INTRODUCTION

Fiscal year 1996 was not a good year for Gettysburg National Military Park; nor do I suspect that it was a very good year for many units of the National Park system. The fiscal year began without an appropriation, as bitter and partisan wrangling between Democrats and Republicans and between the Congress and the President led to the near paralysis of government. Nonessential government services - such as national parks - were shut down not once, but twice, before appropriation compromises were finally worked out, six months late.

The park shut-downs had a dramatic effect upon both park staff .,and the local community. For most NPS employees, the clear message that they were non-essential government employees and that the NPS mission was a non-essential government service, struck a severe blow to pride, morale and esprit-de-corps, from which we will be a long time recovering. For the community, the closure of the parks meant a loss of $1.5 million in visitor spending over the period of the shut-downs.

When the fiscal year appropriations were finally received, they delivered more bad news. Although employees were given a 2.4% pay raise, Congress did not provide an increase in operating funds to cover the cost of the raises. This unfunded mandate forced the Gettysburg NMP to absorb the cost of increased employee salaries, by cutting back on services and programs elsewhere. Nor did the Congressional appropriations recognize the 2.5% increase in the consumer price index between 1995 and 1996, thus forcing us to absorb the increased costs of goods, services, supplies, and utilities. As a result, throughout fiscal year 1996, critical positions remained unfilled, seasonal programs were cut back, and roads went unplowed in the winter.

The park's dependence upon inadequate - and often unpredictable Congressional appropriations lent a sense of real urgency towards the project which consumed more of my time than any other throughout the year. This was the continuing work on the Development Concept Plan and the subsequent Request for Proposals for a new visitor center and museum facility. The Request for Proposals calls for a partner or partners, either for-profit or non-profit, to assist the park in fund-raising, design, construction, and operations of the new complex. The estimated costs of design and construction are $43 million, and the estimated annual costs of operations and maintenance are $1.4 million.

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If we can be successful with this project, we will be able to provide museum-quality storage and curatorial space for our priceless collection of artifacts and archives, provide a environmentally-correct home for the world-famous Cyclorama painting, provide (for the first time in Gettysburg's history) full interpretive exhibits that place the Battle of Gettysburg within the context of the causes and consequences of the Civil War, and restore a significant portion of the third day's battlefield. Best of all, we will have found a way to do all this without depending upon Congressional appropriations for either the development or operations of the new facilities. If we can do this, we will have solved some immediate critical needs at Gettysburg, while simultaneously establishing a precedent which should help other parks find solutions for their needs.

Despite the declining buying power of the park's appropriated budget, we did make some progress in some areas during the fiscal year. Without exception, however, those areas of progress were made possible by some exceptional contributions by our volunteers and partners. With their help, we were able to tread water for a year; without their help we would have drowned.

STEWARDSHIP

Natural Resource Management

Fiscal Year 1996 was the first year of implementation of the park's long-awaited White-tailed Deer Management Program. Following the signing of the Record of Decision for the Environmental Impact Statement in July, 1995, the park prepared management guidelines for the first year of actual reduction. The program succeeded beyond the park's expectations. A total of 503 deer were taken during the first year of shooting, which lasted from October, 1995, through March, 1996. Most of the work was done by the Resource Management Division, with assistance from both NPS and non-NPS volunteers. All of the field-dressed deer were delivered to local butchers for processing; the butchers, in turn, delivered all the processed meat to local and regional food banks. The 1996 spring count showed 500 deer left on the battlefield, as compared to over 1100 the previous spring.

The deer reduction program was not without some element of local controversy. Some local residents, particularly those closest to park boundaries, registered concerns about public safety, due to panicked deer running through residential neighborhoods. As a result, the park ceased deer-driving programs near those neighborhoods. Some other residents, who are emotionally opposed to the taking of animal life for any reason, tried various means to convince the park to abandon the deer reduction program altogether. One small national group, Last Chance for Animals, launched letter-writing campaigns and persuaded the tabloid

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television show "Hard Copy" to air a segment on the reduction program.

Cultural Resources

The main emphasis in cultural resources throughout the year was the continuation of several data collection and basic research projects, which had been initiated in previous years:

- FY96 was the last year of the four-year System-wide Archeological Investigation Program funding for the Archeological Overview and Assessment of the park. As in each of the previous four years, $75,000 was programmed for the project, which was conducted by a term archeologist duty-stationed at Gettysburg NMP, under the direction of the Valley Forge Center for Archeology and Historic Preservation. Unfortunately, both the -time and the money ran out before the project was completed. The park (which plans to hire a park archeologist in FY97) estimates that it will take two years to complete this unfinished

Overview and Assessment.

