[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