WHAT WE DO

   The shortfalls in park operating budgets and staffing have been well documented through a six-year-old partnership called the Business Plan Initiative. Through this partnership, the National Park Service and NPCA have deployed M.B.A. and public policy graduate students from some of America's best universities to analyze more than 60 national park sites across the country. The program develops park business plans, which identify strategic priorities and ways to more efficiently manage scarce funding and staffing for the benefit of park resources and visitors.

   An analysis of the business plans developed by the Park Service through fiscal year 2003 indicates that resource protection, such as preserving museum collections, historic and natural resources, and visitor interpretation, which includes public education and safety, have the most significant needs and at levels so severe that many parks are short 30 percent of what it takes to do the job properly.