National Parks

In response to congressional requests, GAO reported on the: (1) ability of park rangers to adequately provide visitor and resource protection; and (2) comparative personnel compensation, benefits, and pension costs of park police and rangers.

GAO found that, based on their law enforcement training and performance: (1) commissioned park rangers are capable of providing visitor and resource protection at Gateway and Golden Gate National Recreation Areas; (2) park police and commissioned park rangers receive training in similar areas, but park police training is more extensive; and (3) park police and commissioned park rangers also must handle similar criminal offenses, such as homicide, rape, robbery, and assault. GAO also found that, in 1984: (1) law enforcement costs were about $2.3 million at Gateway and $1.7 million at Golden Gate for 84 park police and 34 commissioned park rangers; and (2) if the 84 park police had been replaced by 91 commissioned park rangers, personnel compensation and benefits costs at the two parks may have been reduced by $740,338. According to National Park Service (NPS) officials, if the 30 park police positions were eliminated, NPS: (1) would have saved $802,314 in annually recurring personnel compensation and benefits costs, and $3.2 million in pension costs with an additional $40,000 to $1.2 million in annually recurring pension costs; and (2) might have incurred $199,381 in training expenses, but relocation expenses would have decreased from $2.94 million to $2.44 million.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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