[Audit Report on Followup of Maintenance Activities, National Park Service]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office, www.gpo.gov]

Report No. 98-I-344

Title: Audit Report on Followup of Maintenance Activities, National
       Park Service

     Date: March 27, 1998



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     W-IN-NPS-002-96
                              

                              
     AUDIT REPORT
             

     FOLLOWUP OF MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE                 
                              
     
     Memorandum
  
     To:       Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks
  
     From:     Ronald K. Stith
               Acting Assistant Inspector General for Audits
  
     Subject:  Audit Report on Followup of Maintenance Activities,
               National Park Service (No. 98-I-344)

  
  
     INTRODUCTION

     This report presents the results of our followup review of
     recommendations contained in two prior reports
     on maintenance of the national park system: "Maintenance Work
     Performed for Non-Governmental Recipients, National Park Service"
     (No. 91-I-1321), issued in September 1991 (see Appendix 2), and
     "Maintenance of the National Park System, National Park Service" (No.
     92-I-455), issued in February 1992 (see Appendix 3). The objective of
     our review was to determine whether the National Park Service had
     satisfactorily implemented the recommendations made in these two
     reports and whether any new recommendations were warranted.
  
     BACKGROUND
  
     The National Park Service is responsible for protecting, safeguarding,
     and maintaining the assets of the national park system, which include
     about 15,000 buildings, 8,000 miles of roads, 1,400 bridges, 5,200
     housing units, 1,500 water and sewer systems, and an extensive
     network of trails. These assets, valued at over $50 billion, are
     located in approximately 370 park units, encompassing over 80 million
     acres. The Park Service is also responsible in some cases for
     maintaining and repairing concessioner and/or Government-owned
     buildings, structures, and lands used by concessioners. According to
     the Concessions Program Manager at the Park Service's Headquarters,
     as of June 1, 1997, there were 212 contracts that authorized
     concessioners to operate in 88 park units. The specific maintenance
     responsibilities of the concessioner and the Park Service were
     generally identified in the concession contracts and in maintenance
     agreements between concessioners and park units. In fiscal year 1996,
     the Park Service received funds of about $349 million under its
     Operation of the National Park System appropriation for maintenance
     of the national park system. Of this amount, approximately $275
     million was budgeted for operational maintenance activities for
     meeting daily park needs such as providing janitorial services;
     removing snow; and performing routine maintenance and repair of
     buildings, grounds, roads, and park-operated utility systems. About
     $59 million was budgeted for regional maintenance activities, which
     included a cyclical maintenance program and a repair and
     rehabilitation maintenance program. Cyclical maintenance is performed
     on a periodic basis of more than 1 year and includes such activities
     as resealing roads, repainting and reroofing buildings, and taking
     other preventive measures necessary to prolong the life of an asset.
     The repair and rehabilitation maintenance program addresses larger
     -scale projects that occur on a less frequent basis such as
     rehabilitating campgrounds and trails and replacing water and sewer
     lines. The remaining $15 million was budgeted for Servicewide
     maintenance programs that address national-level concerns such as
     employee housing, dam safety, and hazardous waste cleanup. The Park
     Service also received reimbursements for performing maintenance work
     for concessioners. These funds were retained by the respective park
     units for use in their maintenance programs. However, we could not
     readily determine the total reimbursements received in fiscal year
     1996 because some park units did not record these reimbursements in
     the designated account.
  
     According to various reports, the Park Service's maintenance backlog,
     which included repair/rehabilitation and reconstruction/replacement
     projects, has increased significantly over the years. In 1988, after
     the Park Service completed a $1 billion program to restore and
     rehabilitate park facilities, the General Accounting Office reported
     that the backlog was about $1.9 billion, which consisted of routine
     maintenance items such as repairing buildings, as well as major
     capital improvements such as replacing water and sewer systems and
     reconstructing roads. In 1996, the Park Service reported to the House
     of Representatives Committee on Appropriations that the backlog had
     reached an estimated $4.5 billion. The Park Service's most recent
     estimate is contained in the January 1997 document "National Park
     Service Maintenance Backlog Data." This document identified a backlog
     of "unfunded capital construction needs" (for projects over $500,000)
     of $5.6 billion, which consisted of $4.4 billion for resource
     preservation, repair, and rehabilitation of existing facilities and
     $1.2 billion for the construction of new facilities (see Appendix 6).
     (According to the Park Service's definition of maintenance, however,
     the construction of new facilities is not considered a maintenance
     project.) The document also reported a maintenance project backlog of
     between $435 million and $575 million. Although the Park Service
     listed specific projects in its $5.6 billion backlog, it did not
     identify the specific projects that the maintenance project backlog
     comprised. The document stated, "As part of its budget formulation
     process, the NPS [National Park Service] Washington Office surveys
     the field for desired annual funding levels, but actual backlog
     project lists are not collected centrally, since they quickly become
     outdated because of new priority requirements."
  
