Dollars fail to keep pace with operating expenses at Washington's national parks

YAKIMA — Thirteen jobs at North Cascades National Park. Roughly 25 positions in Olympic National Park. At Mount Rainier, 18 permanent positions are sitting vacant, waiting to be filled — and that's in addition to five supervisory jobs that were abolished several years ago to save money.

Across the country, national parks are fighting an uphill battle — declining dollars for staff, maintenance and overall operations — and Washington's three mountainous parks are no different.

"We're now to the point where we've cut away so much of the meat of the budget that we're starting to get close to the bone. And that's the stuff the visitors see and will continue to see as this budget trajectory continues," said Bill Paleck, superintendent at North Cascades National Park in north-central Washington.

The three parks serve an estimated 5.5 million visitors each year.

To be fair, park appropriations haven't declined. But they also haven't kept pace with the rising cost of operations, which include everything from staff, utilities and fuel to educational programs and trail maintenance.

Since 1997, Mount Rainier has been short an estimated $275,000 annually — about 3 percent of its operating expenses. The park has absorbed the unrelieved costs, but compound that figure over 10 years, and the lost dollars begin to add up, Superintendent Dave Uberuaga said.

Mount Rainier's current operating budget is $10.2 million.

"We're all at the point where we're saying, 'We're doing the best we can,' " Uberuaga said. "But we need public understanding."

At Olympic National Park, about 25 positions on average have gone unfilled each year to save money and ensure that visitor centers remain open during the busy summer season.

But not only do the dollars fail to stretch far enough, they also do not cover the growing complexity of the park, spokeswoman Barb Maynes said.

Thirty to 40 years ago, if a bridge washed out, a trail crew would simply fell two trees and rebuild it, she said. Today, park officials must analyze the environmental impact of building a new bridge and build it from materials that are not on hand, such as fiberglass.

"We work really hard to make sure that we're spending taxpayers' money as wisely as we can," she said. "But these are definitely challenging times. The federal government, including the park service, is tightening the belt."

Things could be worse. Parks have been able to keep 80 percent of the fees they collect since 1997, when Congress recognized that federal dollars weren't keeping pace with expenses.

In recent years, the three Washington parks also have received money for badly needed — but highly expensive — construction projects.

North Cascades National Park renovated the Golden West Visitor Center in 2004, at a cost of about $2 million. Olympic National Park recently completed several road projects, as well as a multiyear project to replace a culvert that had failed, preventing fish from moving upstream.

Mount Rainier is building a new visitor center to replace the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center in Paradise. The park also is refurbishing Paradise Inn, an aging lodge and restaurant built in 1917. Together, the two projects will cost about $32 million.

The two projects will help to ease the deferred maintenance backlog at Mount Rainier, mainly because they account for so much of it, Uberuaga said. At the same time, though, Mount Rainier has some of the oldest — and most expensive — infrastructure to maintain simply because of its age at 106.

"We're open 24-7, every day of the year. We never, ever close."

The declining dollars also mean more demand for volunteers and donations, such as the new specialty license plates that help support the park system. For the sale or renewal of each Washington plate, $28 goes to the parks.

In the first six months, plate sales have raised about $41,000.

"There's more and more pressure on us to make up for the parks being underfunded," said Betsy Edwards, executive director of Washington's National Park Fund, a nonprofit group that raises money for the state's national parks.

The group has raised about $1.7 million in the past 10 years. That money is awarded through a grant process to the parks for projects that enhance the visitor experience, such as signage and literature or programs for school students.

But the group doesn't provide money for ongoing maintenance or operations.

"We want to make sure there's stuff beyond what our tax dollars are already paying for," Edwards said.