Park Jobs May Go Private with Plan

Bush proposal sparks worry in conservationists.

by Michael Doyle - Bee Washington Bureau
Fresno Bee - May 25, 2003

A management revolution is reshaping the nation's parks, though it's one easily missed by most Memorial Day visitors.
Visitors, like the 50,000 expected at Yosemite National Park over the three-day weekend, will likely see business as usual. Park features should be reliably gorgeous, and park employees will look much the same.

But behind the grand scenery and green uniforms, the Bush administration is shifting the props. Officials are eyeing 1,708 National Park Service jobs, including hundreds on the West Coast, for potential takeover in the next year by private companies.

The "competitive sourcing" proposal, moreover, is likely to grow in future years. Some 11,000 of the Park Service's approximately 22,000 full-time and seasonal jobs have been identified as potentially doable by private business. That inspires efficiency experts and government streamliners, while it worries some park lovers.

"We've got very competent people who are doing the job, and who want to keep doing the job," Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said.

Bush administration plans for letting the private sector in on public work go well beyond the National Park Service. Citing potential cost savings of 20% or more, administration officials called for "aggressively encouraging market-based competition throughout the government" in their latest budget proposal.

Officials customarily cite, for instance, the 10,000 cafeteria workers and 11,000 maintenance workers now working for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It's the Park Service, though, that's excited much of the debate, in part because of questions over whether market efficiencies clash with aesthetic values and resource protection.

"Biologists, archaeologists and recreation specialists are driven by a conservation and land ethic, something money can't buy," said Karen Schambach, the Sacramento-based director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility's California office. "Contractors are unlikely to be motivated by the same resource ethic, and contract employees would not be accountable to the public, but to their company."

The administration does have its allies on the outsourcing front. "I think it's another way for the Park Service to utilize talent outside of the park," said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, whose district includes Yosemite. "They can get rid of some of those jobs that will then allow them to take care of what their mandate is."

The competitive outsourcing plans themselves are a work in progress. Officials are first identifying what job categories might be appropriate for the private sector: law enforcement isn't, for instance, but lawn work is. Then, officials are commissioning studies of the individual jobs before deciding whether to proceed.

"You could put out a contract and let Lawn Doctor do it, and probably keep your costs down," Park Service spokesman David Barna said.

Current plans identify 335 jobs in the Park Service's San Francisco-based Pacific West region as likely private sector candidates. These include 111 maintenance jobs at Golden Gate Recreation Area and 67 maintenance jobs at Mount Rainier National Park. Officials also have identified 157 job vacancies scattered throughout the region that could be immediately converted to the private sector.

Some fee collector positions, for instance, are slated for replacement by so-called "Iron Ranger" fee collection machines.

"There is absolutely no doubt that our employees are watching this with a lot of interest," said Holly Bundock of the Park Service's Pacific West region.

The Interior Department's initial proposal called for Yosemite's "visitor use assistants" to be among the jobs studied for potential shifting into the private sector. The park employs about 45 full-time and 55 seasonal assistants, who collect entrance fees and help around campgrounds.

That initial plan didn't fly well among some Park Service workers.

The latest version makes no reference to the Yosemite jobs or to another, earlier, proposal to study 20 fee-collection jobs at Sequoia National Park.

"Í would say there was some concern about it," Gediman said.

Outright job loss, of course, is one concern. "We don't think any employees will be impacted" by the shifting of jobs, Barna said, in part because the agency may wait until vacancies occur.

Others worry about work force diversity. More than 40% of the Golden Gate Recreation Area maintenance workers are classified as "diverse" by the Park Service.

"In recent years, we have sought to increase the diversity of the agency work force," National Park Service Director Fran Mainella noted in one memo to Interior Department supervisors earlier this year. "This potential impact upon this work force concerns us."

A third concern involves the actual cost of studying jobs for conversion to private work. Mainella estimated it could cost about $3,000 per job to study conversion. To help pay for that, as well as anti-terrorism security measures, Park Service headquarters this month took $4.6 million away from the Pacific West region's construction budget.

One result, according to an internal memo obtained by Schambach's group, is that Yosemite lost funding expected to pay for taking care of dangerous asbestos in 28 buildings, as well as funding to repair a collapsed drain at Big Oak Flat Tunnel.

"They have to pay for this," Gediman said, and "there are funding issues."