     SCOPE OF AUDIT
  
     The scope of our audit was limited to reviewing implementation actions
     taken by the Park Service on the eight recommendations contained in
     our 1991 and 1992 reports. As of October 30, 1995, the Department of
     the Interior's Division of Management Control and Audit Followup
     considered the eight recommendations implemented. These
     recommendations and the implementing actions are detailed in
     Appendices 2 and 3. This followup review was made in accordance with
     the "Government Auditing Standards," issued by the Comptroller
     General of the United States. Accordingly, we included such tests of
     records and other auditing procedures that were considered necessary
     under the circumstances.
  
     To accomplish our audit objective, we reviewed fiscal year 1995 and
     1996 maintenance activities related to the implementation of the
     recommendations at Golden Gate and Lake Mead National Recreation
     Areas and Sequoia/Kings Canyon and Everglades National Parks. Based
     on the results of our review at these four park units, we expanded
     our testing procedures by judgmentally selecting 18 additional
     concession contracts and related maintenance agreements from 12 other
     park units to determine the extent to which these agreements required
     park unit personnel to perform maintenance work without reimbursement
     that benefited concessioner operations. In addition, we obtained
     information on whether each of the 16 park units included in our
     review (4 visited and 12 contacted) was using the Park Service's
     standardized system to help manage and plan its maintenance
     operations in an effective manner. The locations visited and
     contacted during the audit and the concession contracts and related
     maintenance agreements included in this review are listed in
     Appendices 4 and 5, respectively.
  
     Because of the limited scope of our review, we evaluated the Park
     Service's system of internal controls related to its management of
     maintenance operations only to the extent that the internal controls
     affected the corrective actions taken in regard to the eight
     recommendations included in the two prior reports. We identified a
     control weakness related to the implementation of the Park Service's
     standardized maintenance management system. This weakness is
     discussed in the Results of Audit section of this report. Our
     recommendations, if implemented, should improve the internal controls
     in this area. We also reviewed the Department of the Interior's
     Annual Statement and Report to the President and the Congress, which
     is required by the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act, for
     fiscal year 1995 and the Department's Accountability Report for
     fiscal year 1996, which includes information required by the Act, and
     determined that no material weaknesses were reported that directly
     related to the objective and scope of this audit.
  
     PRIOR AUDIT COVERAGE
  
     Neither the General Accounting Office nor the Office of Inspector
     General has audited the Park Service's maintenance activities during
     the past 5 years.
  
     RESULTS OF AUDIT
     Of the eight recommendations made in our two prior audit reports, we
     found that five recommendations had been fully implemented and that
     three recommendations had been partially implemented. We considered
     the three recommendations partially implemented because the park 
     units we reviewed (1) had not taken sufficient action to modify
     concessioner maintenance agreements to provide for the recovery
     of the Park Service's costs for maintaining concessioner-operated
     facilities (Recommendation 2 in our 1991 report) and (2) had
     discontinued using the standardized maintenance management system
     developed to provide the park units with a mechanism for effectively
     planning and managing maintenance activities and for supporting
     budget requests for those activities
     (Recommendations 1 and 3 in our 1992 report).
  
     Reimbursement of Maintenance Costs
  
     Our 1991 report (No. 91-I-1321) identified park units that had, in
     effect, subsidized some concessioners by performing maintenance work
     which should have been paid for or performed by the concessioners.
     This occurred mainly because the maintenance responsibilities were
     not clearly delineated in the concession contracts or the related
     maintenance agreements. We also found instances in which (1)
     maintenance agreements did not require the concessioner to perform
     maintenance work that was specifically required in the concession
     contract or (2) concession contracts and related maintenance
     agreements specifically assigned the park unit responsibility for
     maintenance that benefited the concessioner. Our prior report also
     stated that park units generally were not recording reimbursable-type
     maintenance costs in the Park Service's accounting system to ensure
     the recovery of those costs.
  
     At the time of the prior audit, the responsible concession management
     specialists told us that the responsibilities for such maintenance
     would be transferred to the concessioners when the contracts and
     related maintenance agreements expired and were renegotiated. They
     further stated that the park units would require reimbursement for
     performing maintenance required to be accomplished by the
     concessioner. In that regard, Recommendation 2 of the report required
     park units to (1) identify all maintenance activities that directly
     benefit concessioners and other non-Governmental recipients, (2)
     specifically define the maintenance responsibilities of both the
     concessioners and the park units in future concession contracts or
     maintenance agreements, (3) use the Park Service's accounting system
     or park unit maintenance management systems to track concessioner
     maintenance costs, and (4) bill the concessioners or other non
     -Governmental recipients for their share of the maintenance costs that
     benefit their operations.
  
