Roosevelt park to operate with fewer staff, citing loss of funds

Roosevelt Campobello International Park (RCIP) is facing a critical funding shortage as a result of an unresolved delay in part of the annual payment from the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). The park has not yet received around 60% of its funding from the NPS, leaving a shortfall of just over $1 million. The park operates on approximately $4 million a year.

"It's not that we're not getting the funds," says Jon Southern, executive director and superintendent for the park, noting that the funds have been approved. "It's that there's no one in government that knows where we get the funds, how the funds are processed, that sort of thing." Typically, once the funds are approved by Congress, the U.S. Department of Interior assigns them to the National Park Service for distribution. "There's no staff left in key positions that know the process," says Southern.

The RCIP received 40% of its payment from the U.S. government in January, Southern says, along with the full payment from the Canadian government. Normally, the remainder of the funds from the U.S. government would come no later than mid‑May. "So here we are in the middle of June, and they're not here."

RCIP is particularly affected, as it is the only jointly‑managed international park in the world. It was established by treaty and managed by a commission, and part of the agreement between the two countries covers cost sharing. As such, the funds contributed by the U.S. government in one year are matched by the following year by the Canadian government. "So any funding we're lacking from the U.S. side will hit us next year," Southern explains.

Regardless of the potential and significant long-term impact, the delay in funding is already impacting the park. Of the approximately 80 workers normally brought on for the summer, only 60 have been hired for this season, and Southern says that won't be changing even if the funds were to suddenly come through. "It's difficult to bring on staff mid‑way through the season," he says, as they would be lacking pre‑season training.

There will be less programming at the park this year, but the average visitor will not notice, Southern says. "It's more the burden on existing staff. It's a big increase on their workload," he explains, with some managers having to do the work of positions they would normally be supervising.

The funds, should they be received this year, will instead be directed at the capital improvement plan, which currently has a list of projects amounting to $12.8 million in needed funding. The park normally allocates $300,000 a year to the plan, though that doesn't make much of a dent in it, Southern acknowledges. Among the capital improvements needed are a new roof for the Hubbard Cottage, just one example of expensive maintenance necessary for the park's 200‑year-old coastal buildings.

If the funds aren't received this year, it could cause a cascading effect. Right now, the park is operating at Contingency Level 1, according to Southern, meaning that there is no filling of open positions and nearly all budgets are frozen. If the funding shortage continues, the park could reach Contingency Level 2 in which there are layoffs of non‑essential staff and closure of part of the park, with the trails that are open being less maintained. At Contingency Level 3, "that would be the dissolving of the park," Southern says.

While many associate RCIP with the cottages and immediate grounds, the park actually manages around a third of the entire island of Campobello, Southern says, including 3,000 acres of natural habitat, 17 miles of trails, 17 miles of coastline, 14 picnic sites and multiple observation areas.

"This is particularly heartbreaking, because last year we celebrated our 60th anniversary," Southern says. "That's 60 years of uncontested funding." The park had the most visitors it's ever had at 268,000 and conducted a "huge outreach" in the past year to area communities and schools, having reached every school in the region on both sides of the border. "A lot of that is on ice."

The lack of funding for national parks is especially challenging given the relatively small amount of the federal budget that funding represents, Southern says, noting that the country's 433 national park sites are normally funded at $3.9 billion a year, or less than 1/15th of one percent of the federal budget.

RCIP has gotten "a lot of support" from U.S. Senators Angus King and Susan Collins, with King being on the park's managing commission, Southern says. They're "trying to get answers" about the funding by pulling levers that the park doesn't have access to. "There's so much uncertainty right now in the National Park Service system. For other national parks, if they lose $1 million, that's $1 million. For us, it's $2 million. That's the bigger worry: How will we be affected next year?"