• - The two-year inventory of cultural landscapes was not completed on schedule either. In this case, the project problems included maternity leave for the principle author, and start-up difficulties inherent to cultural landscape inventories - which is still a relatively new program for the NPS. The project, which is being done by the Denver Service Center, was funded by Eastern National donation returns in both FY95 and FY96, is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 1997.
• - The National Register nomination form for the battlefield was also not completed, despite a second year of funding provided by Eastern National donation returns. This draft nomination form was finished by the Denver Service Center historian on time. However, by mutual consensus of the park, the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office, and the National Register staff, the decision was made to nominate the most significant features and elements of the battlefield to National Historic Landmark status, rather than National Register. This decision requires additional research and writing. Since the historian who had completed the first draft of the nomination promptly retired as soon as he submitted it, the additional research and revisions will be done by park staff. We expect to complete the nomination in 1997.
• - Through a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program, the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg had started the first year of a two-year project to revise the National Register nomination of the Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District in FY95. The Friends applied for the second year of funding in FY96, but were not successful. Consequently,

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• the completion of this project has been postponed to FY97, pending funding.
• - One highly complex project which was completed was the Determination of Eligibility for the Cyclorama Building. The preferred alternative for the Development Concept Plan for the new visitor center and museum complex called for the demolition of the existing Cyclorama Building. That building, however, had been designed by Richard Neutra, an architect of some slight fame, so there were questions concerning its potential historical significance. Fortunately, the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Officer concurred with the park's Determination of Eligibility, which found that the structure had no historic significance.

Human Remains

In the spring of 1996, a park visitor (fortunately, a NPS employee from Oregon) notified the park that he had seen what appeared to be human bones eroding from the slope of a bank on the battlefield. Preliminary analysis of the bone fragments by the Smithsonian Institute verified that they were human. Due to the area of the find, which was the scene of intense fighting during the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, and the ongoing erosion of the bank due to lack of ground cover, the decision was made to initiate a full-fledged archeological investigation of the site. The purpose of the investigation was to find and recover any other remains from the site, to determine whether it was an isolated burial, and to date the burial, if possible.

The archeological work cost $37,600, part of which was reprogrammed from other park funds, part of which was provided by the Chesapeake System Support Office, and part of which was provided by Eastern National donation return funds. The archeological investigation was conducted by the Denver Service Center, with volunteer assistance provided by the Smithsonian Institute, the Corps of Engineers, GAI Consultants, Inc., and members of the Gettysburg Park Watch patrol. Following the completion of field work, the remains were sent to the Smithsonian for analysis.

The preliminary report from the Smithsonian verified that the remains were from an isolated Civil War burial. Features indicate that the individual was a young adult male, aged 20-25 years, who was probably killed by a gunshot wound to the head. Field indications from the recovery of the site indicate a high probability that the body was subjected to a hasty battlefield burial. Upon return from the Smithsonian, the remains will be placed in the Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1997.

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Maintenance

The maintenance division at Gettysburg had an extremely busy year, marked by two natural near-disasters. In January, 1996, literally days after the park had reopened after the federal shut-down, Gettysburg was hit by one of the worst blizzards on record. Even with the assistance of rented equipment, it took more than a week to clear all the park roads and facilities. In June, Gettysburg was hit with a 500-year flood. Although the park suffered far less damage than did the town (the Battle of Gettysburg took place on the high ground surrounding the town), the park still suffered an estimated $196,000 in flood damage. To date, there have been no storm damage funds received to repair those damages.

During the remainder of the year, the maintenance division completed numerous projects, such as:

• $80,000 in cultural cyclic funds were used for cleaning and repair of monuments and memorials, including the long-delayed cyclic cleaning and rewaxing of the General Meade equestrian statue. In addition 14 historic cannon carriages were sandblasted, repaired, and repainted, and two new cannon carriages were purchased (to replace some which were deteriorated beyond repair).
• - $80,000 in repair/rehab funds, along with $30,000 in Challenge Cost Share grant funds, were used to implement Phase II of the undergrounding of utility lines on Emmitsburg Road (through the heart of the third day's battlefield).
• - The contract for the visitor center parking lot repavement, which was started with FY95 repair/rehab funds, was completed with $88,000 in FY96 repair/rehab funds.
• - $45,000 in underground storage tank removal funds were received and spent.
• - $16,909 in cyclic funds were used for gutter replacement.
• - Five waysides were installed in the field.
• - The contract for the visitor center sprinkler system, which was funded from FY96 cyclic funds, was completed.
• - The Klingle barn roof was replaced and the first phase of rehab of the Redding barn, wagon shed, and corn crib was completed.