     We determined that of the four park units visited during our followup
     review, only Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park had taken adequate
     action to fully implement Recommendation 2. Specifically, a major
     concession contract and a maintenance agreement were finalized, which
     shifted the responsibility for certain maintenance work to the
     concessioner. We also found that when the Park performed maintenance
     work, such as snow plowing, which directly benefited the
     concessioner's operations, the applicable costs were properly
     identified, tracked, and billed to the new concessioner. Under the
     terms of the previous concession contract, which had been in effect
     for 25 years, the Park Service was required to perform maintenance
     work for the concessioner without any reimbursement.
  
     Based on our limited review of maintenance agreements judgmentally
     selected and obtained from the 12 park units we contacted, we found
     that the agreements for 4 of these units (Bryce Canyon, Mesa Verde,
     Rocky Mountain, and Zion National Parks) more clearly defined
     concessioner maintenance responsibilities. (We did not determine
     whether these 4 park units had fully implemented Recommendation 2
     because we did not test the maintenance expenditures at the 12 park
     units contacted to substantiate that the terms of the maintenance
     agreements were met.) However, the other three park units we visited
     (Lake Mead and Golden Gate National Recreation Areas and Everglades
     National Park) and the other eight park units we contacted (Big Bend,
     Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Olympic, Petrified Forest,
     and Yellowstone National Parks and Lake Meredith National Recreation
     Area) had not taken sufficient actions to fully implement the
     recommendation. Specifically, these park units had not clearly
     defined the concessioners' maintenance responsibilities when
     concession contracts expired or were extended by amendment or formal
     extension. Supervisory maintenance personnel at 4 of the 16 park
     units included in our review (Everglades, Grand Canyon, and
     Yellowstone National Parks and Lake Mead National Recreation Area)
     estimated that the Park Service spent about $597,000 annually at
     their park units for maintenance work that directly benefited the
     concessioners' operations (see Appendix 1). Examples of work
     performed at these locations that we believe should have been
     performed or paid for by the concessioners are as follows:
  
     - Everglades National Park personnel routinely performed maintenance
     for the concessioner under a maintenance agreement that was
     inconsistent with terms included in the 1979 concession contract.
     Under the contract, the concessioner was responsible for all
     maintenance of Government- and concessioner-owned buildings and
     grounds used in its operations. However, despite the contract terms,
     the Park assumed responsibility for much of this work when it
     negotiated a maintenance agreement with the concessioner in 1981. The
     Park's chief of maintenance stated that these maintenance activities,
     which included mowing grass and trimming trees on concession grounds,
     cost an estimated $167,000 annually. Park Service personnel could not
     explain why the Park assumed these maintenance responsibilities in
     the 1981 agreement.
  
     - Lake Mead National Recreation Area personnel, in compliance with
     the terms of the maintenance agreements, performed work related to
     concessioner facilities and operations, such as cleaning and
     maintaining concessioner parking lots, air landing strips, and fish-
     cleaning and comfort stations. The chief of maintenance estimated
     that about $173,000 was spent annually by the Park Service to perform
     this work.
  
     - Under three maintenance agreements, Grand Canyon National Park
     personnel were responsible for providing maintenance services that
     benefited concessioner facilities and operations. These services
     included removing snow and repairing roads, trails, parking areas,
     paths, and curbs. The chief of maintenance estimated that the Park
     spent almost $219,000 annually to perform this work.
  
     In addition, Lake Mead National Recreation Area maintenance personnel
     performed road maintenance for cabin lessees within the park unit.
     While not a concession issue, these expenditures, estimated at
     $13,000 annually, provided a special benefit to the cabin lessees. As
     required by Office of Management and Budget Circular A-25, "User
     Charges," which established guidelines for Government agencies to
     assess fees for Government services, the cabin lessees should have
     been responsible for these costs.
  
     Overall, we concluded that park unit management generally had not
     taken advantage of opportunities to negotiate maintenance agreements
     to assign concessioners responsibility for maintaining the facilities
     used in their operations. These managers told us that, in most
     instances, they did not seek to recover the costs of maintenance work
     because the terms of the concession contracts or related maintenance
     agreements specifically required that the work be performed by the
     Park Service and did not provide for reimbursement from the
     concessioners. However, we found that many of the maintenance
     agreements reviewed were associated with long-term contracts which
     had expired, some as many as 10 years ago. Overall, 21 of the 36
     concession contracts and related maintenance agreements that we
     reviewed had expired. The Concessions Program Manager at the Park
     Service's San Francisco Office said that when a concession contract
     expires, the Park Service can formally amend the contract for a
     multiple-year period, usually for 3 years, or it can issue a formal
     extension which will extend the terms of the original contract for an
     additional year. The Concessions Program Manager at Park Service
     Headquarters said that the park unit concessions managers have an
     opportunity to modify their maintenance agreements and transfer
     maintenance responsibilities to the concessioner when contracts are
     formally amended or formally extended. They further stated that
     concessions managers can modify the agreements when concession
     operations are sold because the Park Service is required by NPS-48 to
     formally ratify any sale before the new concessioner can begin
     operations. In that regard, we noted that the Park Service had an
     opportunity to modify the maintenance agreements for 30 of the 36
     contracts we reviewed: 21 expired contracts and 9 of the 15 unexpired
     concession contracts that had been purchased by new entities.
  
