H345: "Why can most COE facilities pay their contractors , or even accept bids to operate their areas ,for the same prices , and not have the budget problems ?"
COE is a little different -- as it has power or water production to sell. BUT, that doesn't change the general thought here.
NP and NF have a mandate to protect our wilderness and wildlife, and water shed lands. At one point, we generated enough revenue into the federal tax base to pay for that mandate, including researchers and minimal maintenance. At that time, hiking, biking, and back-country camping was the norm. NO visitors centers, no restrooms, no maintained sites.
THEN: RV's and camping came along. So, the fee system arrived. And we build visitors centers and upgraded campgrounds, and raised the fees accordingly, hired more staff.
RECENTLY: The federal parks budget took a look at itself and said, hmmmm, we're getting this income from the parks, but the cost to run the parks is higher than the income from the parks.
But these same 'newbies' FORGOT that our mandate for creating these protection areas has nothing to do with visitors and camping. But these same newbies forgot to subtract the original mandate costs from the operation fees, and suddenly expected the 'visitor fees' and 'camping fees' to cover every fee in the park and forests. Like the school lottery allotments - once accepted, the lottery income became 'part of the budget' instead of a supplement to the budget, and now expect the visitor and camping fees to cover every part of our wilderness protection, not just the visitor and camping part.
In order to understand the impact of camping on our NP and NF budget, we need to subtract the protection mandate, and then look at the remaining revenue to see if the remainder covers the cost of visitors and camping.
If Ranger John spends half his time supervising campsites, and half his time researching the elk, than only half his salary should count as visitor and camping expense. But that's not what's happening - the newbies forgot the mandate, and count all his salary as visitor and camping expense. That's one example of the cost/product evaluation. The newbies FORGET we have a budget that protects our wilderness and has nothing to do with visitors and camping.
The other part of this: Stop the discounts - if a person is well enough to enter and enjoy our parks, he/she is well enough to pay the entry fee and protect our parks from closure. We personally get senior and disabled discount - and would gladly give that up when the alternative is a discount to WHAT? A closed gate --
But if you do take those discounts away, the funding better go to the parks, and not a raise or vacation pay to some paper-pusher sitting at a desk in DC.