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Curatorial

The Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg funded a museum aid, who assisted the Curator throughout the year in backlog cataloging. The Friends also donated numerous items to the museum collection.

The park also received $20,000 from CRPP funds to purchase museum storage equipment, and $20,000 to complete the backlog cataloging of the artifact collection. In addition, the Northeast Museum Service Center began a collection storage plan for the park.

Archival

The park received $28,500 from backlog cataloging funds, which were used to acquire a computer and to contract, through the Northeast Museum Services Center for the actual cataloging work. Approximately 23.5 linear feet of archival materials will be processed and cataloged through this contract, the first phase of a multi-year project to accession and catalog the estimated 350,000 items in the archival collection.

Environmental Compliance

The park's NEPA committee, instituted in late FY95 to implement the park's new Section 106 responsibilities, was quite successful. Several members of the committee received advanced training, and the committee as a whole worked well to identify and resolve natural or cultural resource issues involved in project work. The park completed the first Environmental Assessment produced in-house, in support of the line-item construction project for installation of sewer systems at Gettysburg NMP and Eisenhower NHS.

Planning

The number one priority throughout the year for the park planner Debbie Darden, as well as the superintendent, was the planning for the proposed new visitor center and museum complex. In the fall of 1995, the park released a set of planning assumptions for 30-day public review. Based upon those planning assumptions, the draft Development Concept Plan/Environmental Assessment for Collections Storage, Visitor & Museum Facilities was released in the spring of 1996.

The preferred option identified in the draft DCP proposed developing a new visitor center and museum complex, which would include visitor facilities, an auditorium, museum galleries containing exhibits on the Gettysburg Campaign, a gallery designed for the proper exhibit of the Cyclorama painting, professional curatorial facilities, and offices. The preferred

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alternative also proposed removal of the current visitor center and Cyclorama buildings, and the restoration of those areas to their appearance at the time of the battle.

The park did not identify a preferred location for the new complex, but proposed site evaluation criteria which could be used to evaluate any proposed sites inside or outside of the park boundary within the plan's "area of consideration." Finally, the plan proposed that the NPS seek outside partners to fund the design, construction, operations, and maintenance of the new complex. The partners could be either for-profit, non-profit, or a combination of the two.

The plan was put on public review for 60 days. It received general public support, despite the anguished outcries of the owner of the wax museum across the street from the current visitor center. Following public review, the park developed a .-draft Request for Proposals. At the end of the fiscal year, the draft RFP had been reviewed by the Solicitor's Office of both the Department of the Interior and the General Services Administration. Although numerous technical revisions had been made to the RFP, it had not been approved for release by the end of the fiscal year.

Land Protection

Gettysburg NMP received $1.5 million in land acquisition funds in FY96, but was able to expend very few of those funds. On-going negotiations with local landowners were slow and difficult, and the reduced staff of the Lands Resource Division in Philadelphia made progress on all land acquisition projects painfully slow. At the end of the year, there were almost $3 million in unobligated funds left in the park's land acquisition budget. Some progress, however, was made:

• - The U.S. District Court reached final settlement of a friendly condemnation on 52-acre fee acquisition purchase.
• - Final appraisals were completed, and an offer was made, on a 227-acre easement. The landowner, however, was not satisfied with the purchase price, and settlement was not reached.
• - The NPS made an offer for an easement acquisition on an additional 121 acres. In this case, the landowners concluded, after much time, that they were no longer interested in selling that easement.
• - The park reached final agreement on easement language for a 24-acre easement from one seller, and on a 135-acre easement from another seller. In both of these cases, the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg took over actual purchase negotiations, which were not completed by the end of the fiscal

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• year.
• _ The park initiated a land purchase/exchange agreement with the Gettysburg Area School District. Through this agreement, the park will acquire 8 acres of land in fee from the School District, and the School District in return will receive an easement across park property to provide it with legal access to a major school complex.
• - The park also initiated an exchange agreement with Adams County, whereby the park will exchange title to two parcels of land which were excluded from the 1990 boundary, for 21 acres of County land inside the park boundary.

