Department of the Interior

The proposed uses of the Presidio Army Post under the Park Service's preferred alternative are generally consistent with the goal of creating a Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The extent to which the costs to rehabilitate the Presidio's buildings and run the Presidio will be offset by tenant payments and philanthropic donations, however, is unknown. Thus, the level of future annual appropriations needed to manage the Presidio cannot be estimated with any certainty at this time. Given the costs and the potential impact of the Presidio's rehabilitation on the Park Service's deferred maintenance and reconstruction backlog, close oversight by the Department of the Interior and Congress is warranted. In addition, once an alternative for managing the Presidio is decided upon, the Park Service needs to establish a plan that will (1) prioritize the objectives, (2) identify their associated costs and funding sources, and (3) estimate their completion dates. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Department of the Interior: Transfer of the Presidio From the Army to the National Park Service, by James Duffus III, Director of Natural Resources Management Issues, before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, House Committee on Natural Resources. GAO/T-RCED-94-64, Oct. 26, 1993 (11 pages).

GAO found that: (1) the Park Service's draft management plan for the Presidio includes four management alternatives; (2) the management alternative the Park Service prefers would allow it to share Presidio rehabilitation and O&M costs with public and private sponsors; (3) the proposed uses for the Presidio are consistent with the purposes of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; (4) although infrastructure repair and upgrade, building rehabilitation, environmental clean-up, and other transition costs are uncertain, transition costs are estimated between $702 million and $1.2 billion depending on the management alternative used; (5) the Army and the Park Service estimate that the Presidio's O&M costs will total $45.5 million annually through fiscal year (FY) 1995; (6) Park Service estimates for future O&M costs range between $38 million and $40 million annually through FY 2010; (7) appropriations for the Presidio's transition to the Park Service totalled $80.5 million between 1991 and 1993; and (8) although the Park Service has estimated that future appropriations will not exceed $25 million annually, it cannot determine actual appropriation levels because it has not selected a management alternative and the revenues generated are not known.

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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