The Park Service is the caretaker of many of the nation’s most precious natural and cultural resources. Today, more than 130 years after the first national park was created, the National Park System has grown to include 390 units covering over 84 million acres. These units include a diverse mix of sites—now in more than 20 different categories. The Park Service’s mission is to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources of the National Park System for the enjoyment of this and future generations. Its objectives include providing for the use of the park units by supplying appropriate visitor services and infrastructure (e.g., roads and facilities) to support these services. In addition, the Park Service protects its natural and cultural resources (e.g., preserving wildlife habitat and Native American sites) so that they will be unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The Park Service receives its main source of funds to operate park units through appropriations in the ONPS account. The Park Service chooses to allocate funds to its park units in two categories—one for daily operations, and another for specific, non-recurring projects. Daily operations allocations for individual park units are built on park units’ allocation for the prior year. Park units receive an increased allocation for required pay increases and may request specific increases for new or higher levels of ongoing operating responsibilities, such as adding additional law enforcement rangers for increased homeland security protection. As is true for other government operations, the cost of operating park units will increase each year due to required pay increases, the rising costs of benefits for federal employees, and rising overhead expenses such as utilities. The Park Service may provide additional allocations for daily operations to cover all or part of these cost increases. If the continuation of operations at the previous year’s level would require more funds than are available, park units must adjust either by identifying efficiencies within the park unit, use other authorized funding sources such as fees or donations to fund the activity, or reduce services. Upon receiving their allocations for daily operations each year, park unit managers exercise a great deal of discretion in setting operational priorities. Generally, 80 percent or more of each park unit’s allocation for daily operations is used to pay the salaries and benefits of permanent employees (personnel costs). Park units use the remainder of their allocations for daily operations for overhead expenses such as utilities, supplies, and training, among other things. In addition to daily operations funding, the Park Service also allocates project-related funding to park units for specific purposes to support its mission. For example, activities completed with Cyclic Maintenance and Repair and Rehabilitation funds include re-roofing or re-painting buildings, overhauling engines, refinishing hardwood floors, replacing sewer lines, repairing building foundations, and rehabilitating campgrounds and trails. Park units compete for project allocations by submitting requests to their respective regional office and headquarters. Regional and headquarters officials determine which projects to fund. While an individual park unit may receive funding for several projects in one year, it may receive none the next. Park units are authorized to collect revenue from outside sources such as visitor fees and donations—although how they are used may be limited to specific purposes. Since 1996, the Congress has provided the park units with authority to collect fees from visitors and retain these funds for use on projects to enhance recreation and visitor enjoyment, among other things. Since 2002, the Park Service has required park units to spend the majority of their visitor fees on deferred maintenance projects, such as road or building repair. The Park Service also receives revenue from concessionaires under contract to perform services at park units—such as operating a lodge—and cash or non-monetary donations from non-profit organizations or individuals. These funds may vary from year to year and, in the case of donations, may be accompanied by stipulations on how the funds may be used. Overall appropriations for the ONPS account—including the amounts the Park Service allocated for daily operations and projects—rose in both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars overall from fiscal year 2001 through 2005. Appropriations increased in nominal terms from about $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2001 to almost $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2005, an average annual increase of about 4.9 percent (i.e., about $68 million per year). After adjusting these amounts for inflation, the average annual increase was about 1.3 percent or almost $18 million per year. By contrast, the Park Service’s overall budget authority increased to about $2.7 billion in 2005 from about $2.6 billion in 2001, an average increase of about 1 percent per year. In inflation adjusted dollars, the total budget authority fell by an average of about 2.5 percent per year. Figure 1 shows the appropriations for the ONPS account from fiscal years 2001 through 2005. The Park Service’s total