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Testimony:

Before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, 
Committee on Resources, House of Representatives:

United States General Accounting Office:

GAO:

For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. PDT:

Saturday, September 27, 2003:

National Park Service:

Efforts Underway to Address Its Maintenance Backlog:

Statement of Barry T. Hill, Director Natural Resources and Environment:

GAO-03-1177T:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-03-1177T, a testimony to the Subcommittee on 
National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, Committee on Resources, 
House of Representatives

Why GAO Did This Study:

GAO, the Department of the Interior, and others have reported on the 
National Park Service’s efforts to develop an effective maintenance 
management process that would, among other things, enable the agency 
to accurately and reliably estimate the amount of deferred maintenance 
on its assets. Over the years, the agency’s estimates of the cost of 
its deferred maintenance have varied widely—sometimes by billions of 
dollars. Currently, the agency estimates that its deferred maintenance 
backlog will cost over $5 billion. In April 2002, GAO reported on the 
status of efforts to develop better deferred maintenance data. 
(National Park Service: Status of Efforts to Develop Better Deferred 
Maintenance Data,GAO-02-568R [Washington, D.C.: Apr. 12, 2002])

This testimony presents the results of GAO’s April report and updates 
the progress the Park Service is making in implementing its new asset 
management process.

What GAO Found:

In 2002, GAO reported that the design of the National Park Service’s 
new asset management process was complete but implementation was just 
beginning. The new process will address deferred maintenance, commonly 
referred to as the maintenance backlog, as part of a much broader 
approach to its asset management. When fully developed and 
implemented, the new process will, for the first time, enable the 
agency to have a (1) reliable inventory of its assets; (2) process for 
reporting on the condition of the assets in its inventory; and (3) 
consistent, systemwide methodology for estimating the deferred 
maintenance costs for its assets. As a result, agency managers and the 
Congress should receive much more accurate and reliable information on 
the amount of deferred maintenance needs throughout the national park 
system. Nonetheless, while the Park Service’s current efforts are 
promising, GAO reported on a few areas that the agency needed to 
address to improve the performance of the process. These included the 
need to (1) develop costs and schedules for completing the 
implementation of the process, (2) better coordinate the tracking of 
the process among Park Service headquarters units to avoid duplication 
of effort within the agency; and, (3) better define its approach to 
determine the condition of its assets, and how much the assessments 
will cost.

Since that report, the agency appears to have made progress. While the 
complete implementation of the process will not occur until fiscal 
year 2006, the agency has completed, or is nearing completion of, a 
number of substantial and important steps. According to the Park 
Service, the agency has completed its asset inventory and trained 
staff on the use of the required computer software. In addition, the 
Park Service provided information indicating that it was addressing 
each of the concerns identified in GAO’s 2002 report. Specifically, 
the Park Service (1) developed cost and schedule estimates for the 
complete implementation of the process, (2) developed a plan with an 
implementation schedule to eliminate any duplication or 
inconsistencies between organizational components, and (3) completed 
annual condition assessments—visual inspections—on all but nine of the 
larger parks in the system for which it only plans to perform a more 
comprehensive condition assessment. According to the Park Service, the 
work done so far are necessary steps and reflect some of the best 
practices of the private sector in developing and implementing an 
effective facility management process.

What GAO Recommends:

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-1177T.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click 
on the link above. For more information, contact Barry T. Hill at 
(202) 512-3841 or hillbt@gao.gov.

[End of section]

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the National Park Service's 
maintenance backlog. GAO, the Department of the Interior, and others 
have reported on the Park Service's efforts to develop an effective 
maintenance management process that would, among other things, enable 
the agency to provide accurate and reliable estimates of the amount of 
deferred maintenance on its assets. Over the years, the agency's 
estimates of the amount of its deferred maintenance backlog have varied 
widely--sometimes by billions of dollars. Currently, the agency 
estimates its deferred maintenance backlog at over $5 billion. Although 
the Park Service has spent almost two decades addressing its 
maintenance backlog, it acknowledges that it still does not have the 
data it needs to properly manage the broad array of historic, cultural, 
and natural assets placed in its care--including accurate and reliable 
data on its deferred maintenance needs.[Footnote 1] In 1998, spurred by 
continuing congressional concerns and new federal accounting 
standards,[Footnote 2] the Park Service initiated the design of a new 
asset management process that is intended to provide the agency with a 
better overall approach to managing its asset inventory. A major goal 
of this new process is to provide the Park Service with a reliable and 
systematic method for estimating and documenting its deferred 
maintenance needs and tracking progress in reducing the amount of 
deferred maintenance.