PUBLIC SERVICE

Overall, the level of public service provided by the park declined in FY96, due to flat budgets as compared to FY95, and the unfunded pay increase for park employees. Nevertheless, some public programs were enhanced and improved, primarily through the support and involvement of individual volunteers and volunteer groups.

Interpretive Programs

• - Due to his individual initiative and dedication to the park's Student Education Program, the park's educational coordinator, Joe Onofrey, was the national winner of the Freedom Tilden award for excellence in interpretation.
• - Living history programs on the battlefield were increased in FY96, through the participation of volunteer reenactment and living history groups. Living history programs were offered to the public on 16 weekends, including 10 weekends when volunteer reenactment units conducted 40 black powder firing demonstrations. In addition, 25 living history groups presented 64 interpretive programs on those weekends. Approximately 75,500 visitors were able to attend these living history programs.
• - The park installed a PIX interactive visitor information system in the Cyclorama Center. It proved to be quite popular with visitors.
• - The park hosted a six-month exhibition of paintings by renowned Civil War artist Dale Gallon in the Cyclorama Center.

Special Events

• - The annual Remembrance Day celebrations, which are normally the park's primary special event, took place as planned in November, 1995, despite the fact that the park was officially

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• closed due to the government shut-down. We took a calculated risk that the 2,000 reenactors and 20,000 visitors to the park on that weekend would respect the park's resources, even though there was no park service presence on the field. Our risk proved worthwhile; the park suffered no harm, and the Civil War community was most grateful that we did not cancel the most significant event on their annual calendar.
• - Likewise, the annual Dedication Day ceremonies in the National Cemetery went on as planned, even though the park was officially closed. As with the Remembrance Day ceremonies, the participants took good care of the Cemetery grounds, and were very grateful that the park did not cancel the ceremonies.
• - The park's own annual Gettysburg Seminar was very successful, and attracted 170 participants. With the assistance of the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg, the seminar proceedings were professionally published for distribution to those in attendance, and as a sales item at the park bookstores.
• - The second annual Field Music Muster was held in the summer of 1996, thanks to the volunteer efforts of three Civil War reenactment units; two fife and drum corps, and a regimental band. The annual Field Music Muster has already evolved into a tradition annual event, after just two years.

Visitor Protection

After about a year of trying, the park was finally able to persuade the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDot) to lower the speed limits on two highways traversing the park. In particular, PennDot agreed to lower the speed limit on Business Route 15 from 40 mph to 35 for several miles within the park, and from 40 mph to 25 on a critical section of road which runs through the heart of the field of Pickett's Charge. Although this caused some short-term muttering from local residents, it clearly provided a much higher margin of safety for thousands of park visitors walking and driving these stretches of roads.

In the spring of 1996, in response to an unexplained increase in vandalism to park monuments and memorials, the protection division launched a Park Watch patrol. Under this program, volunteers receive training from the protection staff, and are qualified through a ride with a patrol ranger. Following their qualification, they are given a park radio, and (using their own vehicles) they are assigned a patrol sector of the park. When seeing anything unusual, suspicious, or dangerous, they immediately call the ranger on patrol and monitor the scene until the ranger arrives. The volunteers are carefully trained not to interfere personally, but merely to act as extended eyes and ears for the protection staff.

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Thanks to an excellent publicity program put together by the park's public affairs specialist, an excellent training program put together by the protection staff, and an obvious desire on the part of volunteers to help the NPS protect our resources, the response to the Park Watch program has been phenomenal. By the end of the fiscal year, over 80 volunteers had signed up for the program, and had already spent 1,619 hours in the field on volunteer patrols.

Visitor Statistics

Despite a very slow start due to the government shut-down and terrible winter weather, Gettysburg NMP received 1,707,120 visitors in calendar year 1996. We were mildly surprised by the final numbers, since January was one of the poorest months on record, due to both weather and the shut-down, and visitor counts stayed lower than normal through March, due to the lingering effects of the shut-down. (Many of the tour companies, for example, who normally book March and April trips in December and January, were not sure when the parks would be open - if ever and took their clients elsewhere.) However, very strong numbers during the late summer and early fall managed to make up for the slow start, and by the end of the year, park visitation was only down by 10,262 (0.6%) from 1995.

