response to the Vietnam War. By the 1980s they were in charge. Don't think for a moment that all of this is coming from conservatives, i.e., Republicans. There are as many "liberals" who would do away with the national park system as a "taking" from minority groups. They teach at the University of Wisconsin, Stanford University, Brown, and many others. These faculty are the direct opposite of what we had before 1960 when we could take pride in American "exceptionalism."

If we want to solve the Park Service's funding problem, we have to BELIEVE in what the agency does. If someone cannot teach that, how can we expect the Park Service--or the national park idea--to survive?

The point about PERC is that they invited Kurt to the table knowing full well what he believes--and believes in. Think about that for a change. Of course, there goes Kurt's chance of ever speaking at a college commencement. However, somehow I think he doesn't mind.

 


Teachers know that students learn best when they do their own homework.

Which just shows the "teacher" in this case doesn't know.

At least Jim made a stab - although in that case it never got through Congress.  Lee, you made the case that a burden has been put on the NPS by Congress driving the expansion.  With the exception of Kirk's Patterson Great Falls - which "initially" was opposed, I have yet to see an example of a Park unit designated by Congress over the NPS's objection. 


How can a government agency actually stand up and oppose Congress?  Kinda like standing on the railroad tracks to oppose that oncoming freight train.

 


Exactly, Lee. NPS can oppose it; they can also piddle on the carpet of those who fund NPS. A well reasoned science-based fact filled argument will only theorhetically change the course of those politicians who have been bought and paid for.


Does anybody have a few stats about how the NPS spends its money?  Like, how many % spent on salaries, pensions, infrastructures, consultant, etc?  How much is spent in the parks vs administration?

All bureaucracies have this innate tendency to tend to operate for their own benefit over time.  I'm sure some of it is true at the NPS.  Not that a chronic underfunding helps any.

I'm with Kurt and EC.  We should debate the merits (or lack thereof) of the idea rather than using an ideological prism to judge it first.


For a country that spends $ 600 Billion + annually on defense spending, an $11.5 billion backlog seems almost trivial. I guess we need to decide what our true priorities are in this country. I am a person who loves to utilize my public lands and I don't mind paying more for the privilage. I also believe for all the faults in the NPS, it is neccassary and truly underfunded.   


How can a government agency actually stand up and oppose Congress?

By saying "we don't want it" as the military has done in many instances.  They don't always win, but at least they take the stand. 

Please "teacher" show us where NPS's objections to a unit have been overruled.

[edit] - I have discovered that if you expand the search option to all of NPS.gov rather than to  the site you linked, you do indeed get many hits on "opposes".  And in fact, many of those hits discuss the NPS opposing legislation - mostly legislation that interfers with their management.  Apparently unlike others, they do have the backbone to oppose and aren't afraid to piss on the rug.  They just don't oppose proposals to expand their domain.


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