     We found, however, that most of the park units in our review did not
     modify the terms of the maintenance agreements when they had the
     opportunity to do so. The responsible concessions managers told us
     that they generally wanted to wait until new contracts were formally
     negotiated before they revised the maintenance agreements. Based on
     our review of the 36 maintenance agreements, we found only two
     instances where park units had modified the terms of the maintenance
     agreements: Rocky Mountain National Park, when a contract had
     expired, and Bryce Canyon National Park, when a concession operation
     was purchased by another entity. In the latter instance, the chief of
     maintenance stated that the Park modified the maintenance agreement
     in 1994, 10 years after the start of the contract. By modifying the
     agreement, certain maintenance responsibilities previously performed
     by Park Service personnel were transferred to the new concessioner.
     The chief of maintenance estimated that the Park would "save" from
     $25,000 to $100,000 annually over the remaining 10 years of the
     contract as a result of the modification and stated that these
     savings were used to address the Park's deferred maintenance backlog.
  
     Based on our tour of facilities at the four park units visited and on
     our discussions with the chiefs of maintenance, we determined that
     maintenance of Park Service facilities had been deferred, in part,
     because funds were used to maintain facilities used in the
     concessioners' operations. For example, the chief of maintenance at
     Everglades National Park said that he did not have $40,000 available
     to replace a deteriorated visitor facility, which provided access to
     a popular wilderness wetlands area, but that the Park spent an
     estimated $167,000 annually to perform maintenance work associated
     with the concessioner's operations. Based on our review of available
     documentation and on discussions with the Park's current and former
     concessions management officials, we determined that little effort
     had been made to negotiate the transfer of these maintenance
     responsibilities to the concessioner. In that regard, the Park did
     not take advantage of an opportunity to revise the maintenance
     agreement in 1985, when the concession operation was sold to another
     party, or in 1994, when the 25-year contract period expired.
  
     We believe that the Park Service could reduce maintenance costs for
     concession facilities by modifying the terms of applicable
     maintenance agreements at the earliest opportunity. During our
     discussions with the Concessions Program Manager at the Park
     Service's Headquarters, we were told that as many as 70 of the Park
     Service's 212 concession contracts will expire by January 1998.
     Considering the large number of expiring contracts, we believe that
     the Park Service should take prompt action to review all maintenance
     agreements and aggressively pursue modification of the agreements to
     assign concessioners full responsibility for the maintenance of
     concession facilities. Based on the conditions noted, we concluded
     that the Park Service had not taken sufficient action to implement
     the recommendation.
  
     Maintenance Management System
  
     Our 1992 report (No. 92-I-455) discussed the large backlog of repair
     and rehabilitation maintenance projects and stated that "funding
     shortages and other external and internal factors such as the
     addition of new park areas, increased park visitation, and compliance
     with environmental laws . . . have contributed to certain maintenance
     program deficiencies." In its response to Recommendations 1 and 3 in
     our 1992 report, the Park Service stated that it would "make every
     effort to ensure, through effective management and planning, that all
     maintenance needs . . . [were] fully documented and that budget
     requests reflect those needs."
  
     At the time of our prior review, the Park Service was taking actions
     to improve its ability to budget for, plan, and manage its
     maintenance activities, including the development and implementation
     of a comprehensive, standardized maintenance management system. The
     system was mandated by the Congress in 1985 as part of Public Law 98
     -540 (an act to amend the Volunteers in the Parks Act of 1969), which
     directed the Park Service to develop and implement such a system.
     Section 4(a) of Public Law 98-540 specifically required the
     maintenance system to include the following seven elements:
  
     (1) a work load inventory of assets including detailed information
     that quantifies for all assets (including but not limited to
     buildings, roads, utility systems, and grounds that must be
     maintained) the characteristics affecting the type of maintenance
     performed;
  
     (2) a set of maintenance tasks that describe the maintenance work in
     each unit of the National Park System;
  
     (3) a description of work standards including frequency of
     maintenance, measurable quality standards to which assets should be
     maintained, methods for accomplishing work, required labor, equipment
     and material resources, and expected worker production for each
     maintenance task;
  
     (4) a work program and performance budget which develops an annual
     work plan identifying maintenance needs and financial resources to be
     devoted to each maintenance task;
  
     (5) a work schedule which identifies and prioritizes tasks to be done
     in a specific time period and specifies required labor resources;
  
     (6) work orders specifying job authorizations and a record of work
     accomplished which can be used to record actual labor and material
     costs; and
  
     (7) reports and special analyses which compare planned versus actual
     accomplishments  and costs and can be used to evaluate maintenance
     operations.
  
