Email, Kati Schmidt, associate director of media relations, National Parks Conservation Association, June 23, 2016

6:23 p.m.

The NPS total budget in FY16 is indeed $3.377 billion after adding appropriated funds plus fees and other mandatory funding. Park service roads also benefit from Highway Trust Fund dollars for maintenance totaling $268 million this year. These are the primary federal revenue sources for NPS.

NPS resources/facilities also benefit at times from a variety of other random smaller sources like state grants and private donations (both monetary and in-kind), but we don’t have any sum total of all funding sources that benefit the National Park System.

NPS might have a sum total of all revenue sources for NPS outside of their budget but the reporter would need to ask NPS.

These other sources are not technically part of the NPS budget so in terms of Jarvis’ reference to an “annual budget,” indeed the claim appears to be defensible.  However, I don’t know enough about the city of Austin’s budget that I would want to speculate about whether or not that is a fair apples-to-apples comparison.

Kati Schmidt

Associate Director of Media Relations | National Parks Conservation Association