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Date published: 1/15/2007
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS WASHINGTON--The National Park Service's new director says the agency will increasingly look to outside sources for money to help maintain parks. "We're much more business-savvy than we used to be," said Mary Bomar, a career employee who became director in October, in one of her first interviews as head of the agency. A Government Accountability Office report last year said the Park Service is increasingly cutting back on visitor services, education programs and protections for natural and cultural resources because funding has failed to keep pace with operating costs. The agency also has a huge maintenance backlog. In the Fredericksburg area, for example, the park service does not have enough funds to do more than stabilize and maintain the historic Ellwood estate in Orange County. The Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield group has stepped in, raising funds to return the house to its appearance when it served as Union headquarters during the battle. "Work is to begin in February to restore the first two rooms," said Greg Mertz, the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park's supervisory historian. "If not for them, that building would just be some stark walls." Bomar said the Park Service acknowledges it has challenges, including shrinking staff, aging facilities and a diminished visitor experience. Parks have also lost some of their relevancy and connections to younger generations, she said. She said philanthropy will be a big part of a plan to revitalize and restore parks for the agency's 100th anniversary in 2016, announced this year as an effort called the "centennial challenge." The agency wants to "look at projects where we could match and leverage funding," she said. "Why not?" The agency is bringing in around 12 percent of its budget from outside sources, while a decade ago almost all of the budget was federally appropriated. Officers have been holding meetings with private interests to increase awareness of the agency's fundraising efforts. Besides the Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield, area park officials have gotten valuable help from a number of other friends of Civil War battlefields groups. The Central Virginia Battlefields Trust and national Civil War Preservation Trust, for example, have donated services and money, and buy up important land in and around the parks' boundaries.
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