News Release
Date: February 3, 2015
Contact: John Quinley, 907-644-3512
Budget Increase Proposed For National Park Service Centennial Year
Efforts are underway in Alaska and more than 400 parks across the country as the nation prepares to celebrate the 100th birthday of the National Park Service (NPS) in 2016.
To ensure the parks are prepared to host an expected influx of visitors celebrating the NPS Centennial, President Obama today sent Congress a request for a $3 billion dollar budget for the NPS for 2016, a $432.9 million increase over the current year’s budget.
"In 2016, the National Park Service will celebrate its Centennial by inviting hundreds of millions of Americans to find their park by visiting a park and sharing their favorite park story,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “This budget will prepare the National Park Service to ensure that every one of those visitors has a wonderful and safe experience.”
Park-specific details of the President’s 2016 budget proposal won’t be available for a few more weeks. The base operating budget for the National Park Service in Alaska in the current fiscal year is about $69.5 million. Alaska parks host about 2.5 million visitors a year, funnel significant funding into local communities, and manage more than 54 million acres of resource-rich national parkland.
“This budget proposal is important to Alaska as we get ready to host visitors and expand our work with local communities as we move toward our second century of service,” said Bert Frost, NPS Alaska Regional Director.
The President’s budget supports the National Park Service as it works to engage those individuals who will be the next generation of park visitors, supporters, and advocates. It includes funding to add seasonal employees to serve visitors. It also would provide federal matching funds for NPS Centennial Challenge projects, which are designed to leverage partnerships with organizations like Alaska Geographic, the non-profit cooperating association which works closely with NPS units in Alaska on education and related projects.
The full budget proposal is available at https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/upload/FY-2016-Greenbook.pdf.
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Last updated: May 4, 2017