     The Congressional mandate came about 5 months after the 1984 General
     Accounting Office report "National Park Service Needs a Maintenance
     Management System" (No. GAO/RCED- 84-107), which concluded that the
     Park Service did not have the ability to document and monitor its
     maintenance activities. Thus, according to the report, the Park
     Service could not "assure that its assets [received] needed upkeep
     and that park maintenance activities [were] efficient."
  
     Through 1992, the Secretary of the Interior's Annual Statement and
     Report to the President and the Congress had identified the lack of a
     "formal, systematized methodology for managing maintenance
     operations" as a Servicewide material weakness. In 1993, the Park
     Service informed the Department that implementation of its
     standardized maintenance management system (which cost an estimated
     $11 million for development and implementation) had eliminated this
     weakness. In its fiscal year 1997 budget justifications, the Park
     Service stated that its maintenance management system/program
     provides "a formalized, systematic process for managing maintenance
     operations" in the most economic and efficient manner and "standard
     procedures for the performance of work and for reporting on the
     completion of projects."
  
     However, we found that the system was no longer used on a Servicewide
     basis to document maintenance needs and to assist the park units in
     managing, planning, and developing budget data for their maintenance
     programs. The park units reviewed had essentially discontinued the
     use of the standardized system. Specifically, we found that only 7 of
     the 16 park units we reviewed were using the system: 5 that used the
     standardized system and 2 that used the standardized system in
     conjunction with another commercial computer software program. Of the
     nine remaining park units, eight used the commercial software program
     exclusively, and the remaining park unit (Everglades National Park)
     had no computer-based maintenance management system in use.
  
     Park unit managers and maintenance personnel said that they
     discontinued use of the Servicewide system for various reasons,
     including the lack of technical support, system failures, inaccurate
     system-generated reports, and prohibitive costs. For example:
  
     - A maintenance supervisor at Everglades National Park said that the
     Park had discontinued using the system in 1995 because of a system
     failure which was reportedly caused by an attempt to upgrade the
     system.
  
     - Maintenance personnel at Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park said
     that they changed to a commercial computer software program in 1996,
     with the Region's concurrence, after the standardized system provided
     "erroneous results" for fiscal year 1995.
  
     - Maintenance personnel at Lake Mead National Recreation Area stated
     that they also received Regional permission in 1996 to use the same
     commercial software program that Sequoia was using.
  
     The Regional facilities manager said that the Region had approved
     requests from Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park and Lake Mead
     National Recreation Area to discontinue using the standardized
     maintenance management system primarily because of the numerous
     complaints it had received from the park units and because the
     standardized system did not have a preventive maintenance module.
  
     We also found that Park Service personnel at 11 of the 16 park units
     reviewed had not fully implemented two of the seven elements mandated
     by Public Law 98-540. Specifically, the requirements of Section 4(a)
     of Public Law 98-540 pertaining to "measurable quality standards"
     described in element 3 and the "work program and performance budget"
     described in element 4 were not in place. These two requirements
     enable park unit managers to determine their actual maintenance needs
     and to effectively prioritize the maintenance work. In our opinion,
     implementation of a system having all seven of the elements will help
     to provide managers with the information they need to plan, organize,
     direct, and review their maintenance activities.
  
     Based on the conditions noted, we concluded that the Park Service had
     not taken sufficient actions to implement the two related
     recommendations (Nos. 1 and 3) in our 1992 report. Specifically, the
     Park Service had not successfully implemented and maintained a
     Servicewide maintenance management system that provides complete data
     and/or information for prioritizing maintenance projects, monitoring
     and measuring maintenance activities, or fully supporting budgetary
     requests for maintenance backlog funding.
  
     Recommendations
  
     We recommend that the Director, National Park Service:
  
     1. Direct park unit management to actively pursue all opportunities
     to modify concession maintenance agreements to ensure that
     maintenance responsibilities of each party are clearly defined and
     that concessioners are required to perform or pay for all maintenance
     related to the facilities used in their operations. If a concessioner
     has not assumed full maintenance responsibility, its maintenance
     agreement should be modified when the concession contract is amended,
     when a formal extension is issued, or when the Park Service is
     ratifying the sale of the concession operation to another entity.
  
     2. Direct Lake Mead National Recreation Area management to
     discontinue performing maintenance work which provides special
     benefits to cabin lessees unless the cost of the work is reimbursed
     by the benefiting lessees.
  
     3. Ensure that the Park Service fully complies with the requirement
     of Public Law 98-540 to maintain a standardized maintenance
     management system which contains all seven of the legislatively
     mandated elements.
  
     4. Report the lack of a standardized maintenance management system as
     a material management control weakness in accordance with the
     requirements of the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act.
  