allocation for daily operations for park units increased overall in nominal dollars but declined slightly when adjusted for inflation from fiscal year 2001 through 2005. As illustrated in figure 2, overall allocations for daily operations for park units rose from about $903 million in fiscal year 2001 to almost $1.03 billion in fiscal year 2005—an average annual increase of about $30 million, or about 3 percent. After adjusting for inflation, the allocation for daily operations fell slightly from about $903 million in 2001 to about $893 million in 2005—an average annual decline of about $2.5 million, or 0.3 percent. The fiscal year 2005 appropriation for the ONPS account included an additional $37.5 million over the amounts proposed by the House and Senate for the ONPS account, to be used for daily operations. The conference report accompanying the appropriation stated that the additional amount was to be used for (1) a service-wide increase of $25 million and (2) $12.5 million for visitor services programs at specific park units. Allocations for projects and other support programs increased overall in both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars. These allocations rose from about $478 million in 2001 to about $641 million in 2005—an average annual increase of about 7.7 percent, or about $36.5 million. When adjusted for inflation, the increase was 3.9 percent, or about $18.7 million per year. Figure 3 shows allocation trends of projects and other support programs for the Park Service from fiscal years 2001 through 2005. Three programs that include project funding for individual park units—Cyclic Maintenance, Repair and Rehabilitation, and Inventory and Monitoring— account for over half of the increase for the project and support program allocations. As a percentage of total project and support program funding, funding for these programs rose to 31 percent in 2005 from 23 percent in 2001. For example, Cyclic Maintenance program funding increased from $34.5 million in 2001 to $62.8 million in 2005—an average annual increase of 16.2 percent in nominal terms or 12.1 percent when adjusted for inflation. Increases in the Cyclic Maintenance and Repair and Rehabilitation programs reflect an emphasis on the effort for the Park Service to reduce its estimated $5 billion maintenance backlog. Increases in the Inventory and Monitoring Program reflect an emphasis on protecting natural resources primarily through an initiative called the Natural Resource Challenge. Visitor fees are also used to support park units. Overall, the Park Service collected about $717 million in visitor fees in addition to their annual appropriation for operations from 2001 through 2005, increasing from about $140 million to about $147 million in 2005 (an average annual increase of about 1 percent); however, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the Park Service collected about $670 million in visitor fees, falling from about $140 million in 2001 to about $127 million 2005 (an average annual decline of over 2 percent). Overall, the Park Service collected an average of about $143 million per year in nominal terms or about $134 million per year when adjusted for inflation. Visitor fee revenue depends on several factors, including the number of visitors to each park unit, the number of national passes purchased, and the amount each park charges for entry and services. All 12 park units we visited received allocations for projects from fiscal years 2001 through 2005 that varied among years and among park units. Allocations for daily operations for the 12 park units we visited also varied. On an average annual basis, each unit experienced an increase in daily operations allocations, but most experienced a decline in inflation- adjusted terms. Officials at each park believed that their daily operations allocations were not sufficient to address increases in operating costs and new Park Service management requirements. To manage within available funding resources, park unit managers also reported that, to varying degrees, they made trade-offs among the operational activities—which in some cases resulted in reducing services in areas such as education, visitor and resource protection, and maintenance activities. Park officials also reported that they increasingly relied on volunteers and other authorized funding sources to provide operations and services that were previously paid with allocations for daily operations from the ONPS account. Park units use project-related allocations for such things as rehabilitating structures, roads, and trails; and inventorying and monitoring natural resources. The allocations for projects at the 12 park units totaled $76.8 million from 2001 through 2005. Allocations varied from park to park and year to year because these allocations support non-recurring projects for which park units are required to compete and obtain approval from Park Service headquarters or regional offices. For example, at Grand Canyon National Park, allocations for projects between 2001 and 2005 totaled $6.7 million. However, during that time, the amount fluctuated from $824,000 in 2001 to $1.9 million in 2004 and $914,000 in 2005. Appendix I shows project-related allocations and their fluctuations from fiscal years 2001 through 2005 for the 12 parks we visited.