Do you send the Park Service a little extra $$$?/Kurt Repanshek
After you've purchased your annual parks pass, or paid your week-long entrance fee to your favorite national park, how much more money do you send to the National Park Service?
In these days of fragile funding for the National Park System, that seems a fair question to ask. After all, federal funding for the parks is not growing in leaps and bounds, and parks are raising fees. And yet, if you're over 62 years old, ten bucks will get you a lifetime pass to the parks. If you volunteer in the parks, and have put in at least 250 hours, you get a free pass. If you're a member of the military, you get a free annual pass.
While the National Park Service doesn't seem to be moving in the direction of increasing those fees, there's nothing to prevent you from sending the parks additional dollars at the entrance gate to your favorite park.
Do you?
Comments
I gave the Great Smoky Mtns National Park about $80 million in extra stimulus monies a couple of years ago and they thanked me by instituting fees for firefly viewing and backcountry camping. Those monies are tax dollars and they come from taxpayer pockets. Presently I give them several hours volunteer work per week and they still make me pay to use the park. They will get no more money from my pocket until they quit lying and fee grabbing and Jarvis is gone for good and an honest administration takes the helm at the National Fee Service. 80 million extra stimulus dollars is 4 times the GRSM annual budget. But there is never enough money for these bureaucrats. Money is the cure for all the park woes, according to the NPS. I disagree. Honest mangement that follows civic engagement process is the antidote.
I do have my geezer pass, which on my fixed retirement income is nice. I'm a confirmed gift shop junkie - I visit a park, I have to buy their swag. If there are donation boxes, I drop what I can.
Being a bit closer to the parks than some [married to an employee] I also donate 'in kind' nickle and dime all the time. Haul stuff for my wife from one place to another to help her on the job when she can't get a park vehicle. Host the potluck for the entire park staff in my back yard every summer. Hell, there is even a simulated camp site in one of the museum exhibits that has a chunk of my firewood in it. As I say, these sorts of things are nickle and dime, but I feel good about them because it is what I can do.
Eric - I heard you discuss the question in the article above, but I didn't hear you answer the question.
While I sympathize with your sentiment the praticality escapes me. Are we to put a check box for every budget line item on the tax return? I know that isn't what you are proposing but why would NPS deserve a box any more than any other agency?
Unfortunately, we live in a world where people like to complain but aren't willing to lift a finger - or their wallets - to do anything about it.
I bought a full priced annual pass and have spent considerable monies within the Parks. Like most everyone else here, I haven't written an unsolicted check. Unlike many here, I haven't complained about the fees I do pay nor claimed that underfunding was the cause for any and all of the parks' problems.
I also disagree with the underlying pretense of this article. Not everyone agrees that the NPS is underfunded. Let's take a look at the salary load for bureaucrats in the NPS, that would be a journalistic undertaking. Compare it with other agencies within the federal government and then let's start a real discussion instead of a knee-jerk, feel good, Ken Burns type of "we are all in agreement about the poor NPS" article.
It's absurd to think you can compare the Parks Service with other federal agencies that don't manage millions of acres of land (and the Forest Service/BLM are not appropriate comparisosn as well, as their mission in management is entirely different). Maybe a State Parks agency could provide a better comparison.
Gila Monster asked why members of the military get a free annual pass. It's because the Obama administration decided to do that to show support for them. It's not just the military member him/herself that gets a pass, so does any military dependent over age 16. (Age 16 and under is exempt from entrance fees.)
I agree with Smokiesbackpacker that like any other federal agency, there is not enough money in the world to satisfy the NPS and get them to stop claiming to be underfunded. This is not unique to them, the Forest Service and BLM constantly make the same complaint and they do a much poorer job than the NPS does of documenting what they spend their funding on.