     National Park Service Response and Office of Inspector General
     Comments
  
     We requested that the Director, National Park Service, provide written
     comments to the draft report by February 9, 1998. Based on a Park
     Service request, we extended the date for comment to March 2, 1998.
     However, because a response to the draft report was not received, we
     consider all of the recommendations unresolved. Therefore, in
     accordance with the Departmental Manual (360 DM 5.3), we are
     requesting a written response to this report by April 27, 1998. The
     response should provide the information requested in Appendix 7.
  
     The legislation, as amended, creating the Office of Inspector General
     requires semiannual reporting to the Congress on all audit reports
     issued, the monetary impact of audit findings (Appendix 1), actions
     taken to implement audit recommendations, and identification of each
     significant recommendation on which corrective action has not been
     taken.
  
     We appreciate the assistance of National Park Service personnel in the
     conduct of our audit.
  
  
  
APPENDIX 1
  
                CLASSIFICATION OF MONETARY AMOUNTS
  
  
  
  Finding
  
  
  Funds To Be Put
  To Better Use
  
  
    Reimbursement of Maintenance Costs
  
  
  
  
            Everglades National Park
  
                  $167,000
  
  
            Grand Canyon National Park
  
                    219,000
  
  
            Lake Mead National Recreation Area
  
                    186,000
  
  
            Yellowstone National Park
  
                      25,000
  
  
                       Total
  
                  $597,000

  
  
  
  
                                APPENDIX 2                     
     STATUS OF RECOMMENDATIONS AND CORRECTIVE ACTIONS   FOR AUDIT REPORT
     "MAINTENANCE WORK PERFORMED  FOR NON-GOVERNMENTAL RECIPIENTS" (No.
     91-I-1321)
  
     Recommendations
     
     Status of Recommendations and Corrective Actions
     
     1. Require the headquarters to establish written guidelines and
     policies on maintenance cost recovery from identifiable
     beneficiaries. These guidelines and policies should be similar to the
     ones contained in the Service's Special Directive 83-2, "Rates for
     NPS- Produced Utilities."  1. Implemented. The Associate Director for
     Budget and Administration issued written guidance on September 3,
     1992, to the field directorate to improve the system for controlling
     and recording revenues from concessioners, expenditures, and other
     financial activities. The guidance became effective for fiscal year
     1993 and specified the types of costs incurred in providing services
     to the concessioners that were required to be reimbursed. A separate
     accounting code was established to accumulate these costs for
     reimbursement purposes.
  
     2. Require the parks to (a) identify all maintenance activities that
     directly benefit park concessioners and other non-Governmental
     recipients, (b) specifically define the maintenance responsibilities
     of both the concessioners and the parks in future concessions
     contracts or concessioner maintenance agreements, (c) use the
     Service's accounting system or park maintenance management systems to
     track concessioner maintenance costs, and (d) bill the concessioners
     or other non-Governmental recipients for their share of the
     maintenance costs that benefit their operations. 2. Partially
     implemented. We concluded that parts a and c of this recommendation
     were implemented through the actions taken for Recommendation 1.
     However, we considered parts b and d as only partially implemented
     because park managers had not modified the maintenance agreement
     terms when the related contracts expired or when the concessioners'
     operations were purchased by other entities.
  
     3. Pursue legislation which will allow the individual parks to retain
     and utilize for park maintenance-related activities all maintenance
     costs reimbursed by concessioners and other non-Governmental
     recipients. 3. Implemented. The Park Service proposed commentary for
     new legislation (S.208) that addressed the recommendation, but the
     commentary was subsequently deleted by the Office of Management and
     Budget. However, during our followup review, we found that the Park
     Service had an ongoing policy of retaining these funds in the parks
     under the authority of the United States Code (16 U.S.C. 1b).
  
     4. Obtain a Solicitor's opinion to determine who is responsible for
     maintaining the Beartooth Highway and, if applicable, the propriety
     of Yellowstone National Park's billing of the States of Wyoming and
     Montana for past maintenance costs. 4. Implemented. The Park Service
     provided documentation whereby the Regional Solicitor, Rocky Mountain
     Region, provided the opinion that the Park Service was responsible
     for maintaining Beartooth Highway.
  


     APPENDIX 3                                              Page 1 of 2
  

     STATUS OF RECOMMENDATIONS AND CORRECTIVE ACTIONS    FOR AUDIT REPORT
     "MAINTENANCE OF THE     NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM" (No. 92-I-455)
  
     Recommendations
     
     Status of Recommendations and Corrective Actions
     
     1. Ensure, through effective management and planning, that sufficient
     funds are available to administer an effective preventative
     maintenance program at the time that maintenance actions are
     required. To the extent possible, park operational and regional
     cyclic and repair and rehabilitation programs should be made
     available at a level necessary to reduce the increases in the
     existing backlog. 1. Partially implemented. Since 1992, the Park
     Service has sought additional Congressional funding for maintenance
     operations to address the backlog of repair and rehabilitation needs.
     In addition, the Park Service implemented a standardized maintenance
     management system in 1993 that was designed to help ensure the
     effective management and planning of its maintenance operations.
     However, during our followup review, we found that the system did not
     contain all of the features required by the Congress and that the use
     of the system was subsequently discontinued at some locations.
  
