$555 billion federal spending bill includes $300,000 more for Olympic National Park
Bonnie Collins of Agnew gets travel information from Olympic National Park education ranger Greg Marsh at the park’s visitor center in Port Angeles. Longer hours at visitor centers are among the changes that could be considered for additional money that has been allocated to Olympic National Park for next year’s operating budget. -- Photo by Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News
By Paige Dickerson, Peninsula Daily News
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An increase of about $300,000 has been allocated to Olympic National Park in a $555 billion spending bill passed by Congress on Dec. 19, said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair.
President George W. Bush signed the bill on Wednesday.
"This will allow us to make some much needed steps toward restoring services and maintenance which has been reduced over years," said Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman.
The specific areas which will benefit haven't been determined yet, although those areas could include such things as more trail maintenance, more park law enforcement and longer hours at the visitor centers.
The National Park Service will determine the exact amount that will go to Olympic National Park, said Maynes.
Until then, the park cannot determine the specific areas where the money will be spent, she said.
Once the exact amount is known, the park can decide what positions will be filled and what services can be increased or reinstated, she said.
The increase, which amounts to about a 6 percent hike, will be used to restore some positions that have been lost over the course of the past decade, in which the park has seen little - if any - increase beyond the annual inflation-driven increase.
Although the increase won't add back all of the positions, it is a step in that direction, said George Behan, spokesman for Dicks.
"This bill tries to make up for the several years of very tight budgets - that loss of permanent and seasonal employees," Behan said.
"It will allow for some permanent hires, but also for much more aggressive seasonal hiring for interpretive and rangers."
Long-awaited increase
The park has been operating on essentially the same budget as it was in 2006: about $10.95 million.
The $11.1 million 2007 budget was never passed.
"The increase in funding for the National Park System will allow to them hire 1,500 full time equivalent employees, which is really great," Dicks said.
"It will put a lot of people back to work because the number of people working at each park has been going down."
Because of a $6 million shortfall in operating funds in 2004, the Olympic National Park cut seasonal employees from 120 employees in 2003 to 25.
"We had a big problem in Olympic [National Park] because several years ago they had 120 seasonal rangers, and they went down to 25 this year - that means that almost 100 people were lost during the summer," Dicks said.
That year, finances were so tight that the park considered closing the visitors center in Forks.
An increase in the 2005 budget made that unnecessary.
"They just can't do the same kind of trail maintenance and interpretation that they could before," Dicks said.
Centennial Initiative
Some money from the President's Centennial Initiative - which originally totaled $50 million for the 2008 fiscal year -had been earmarked for the Olympic National Park as well.
The total was cut to $25 million, and how much of that will go specifically to the Olympic National Park was not yet determined.
Some of the personnel cuts were because of annual cost of living raises which are required for federal employees, because salaries and benefits costs would go up, Maynes said, and while the budget would also go up slightly, it never quite covered all the expenses.
The bill had to be cut by about $1 billion before the President would agree to sign it, Dicks said.
"People talk about Bush being a big spender, but he has not been a big spender on national resources," Dicks said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: December 26. 2007 9:00PM
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