My testimony today will (1) summarize our prior work regarding the 
potential of the Park Service's new asset management process to provide 
maintenance data that will permit agency managers and the Congress to 
monitor progress in reducing deferred maintenance and (2) update the 
progress the Park Service is making in implementing its new asset 
management process and realizing its potential for improved management.

For the most part, my testimony is based on a report we issued last 
year.[Footnote 3] At that time, the design of the new process was 
complete but implementation was just beginning. In preparing for 
today's hearing, we obtained updated information from the Park Service. 
However, we did not have the opportunity to independently verify the 
information the Park Service provided. To do so would have required 
work at regional offices and parks. We conducted our work in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief:

As we previously reported, the Park Service's new asset management 
process is designed to address deferred maintenance, commonly referred 
to as the maintenance backlog, as part of a much broader approach to 
asset management. When fully and properly implemented, the new process 
is expected, for the first time, to enable the agency to have a (1) 
reliable inventory of its assets; (2) process for reporting on the 
condition of each asset in its inventory; and (3) consistent, 
systemwide methodology for estimating the deferred maintenance costs 
for each asset. As a result, agency managers and the Congress should 
receive much more accurate and reliable information on the extent of 
deferred maintenance needs throughout the national park system. 
Nonetheless, while the Park Service's current efforts are promising, we 
reported on a few areas that the agency needed to address to improve 
the performance of the process. These included the need to (1) develop 
costs and schedules for completing the implementation of the process so 
that the agency's performance could be monitored and assessed, (2) 
better coordinate the tracking of the process among Park Service 
headquarters units to avoid duplication of effort within the agency, 
and (3) better define its approach to assessing the condition of its 
assets, and determining how much the assessments will cost.

Since our report last year, I am pleased to say that the agency appears 
to have made progress. While complete implementation of the process 
will not occur until fiscal year 2006, the agency has completed, or 
nearly completed, several substantial and important steps. According to 
the Park Service, it has completed its asset inventory, trained staff 
on the use of the required computer software, and completed most of the 
on-site inspections necessary to determine the condition and 
maintenance needs of inventoried assets. In addition, the Park Service 
provided information indicating that it was addressing each of the 
concerns identified in our prior report.

Background:

The national park system contains 388 park units. These park units have 
a diverse inventory of facilities and other assets, including over 
18,000 permanent structures, 8,000 miles of roads, 1,800 bridges and 
tunnels, 4,400 housing units, about 700 water and wastewater systems, 
over 400 dams, and 200 solid waste operations. The Park Service values 
these assets at over $35 billion. Needless to say, the proper care and 
maintenance of the national parks and their supporting infrastructure 
is essential to the continued use and enjoyment of our national 
treasures by this and future generations. However, for years Park 
Service officials have highlighted the agency's inability to keep up 
with its maintenance needs. In this connection, Park Service officials 
and others have often cited a continuing buildup of unmet maintenance 
needs as evidence of deteriorating conditions throughout the national 
park system. The accumulation of these unmet needs is commonly referred 
to as its "maintenance backlog." Although the Park Service has spent 
almost two decades and about $11 million addressing this problem, it 
still does not have a reliable estimate of deferred maintenance needs 
for its facilities and other assets.

In the past several years, concerns about the cost of operating and 
maintaining federal recreation sites within the National Park Service, 
as well as other federal land management agencies, led the Congress to 
provide a significant new source of funds. This additional source of 
funding--the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program[Footnote 4]--was, 
in part, aimed at helping the agencies address their backlogged repair 
and maintenance problems. This new funding source is in addition to 
annual appropriations the Park Service receives each year for 
maintenance activities.[Footnote 5]

Despite the years of attention and funding and the well-intended 
efforts of the agency and the Congress to resolve the maintenance 
backlog dilemma, it has not gone away. While Congress continues to 
provide hundreds of millions of dollars annually to deal with the 
maintenance backlog at the national parks, the Park Service still has 
no reliable data on the size of the problem, raising questions about 
what has been accomplished with the provided funds.

