An investigation has found that the National Park Service does a poor job of tracking financial donations to the parks/Kurt Repanshek file photo
Editor's note: This updates with comment from the National Park Service.
Each year, tens of millions of dollars are donated to the National Park Service, but the agency is doing a poor job of monitoring those donations or controlling how they're spent, according to an evaluation by the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General.
Monitoring of giving is so bad, wrote Bryan Brazil, the OIG's supervisory auditor for the Western Region, that "the NPS cannot determine the total amount of support received from its philanthropic partners."
And while the National Park Service Reference Manual specifies that the agency keep annual reports from its philanthropic partners that include the partners' 990 form and a narrative describing the fundraising, the Park Service's Washington headquarters "has not been collecting these reports and has not compiled data from these reports since 2011. In addition, we found the IRS I-990 forms are not useful for oversight purposes as they do not clearly identify funds or other contributions provided to parks by their philanthropic partners," wrote Mr. Brazil.
The OIG compiled the report, sent to the Park Service in mid-January, in an effort to determine whether the agency had proper controls and tracking in place to monitor philanthropic giving. As part of the evaluation, OIG staff visited 31 parks.
National Park Service officials said late Thursday that the OIG report provided the agency was not finalized.
"This is not a report nor are the findings listed in the document considered final," said Chief Spokeperson Jeremy Barnum in an email. "This is a preliminary notice of potential findings and recommendations as part of the Office of the Inspector General's ongoing evaluation of NPS philanthropic partners. As noted in the document, the OIG is still conducting evaluation work and has requested NPS input, comments, and additional information before preparing a draft report. We are currently preparing to do so."
The report was sent to Regginald Chapple, the Park Service's division chief in the Office of Partnerships on January 18, with a request that any comments or additional information be provided to OIG by February 9.
At the park level, OIG learned, friends groups give donations to superintendents in various manners. Some simply write a check out to the superintendent, while one park was given VISA gift cards, the OIG said.
"Since NPS has no policy or guidance on superintendent funds and these funds are dispensed to the superintendent and often managed by his or her assistant, there is a lack of internal controls which increases the risk for fraud, waste, and abuse," Mr. Brazil wrote.
Back at the Washington headquarters, OIG found the agency did not have an up-to-date list of active park friends groups. Not only did the existing list leave off some active organizations, but it also included some that have closed, his report noted.
"Additionally, most of the parks visited that had book stores operated by cooperating associations did not have, or did not regularly update, scope of sale statements required by policy," wrote Mr. Brazil. "We also found that NPS regional coordinators for cooperating associations and friends groups conduct very limited oversight, typically only providing support to parks when partner agreements are renewed."
The investigators also came across what appeared to be unauthorized use of donated funds.
"Nearly all the parks visited used philanthropic partner donations for entertainment purchases, such as food and beverages for employee-only and employee and volunteer events. Some parks used donated funds to purchase small gifts for employees, floral arrangements for families of employees, and a gift for a courier," he pointed out. "These expenditures were made without any written justification for how these costs were necessary to accomplish the NPS’ mission.
"Officials at multiple parks reported that they used donated funds for these expenses because they could not use appropriated funds, but Reference Manual #32 states that the NPS has a responsibility to treat donated funds as it does appropriated funds. Furthermore, there is a long history of Comptroller General decisions that conclude that the NPS does not have blanket authority to spend donated funds any way it wishes, and specifically disallow expenditures that are social and personal in nature."
Going forward, the OIG suggested that the Park Service:
1. Develop and implement NPS policy or guidance that prohibit park superintendents from receiving donations in the form of checks in their name, cash, and gift cards.
2. Track and report the monetary support parks receive from philanthropic partners.
3. Develop and maintain an accurate friends group directory.
4. Ensure park superintendents and cooperating associations that operate book stores develop scope of sale documents and update them at least annually.
5. Prohibit the use of donated funds for gifts to individuals.
6. Update NPS policy and implement guidance regarding the use of donated funds for allowable food and beverage purchases.
Comments
Critique on the OIG Reports - They appear to have a practice of updating their report summaries on the website but they don't communicte when they are updated. For example, the other summary report highlighted on Traveler right now has been altered from its original post but there is no acknowledgement that is has been updated. When corrections or updates are made that aren't acknowledged it just makes you wonder why that is the case.
The NPS should track its donations and has done an excellent job in doing so in relation to the Centennail Challenge projects. Those projects represent millions of dollars and accounting and tracking of the funds was done in accordance with accounting standards.
For this situation with Cooeprating Associaitons and donations, it appears OIG report will indicate the NPS must not have done as well of a job overall in tracking donatons from Cooperating Associatons/Friends gorups. There is a reference manual for cooperating associations and it was updated February 2017. Within the manual you will find that in 2012 the NPS had 72 Associations' with a total gross revenue of $177,294,000, resulting in $110,443,458 in donations to the NPS. It does appear these donations have been tracked to some degree. There are other systems tracking donations within the NPS such as the NPS Scorecard as well as the NPS FInancial System where every parks' donation account is tracked on a regular basis. Perhaps the donations are tracked better at the local/park level rather than at the national/WASO level.
Per the DO 32 Manual, employees can accept meals from cooperating associations. Employees are strictly limited in the gifts (including meals, lodging, and transportation) that they can accept from Associations. NPS employees may accept gifts with a market value of $20 or less per occasion, with a limit not to exceed $50 in a calendar year. So food provided by Associations is allowed by policy it just has to remain within these limits.
If you look for skulduggery within the NPS Cooperating Associations, You will surely find it. Often the Board of Directors is faced with conflicts of interest including former superintendents serving on the Board like former superintendent Douglas Warnock , Redwood NP. or other Ret. federal agency employees who dominate the Board Whenever, whistleblowers report "unethical behavior" like the unprofessional Treatment of seasonal employees, who are poorly paid, the Board may target the person attempting to communicate problems of employee harassment (the Board doesn't wish to hear), Sometimes, the Business Manager hires relatives who are preferred and treated better than other qualified persons.
Many Board members simply "rubberstamp" requests for funds from the superintendent even though the Cooperating Association Mission of Natural History Education may be totally disregarded in the discussion for approval. The Board should not include former high ranking NPS employees due to the probability of potential ethical conflicts especially those characters displaying narcissistic personalities. The Board also may behave in unprofessional decisions like banning books for sale simply because the author has had disagreements with an autocrat superintendent. One example is Alston Chase's Title Playing God In Yellowstone, banned in 1986 two years prior to the Fires of 1988; fortunately AMAZON and the Internet today are becoming strong competitors for those wishing to find titles not blessed by Trumpian-like superintendents who don't read, and are anti-science due to their evangelical superstitions.
My colleague, Hanna Cortner, and I reported on these problems in numerous reports and in our book on National Park Philanthropy several years ago, noting that these issues go back decades. The NPS paid no attention to what we found then, and it's doubtful that any attention will be given to dealing with the myriad friends groups and cooperating associations now. There is no one size fits all solution to record keeping, training, and partnership issues--and no one seems to be looking for answers.
Did the NPS ever share its response?