     2. Instruct the regions and parks to discontinue the practice of
     using limited park operational and regional program maintenance funds
     for construction of new facilities, major equipment purchases, or any
     other non- maintenance-related activity. 2. Implemented. The
     Associate Director, Operations, issued a memorandum to all Regional
     Directors clarifying the use of funds from the National Park Service
     Maintenance appropriation for the construction of new facilities. In
     addition, the regions were instructed to place greater emphasis on
     budget integrity and to obtain prior approval before they spent any
     funds for purposes other than those allotted.  Also, the replacement
     of major equipment is now funded through the Park Service's
     construction appropriation instead of Operation of the National Park
     Service appropriation. Our tests of maintenance expenditures at the
     park units we visited indicated that park unit personnel had complied
     with these instructions.
  
     3. Place increased emphasis on maintenance in the budget planning
     process and specifically address both the external and internal
     factors that impact park maintenance needs. 3. Partially implemented.
     The Park Service reorganized into seven regions, which helped to
     reduce central overhead and levels of review and oversight and also
     helped to improve the delivery of support services to the parks.
     However, we also found that some park units had discontinued using
     the standardized maintenance management system which was developed,
     in part, to improve the effectiveness of the budget planning process
     (see Recommendation 1).  
  
     APPENDIX 3                                              Page 2 of 2
  
  
     Recommendations Status of Recommendations and Corrective Actions
  
     4. Either (a) budget and account for fee program revenues as
     supplemental funds separately from the operations appropriations in
     accordance with Public Law 100-203 or (b) request a waiver from the
     Appropriations Committees concerning the requirement to spend fee
     program revenues on specific projects which meet the prescribed uses
     identified in the legislation.
  
     4. Implemented. The Park Service developed revised primary work
     elements for its operating accounts. The revised elements more
     clearly allow for delineation of the expenditure of funds derived
     from the special fees.
  
  
  
  
APPENDIX 4
  
           REGIONAL OFFICE AND PARK UNITS VISITED
                      AND/OR CONTACTED
                              
  
  Regional Offices and Park Units 
  
  Location
  
  
  Intermountain Region*
  
                Colorado
  
  
     Big Bend National Park*
  
                Texas
  
  
     Bryce Canyon National Park*
  
                Utah
  
  
     Grand Canyon National Park*
  
                Arizona
  
  
     Grand Teton National Park*
  
                Wyoming
  
  
     Lake Meredith National                  
          Recreation Area*
  
  
                Texas
  
  
     Mesa Verde National Park*
  
                Colorado
  
  
     Petrified Forest National Park*
  
                Arizona
  
  
     Rocky Mountain National Park*
  
                Colorado
  
  
     Yellowstone National Park*
  
                Wyoming
  
  
     Zion National Park*
  
                Utah
  
  
  Pacific West Region**
  
                California
  
  
     Death Valley National Park*
  
                California
  
  
     Golden Gate National                     
          Recreational Area**
  
  
                California
  
  
     Lake Mead National                       
          Recreational Area**
  
  
                Nevada
  
  
     Olympic National Park*
  
                Washington
  
  
     Sequoia/Kings Canyon National     
          Park**
  
  
                California
  
  
  Southeast Region*
  
                Georgia
  
  
     Everglades National Park**
  
                Florida
  
  
  *Sites contacted. 
  **Sites visited.
  
  
  
                                                        APPENDIX 5

       SELECTED INFORMATION RELATED TO CONCESSION CONTRACTS
                AT PARK UNITS VISITED OR CONTACTED



Park Unit

Concession
Contract No.

Existing
Contract Term

  Maintenance 
Agreement Date

 Original 
Concessioner


                        Park Units Visited


Everglades National Park

EVER 001
EVER 002

6/79 - 5/94
1/82 - 12/91

September 1981
February 1982

No
Yes


Golden Gate National                   
       Recreation Area

GOGA 001
GOGA 008
GOGA 010
MUWO 001

1/84 - 12/98 
1/88 - 12/92
1/88 - 12/91
1/85 - 12/94

May 1985
August 1987
March 1988
February 1996

No
Yes
Yes
No


Lake Mead National                     
       Recreation Area

LAME 001
LAME 002
LAME 003
LAME 004
LAME 005
LAME 006
LAME 007
LAME 008
LAME 009
LAME 010
LAME 014

1/73 - 12/91
1/80 - 12/89
1/73 - 12/97
7/88 - 9/03
1/67 - 12/86
11/72 - 10/87
1/84 - 12/01
1/87 - 12/96
1/88 - 12/02
7/71 - 12/89
1/62 - 12/88