When Fully and Properly Implemented, the Park Service's New Asset 
Management Process Should Provide Accurate and Reliable Deferred 
Maintenance Data:

As we reported in April 2002, the Park Service has made progress in 
developing a new asset management process that, when fully and properly 
implemented, should provide the agency with more accurate and reliable 
estimates of the amount of deferred maintenance of its assets. As 
currently planned, the new process will, for the first time, enable the 
agency to have a (1) reliable inventory of its assets; (2) process for 
reporting on the condition of assets in its inventory; and (3) 
systemwide methodology for estimating deferred maintenance costs for 
assets.

The new asset management process is composed of both systemwide, 
integrated software to track cost and maintenance data and regular 
condition assessments of Park Service assets. The cornerstone of the 
new asset management process is the Facility Management Software 
System. This cradle-to-grave asset and work management process will 
allow park, regional office, or Park Service headquarters managers to 
track when, what, and how much maintenance and related costs has been 
directed at each specific asset.

In addition to using the software system, the Park Service plans to 
assess the condition of its assets. These assessments will be 
inspections to document the condition of an asset as measured against 
applicable maintenance or condition standards. There are two types of 
condition assessments--annual and comprehensive. Annual assessments 
are essentially "eyeball inspections" of facilities to identify obvious 
and apparent deficiencies. Comprehensive assessments are more in-depth 
inspections to identify less obvious deficiencies, such as foundation 
or structural problems. While the eye-ball assessments are annual, the 
comprehensive assessments, which are much more expensive and time-
consuming, occur in 5-year cycles. The Park Service is to use the 
information obtained from these condition assessments to establish the 
overall condition of a facility or asset, including the resources 
needed to address its deferred maintenance needs and future facility 
needs. The cost of identified deferred maintenance needs will be 
estimated using another computer software system that will provide a 
uniform method for estimating repair and maintenance costs for each 
asset in the inventory. Agency managers will use the condition 
assessment information in combination with an asset priority ranking 
system to set priorities for deferred maintenance projects.

While the design of the new process is complete, we reported in April 
2002 that the Park Service had just begun implementing it. For example, 
at that time, the agency was still inventorying its assets and training 
staff on how to use the new process at about a third of the park units 
in the national park system. We reported that because managers at each 
park will be required to implement this new process using a uniform 
systemwide methodology, the resulting deferred maintenance estimates 
should permit agency managers, as well as the Congress, to monitor 
progress in reducing deferred maintenance both at the individual park 
and systemwide levels. However, we noted that while the new process is 
promising, its success cannot be determined until staff in each of the 
park units are trained and the new asset management process is fully 
and properly implemented.

In our last report, we also raised three concerns about the Park 
Service's implementation of the new asset management process. While 
these matters were not significant enough to undermine the overall 
merit of the new process, we believed that addressing them would 
improve the effectiveness of the process. First, even though the Park 
Service had been developing its new process for more than 3 years, it 
had not yet estimated its total implementation costs or developed a 
schedule for completing implementation. While the agency had made 
progress in developing schedules and costs for some components of the 
process, it had not yet estimated when it will complete all the 
required condition assessments or what they will cost. We noted that 
monitoring and assessing performance against budgets and time frames 
would be difficult without complete estimates and schedules that 
include all components of the process, including the completion of 
condition assessments.

Second, two different operating divisions within the Park Service--
Concessions Management and Facilities Management--were developing 
separate processes for tracking and reporting deferred maintenance, 
even though both units are responsible for managing the condition of 
government-owned facilities. Because both of these units have similar 
responsibilities, it seemed reasonable that they would work together in 
a coordinated way to ensure that their efforts are not duplicative.

Finally, the Park Service reported that about one-third of the park 
units were to complete annual condition assessments by the end of 
fiscal year 2002. We noted that this approach may be appropriate for 
meeting programmatic and financial reporting needs in the short term; 
however, without comprehensive assessments, this approach might result 
in overlooking more complex and costly problems in the long term. As a 
result, this approach could understate the extent of the deferred 
maintenance problem. Park Service officials told us that the agency 
eventually planned to conduct comprehensive assessments for all assets. 
However, at the time they had not developed a plan detailing where, 
when, and how the assessments will be done or what they will cost.

The Park Service Has Made Progress Implementing Its Asset Management 
Process Since Our Last Report:

Although full implementation of the new asset management process is 
still years from completion, the Park Service appears to have made 
progress since our last report. Also, importantly, Park Service 
management has demonstrated its commitment to implementing this process 
by withholding some fiscal year 2003 funding from parks that are not 
complying with the agency's implementation goals.

