Group warns against Park Service cuts

Glacier National Park could see a very lean budget in 2013, the National Park Conservation Association warned last week. The parks advocacy group has more than 300,000 members.

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failed to reach an agreement on how to cut the federal budget deficit earlier this month. With that failure, automatic cuts in the budget are set to go into effect in January 2013. For the National Park Service, that means an 8 percent cut across all programs.

"Things are going to get really, really bad," said John Garder, NPCA's budget and appropriations legislative representative.

Garder predicted many national parks, including Glacier, will have to make severe cuts in seasonal staff to bridge the budget gaps. Parks can't simply cut the pay of permanent employees unless Congress legislates it, so Park managers have to cut positions, Garder explained.

Parks also have fixed costs. For Glacier Park, that includes paying for fuel to plow the Going-to-the-Sun Road and Congressional mandates for cost-of-living increases for permanent employees. Glacier currently receives an appropriation of nearly $14 million but gets other project funding and fee income from entrance, campground and other fees.

The total Glacier Park budget is about $23 million, Glacier Park spokeswoman Denise Germann said. The Park has 140 permanent employees and 360 seasonal employees.

Garder notes that the National Park Service's budget amounts to 1/13th of 1 percent of the total federal budget - about $2.6 billion.

"National Parks are not the cause of our deficit problems," Garder argued.

According to a recent NPCA study, every federal dollar invested in national parks generates at least four dollars of economic value to the public. National parks support $13.3 billion of local private-sector economic activity and 267,000 private-sector jobs, the report claims.

Meanwhile, the number of commissioned rangers in the National Park Service has declined from 1,841 in 1980 to 1,417 in 2010. The number of seasonal rangers has dropped as well, from 616 in 1980 to 511 in 2010.

As the economy sees a downturn, national parks have seen an increase in visitation because they're seen as an inexpensive vacation. Visitation to national parks topped 281 million in 2010.

There's still a year to hash out the budget situation, Garder noted, but already parks are seeing flat budgets or cuts in budgets.

A flat budget, he noted, is the same as a budget cut because of fixed costs.

The across-the-board cut, if it stands, would also impact the Forest Service. The Flathead National Forest has about 180 permanent employees and 200 temporary employees in the summer months.