Operations Formula System

The Operations Formula System (OFS) is a web-based system designed to meet the needs of parks, regions, and the Washington Offices in the development and identification of operating increases needed to support the mission and strategic plan of the National Park Service (NPS).

The OFS system contains all unfunded budgetary requirements of the Service for ongoing or operational needs for the next five Fiscal Years (FY). The system does not contain requests for funding of individual projects. The Project Management Information System (PMIS) contains all the unfunded project requirements. Both systems contain a limited amount of historical information on funded requests (OFS from FY94 and PMIS from FY99).

The OFS is interactive and should be available for use 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for a limited time during the review of requests at the regional and Servicewide level. After reviews are complete, parks and other program managers should be able to prepare new requests and revise most of the existing requests on their own timetables.

All needs or request for funding should be represented in either the OFS or PMIS system. The information contained in OFS and PMIS serves as the sole source for formulating the three formal NPS budget requests (to the Department of the Interior, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Congress). In addition, the information will serve as the official NPS response to all internal and external inquiries about our unfunded budgetary needs and our strategies for addressing these needs.