The agency now reports that it has completed its inventory of assets 
for all park units as well as the first round of staff training on the 
use of the facilities management software. The agency also contracted 
with a consulting firm to evaluate its training and implementation 
efforts to help ensure that the training is effective and that the 
software system is being consistently applied throughout the park 
system. The Park Service has analyzed the firm's results and is now 
developing a training curriculum to address the firm's recommendations. 
The Park Service expects to begin implementing the training in January 
or February 2004.

The agency is also addressing each of the issues raised in our last 
report. Specifically, the Park Service has now developed cost and 
schedule estimates for the complete implementation of the process. 
According to the schedule, the process is to be fully implemented by 
the end of fiscal year 2006, when all the comprehensive condition 
assessments are complete for all park units and deferred maintenance 
and other needs can be estimated on a reliable and consistent basis for 
assets throughout the national park system. The Park Service estimates 
now that the cost of the complete rollout and implementation, including 
performing condition assessments, will be about $91 million from fiscal 
years 1999 through 2006. Thereafter, it estimates that the annual costs 
of sustaining the process once it is fully operational will be about 
$20 million.

In response to our concern that two different operating divisions 
within the agency--Concessions Management and Facilities Management--
were developing separate processes for maintaining government-owned 
facilities, the Park Service told us that they agreed and are committed 
to implementing a single facilities management process. According to 
the agency, it has developed a plan with an implementation schedule to 
eliminate any duplication or inconsistencies between these two 
components of the organization.

The Park Service has also made progress in performing its servicewide 
facility condition assessments. According to the Park Service, it has 
completed annual condition assessments--visual inspections--on all but 
nine of the larger parks in the system.[Footnote 6] In addition, the 
Park Service is concurrently performing the more detailed, 
comprehensive condition assessments on other park units. According to 
the Park Service, the work done so far are necessary steps and reflect 
some of the best practices of the private sector in developing and 
implementing an effective facility management process.

Conclusion:

The Park Service has a solemn responsibility to take care of the 
nation's natural, cultural and historic treasures. While it has 
unfortunately taken decades to achieve the current level of focus on 
maintaining these treasures, the Park Service apparently now has made 
substantive progress in developing and implementing a system it can use 
to determine the conditions of the assets in its portfolio and develop 
accurate and reliable estimates of its deferred maintenance needs. 
However, the agency has not yet completed the task. Determining the 
assets' conditions and their maintenance costs will require years of 
sustained commitment by the agency and by the Congress to ensure that 
the full benefits of the agency's new facility management process are 
realized.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to 
respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may 
have.

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at 
(202) 512-3841. Cliff Fowler, Roy Judy, and Patrick Sigl made key 
contributions to this statement.

FOOTNOTES

[1] This maintenance includes resources and activities needed to 
maintain facilities and the infrastructure in the system, such as 
buildings, trails, botanical gardens, bridges, and other structures. It 
does not include maintenance or restoration of natural landscapes, such 
as removing non-native plant species from a meadow.

[2] The Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards No. 6, 
Accounting for Plant, Property, and Equipment, issued by the Federal 
Accounting Standards Advisory Board in 1996, requires that deferred 
maintenance be disclosed in federal agencies' annual financial 
statements beginning in fiscal year 1998. 

[3] U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Status of 
Efforts to Develop Better Deferred Maintenance Data, GAO-02-568R 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 12, 2002).

[4] Since fiscal year 1996, the Park Service, as well as three other 
federal land management agencies, have been authorized to have a fee 
demonstration program. Under this temporary program, the agencies are 
permitted to experiment with increased and/or new recreation fees. The 
revenue generated from this program remains available for agency use to 
address a variety of needs, including maintenance,without further 
appropriation. 

[5] The House Committee on Appropriations has stressed that recreation 
fees should never be used to replace appropriated funds; the fees 
should be used for direct improvements on site that enhance the 
recreation experience. H.R. Rep. No. 106-646 (2000).

[6] In order to expedite the condition assessments, the Park Service 
decided to only complete the more comprehensive condition assessments 
on the nine larger parks. These parks include Appalachian Trail, 
Delaware Water Gap, Gateway, Golden Gate, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky 
Mountains, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. By the end of 
fiscal year 2003, the Park Service will have completed these 
assessments for five of the nine parks with the remaining four to be 
completed by the end of fiscal year 2004.