[PEN-L:34153] corporatizing the national park service

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

[been in the works for almost 20 years..........]

Jan. 26, 2003, 10:34PM
Park Service may privatize jobs
Critics say resources could get short shrift inquest for savings
By JULIE CART
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON -- As part of its push to privatize federal workers, the
Bush administration has identified about 70 percent of full-time
jobs in the National Park Service as potential candidates for
replacement by private-sector employees.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who oversees the Park Service, has
earmarked 11,807 of 16,470 full-time positions for possible
privatization. They range from maintenance and secretarial jobs to
archeologist and biologist positions.

Interior Department officials stressed, however, that the number of
people replaced would not be nearly that high. Moreover, they said
law enforcement personnel, managerial staff and most park rangers
would keep their jobs.

But some of the people who have come to embody the institution's
86-year-old tradition of public service, as they greet visitors and
lead them on nature walks, could be replaced by volunteers.

Critics fear that the outsourcing of federal positions, including
the jobs of the Park Service's corps of scientists, could undermine
protection of the nation's vast inventory of archeological and
paleontological sites within parks and hand over the care of
forests, seashores and wildlife to private companies not steeped in
the Park Service culture of resource protection.

"This is about respect for professionals. It is about a recognition
that people spend a lifetime learning their profession and how to
resist pressures -- political or commercial -- in the public
interest," said Roger Kennedy, who directed the Park Service during
the Clinton administration.

"The public understands that parks are not parking lots -- they are
places that require a high degree of professional skill to manage.
Not just anyone can do it."

The potential cuts are part of the Bush administration's effort to
identify as many as 850,000 federal jobs that could be performed by
private-sector employees.

Park Service Director Fran Minella said she wants to maintain
uniformed personnel in the parks as a "public face" to visitors.
Still, some duties performed by rangers, such as nature walks, could
be conducted by volunteers, Park Service officials said.

Interior Department officials say there is little likelihood that
all of the jobs identified by Minella will be outsourced.

Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Scott Cameron said he
anticipated that no more than 4 percent of the current workers would
actually lose their jobs.

He said much of the changeover would occur as employees retire.
Cameron estimated that about 20 percent of the Park Service staff
will reach retirement age in the next five years.

The positions identified by Norton will be examined to determine if
they can be eliminated or filled more cheaply and efficiently with
nongovernmental contract employees.

Park Service employees would be given a chance to argue why they are
better equipped to perform their jobs than private-sector workers.

Officials say the injection of free market-style competition would
bring out the best in employees.

"This is a way to capture the benefits of competition to produce
better performance and better value," Cameron said. "Competition
makes for a much more exciting Lakers game than if only one team
were on the court."

But critics say the responsibility of overseeing the country's 388
parks and monuments is too important to entrust to people with
little or no preparation for working in the nation's park system.

"The Park Service is not a business enterprise," said Frank Buono, a
former assistant superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park and a
former manager of Mojave National Preserve.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and others charge
that replacing Park Service scientists with "hired hands" would
create a conflict of interest.

"There is a fundamental ideological binge that the free enterprise
system will heal all wounds and solve all problems. Ask Enron about
the efficiency of the unregulated private marketplace."