Financial Structure of the National Park Service Essay

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financial structure of the National Park Service (NPS). It reviews their operations, discussing how they generate revenue and manage their financing. The paper also reviews their financial performance along with their organizational structure.

The NPS had its beginning when Congress set aside the watershed of the Yellowstone River "for the benefit and enjoyment of the people" with the Yellowstone National Park Act of 1872. The actual system of national parks administered under a federal bureau began with the creation of the NPS on August 25, 1916 when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act. Established under the U.S. Department of the Interior, the NPS was responsible for protecting the 40 national parks and monuments then in existence (Smith, 2011).

There was no single agency providing unified management of the varied federal parklands until an Executive Order in 1933 transferred 63 national monuments and military sites from the Forest Service and War Department to the NPS. This action was a significant step in the development of today's truly national system of parks, a system that includes areas of historical, cultural, scientific, and scenic importance. Currently additions to the NPS are generally made through acts of Congress, and likewise national parks can be created only through such acts. The NPS today is made up of more than 380 areas that cover more than 83 million acres in 49 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands (Smith, 2011).

The NPS is under the executive branch of the U.S. Government, Department of the Interior, headed up by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, a member of the Cabinet of the President. Reporting to Salazar is the NPS Director, with headquarters located in Washington D.C. The Comptroller, who reports to the Director, has the following departments reporting to him: Accounting Operations Center, Budget Formulation, Budget Execution, Budget Construction, Property Management, Audits and Accountability, and GSA Space (Headquarters Organization 2005).

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The NPS develops a budget each February for the next fiscal year which starts October 1. The budget defines NPS goals and objectives, as well as the funding necessary to accomplish them. The NPS budget is rolled up into the budget for the Department of the Interior, and then with the rest of the Executive Branch, and then submitted to Congress for review and approval. The following data shows the most recent funding and employee levels:

FY2011 (request) $3.14 billion 21,501 employees

FY 2010 $3.16 billion 21, 574 employees

FY 2009 $2.92 billion 20, 876 employees (Budget, 2010)

In addition to appropriated funds, the NPS is authorized to collect and retain revenue from specific sources:

Recreation fees: approximately $190 million per year

Park concessions franchise fees: approximately $60 million per year

Filming and photography special use fees: approximately $1.2 million per year

An additional source of funds is provided by the National Park Foundation, NPS' Congressionally chartered national philanthropic partner which donates money, property and time to the NPS (Budget, 2010).

NPS revenues derive primarily from park visitors. In 2010, the NPS was host to 281.3 million visitors, a decrease of 1.5% from 2009. The 2011 forecast projects an increase of 1.7% to 286.2 million visitors, with 2012 forecasts for a 1% increase to 288.9 million guests (Public Use Statistics Office, 2011). A significant source of NPS revenues is entrance fees. Repanshek reports that entrance fees revenues across the NPS dipped slightly in 2010 by comparison with 2009; NPS officials are uncertain as to what caused the decline (Repanshek, 2011).

In 2010, fees from park specific passes, daily entrance fees, various interagency fees, and commercial fees totaled $125,776,233, a decrease from $129,640,627 in 2009, according to figures tracked by Jan Moore, NPS' fee program manager in Washington D.C......

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