March 1983
February 1992
March 1983
No agreement
April 1994
April 1984
March 1983
December 1986
November 1987
March 1992
No agreement

No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes 
No
No


Sequoia/Kings Canyon                 
       National Park

SEKI 006

11/96 - 10/11

August 1996

Yes


                       Park Units Contacted


Big Bend National Park

BIBE002

9/21/82 - 9/20/02

February  1990

Yes


Bryce Canyon National Park

BRCA003

1/1/84 - 12/31/03

April 1994

No


Death Valley National Park

DEVA001
DEVA002

1/1/83 - 12/31/92
1/1/81 - 12/31/85

Not signed
April 1983

No
Yes


Grand Canyon National Park

GRCA001
GRCA002
GRCA003

1/1/69 - 12/31/98
1/1/84 - 12/31/03
1/1/68 - 12/31/87

June 1975
November 1984
May 1983

No
No
Yes


Grand Teton National Park

GRTE001
GRTE002
GRTE003

1/1/73 -12/31/02 
1/1/90 - 12/31/94
12/5/66 - 12/31/89

November 1984
August 1991
August 1991

No
No
No


Lake Meredith National               
     Recreation Area

LAMR002

1/1/87 - 12/31/96

No agreement

No


Mesa Verde National Park

MEVE001

10/1/81 - 9/30/01

January 1992

Yes


Olympic National Park

OLYM001

12/28/78 -12/31/93

November 1989

No 


Petrified Forest National Park

PEFO001


1/1/85 - 12/31/94

January 1985

Yes


Rocky Mountain National Park

ROMO001

10/1/71- 5/31/91

March 1996

Yes


Yellowstone National Park

YELL002
YELL077

10/1/69 - 9/30/99
11/1/91 - 10/31/01

No agreement
May 1995

Yes
No


Zion National Park

ZION003

1/1/84 - 12/31/03

February 1997

No

                                                      APPENDIX 6
                                                               


               NATIONAL PARK SERVICE BACKLOG DATA
                                

Project Type

Existing
Facilities

     New or Additional
Facilities

Total


Buildings; Visitor Use,   
   Park Support

   
 $893,737,600   


$673,476,200              


 $1,567,213,800  


Housing; Permanent
and     Seasonal
Employees

   
360,708,400   


    81,218,400              


441,926,800  


Landscape Work,
  Erosion Protection, 
  Site Restoration

  

      889,378,200   



 193,617,200              



1,082,995,400  


Utilities; Electric, Gas,   
   Water/Sewage
  Treatment     



      300,144,410   



      4,046,000              



     304,190,410  


    Subtotal

   $2,443,968,610   

$952,357,800              

$3,396,326,410  


Roads, Bridges,
   Tunnels,
   Transportation
   Systems




  1,912,374,400   




      279,075,600              




  2,191,450,000  


      Total

   $4,356,343,010  

$1,231,433,400              

  $5,587,776,410

                                                      APPENDIX 7
                                                               
             STATUS OF AUDIT REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS


                    Findings/Recommendations
                           Reference               
                                
                                
                              1-4
                                
                                
                                
                                
           Status         
 
                          Unresolved.
  
  
  
  
    Action Required
                        
    Provide a response to each recommendation. If concurrence is indicated
    provide a plan identifying actions to be taken, including target dates
    and titles of officials responsible for implementation.
    If nonconcurrence is indicated, provide specific reasons for the
    nonconcurrence.




    ILLEGAL OR WASTEFUL ACTIVITIES SHOULD BE REPORTED TO THE OFFICE OF
    INSPECTOR GENERAL BY:

    Sending written documents to:                 



    Within the Continental United States
    
    U.S. Department of the Interior
    Office of Inspector General 
    1849 C Street,N~.W.
    ~Mail Stop 5341
    Washington, D.C. 20240

    Calling:

    Our 24~hour
    Telephone HOTLINE
    1-800-424-5081 or
    (202) 208-5300
    
    TDD for hearing impaired                                                  
    (202) 208-2420 or
    1-800-354-0996



    Outside the Continental United States

    
    Caribbean Region
    
    U.S. Department of the Interior
    Off~ce of Inspector General
    Eastern Division- Investigations
    1550 Wilson Boulevard
    Suite 410
    Arlington, Virginia 22209

    Calling:
    (703) 235-9221


    North Pacific Region

    U.S. Department of the Interior
    Office of Inspector General
    North Pacific Region
    238 Archbishop F.C. F'lores Street
    Suite 807, PDN Building
    Agana, Guam 96910

    
    Calling:
    (700) 550-7428 or 
    COMM 9-011-671-472-7279