In calendar year 1995, the park received 1,717,3823 (sic) visitors. In 1994, the year after the movie "Gettysburg" was released, there were 1,748,932 visitors to the park. Since the park's visitor facility infrastructure (from roads and parking to restroom capacity) was developed for an annual visitor load of approximately 500,000, park resources continued to suffer the impacts of heavy visitor use.

Economic Impact

For the second year in a row, the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg provided the funding to produce an economic impact analysis of Gettysburg NMP and Eisenhower NHS upon the local economy of Gettysburg and Adams County. The analysis showed direct economic spending of the NPS in the local community of $3.3 million in calendar year 1995. In addition, the analysis showed that park partners, such as Eastern National Monument and Parks Association, the Licensed Battlefield Guides, the Eisenhower concessioner, and the Gettysburg and Eisenhower agricultural permittees spent $2.2 million in the economy as a result of their operations on park property.

Visitors to Gettysburg and Eisenhower spent over $106 million while in town. This, combined with the direct spending of the park and its partners, resulted in just less than $112 million in direct spending in the local economy.

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In addition, the analysis showed that this direct spending also created almost $7 million in state and local tax revenues, including local amusement, wage and property taxes, and state sales and income tax revenue. In summary, the report concluded that for every $1 invested in park operations by the Congress, the local economy reaped the benefit of over $25 in local spending and tax revenues.

PARTNERSHIPS

Community Relations

one of the hardest "partnerships" to measure is that between the park and the local community, including local governments, community organizations, and local citizens. As reported last year, "healing the wounds" between the park and its local neighbors was one of the overall goals given to me when I came to Gettysburg. Generally speaking, I think we are making progress, although progress can often be painfully slow.
We are continuing to reach into the community. Among other things, Assistant Superintendent John McKenna is now a member of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce. In addition, John is the chairman of the Chamber's Transportation Committee a committee of great interest to all, due to extreme transportation congestion during the park's peak visitor seasons. John is also a member of the Chamber's Future Search Task Force a committee engaged in long-range planning for the Chamber.

Relationships between the park and the community suffered an unmeasurable blow with the sudden and untimely death of John Andrews. John was not only a long-term park employee and resident of the community, but one of those rare and wonderful individuals who put his heart and soul into community service. Quite frankly, we have no one who can take John's place. As a beginning, however, Chief Ranger Brion FitzGerald has taken John's place on the Martin Luther King committee, and has quickly forged strong ties between the park and that committee.

Park Planner Debbie Darden has moved onto the Board of Directors of Mainstreet Gettysburg, and will be a principle player in figuring out how the park can assist that group in accomplishing their goals. The park's relationship with Mainstreet Gettysburg, however, is troubled by some financial accountability problems which Mainstreet is currently experiencing. They cannot, for example,. account for all the funds raised through their brick sale program. As a result, the park removed the brick sale table from the Visitor Center, until the accountability problems can be resolved.

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Conversely, some local relationships have been damaged, due to the white-tailed deer reduction program, and the initiative for the new visitor center and museum complex. In both cases, small but very vocal members of the local community have been able to create headlines and newspaper coverage far beyond the merits of their positions. As a result, the "controversial" (according to them) aspects of park programs sometimes seem to outweigh the quieter, long-term efforts in which we are involved.

Civil War Constituency

Relationships with the Civil War community have been considerably strengthened, primarily as a result of the park's recruitment of those groups for several of our volunteer programs. The success of the living history program, and the adopt-a-position program, to cite two examples, are clearly due to the overwhelming response from Civil War roundtables and reenactment groups to our calls for assistance. In almost every case, we find that they are not only pleased to help, but they are truly honored to be asked to help, and to be allowed to make positive things happen on the battlefield. For too long, they had felt that they were considered part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, to preservation of the battlefield. The most singular example of our strengthened relations with the Civil War community was when I was made an Honorary Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg

The strength and support of the Friends has been instrumental in many of the accomplishments of the park this year. Their financial support, their volunteer support, and their institutional support have been invaluable. Among other accomplishments, the Friends:

• - Provided $91,928 towards Phase II of the undergrounding of utilities on Emmitsburg Road, and a $30,000 Challenge Cost Share grant to underwrite the park's costs of opening and closing the trenches where the utilities were buried. For their efforts in support of this project, the Friends received a National Partnership award from the Director of the NPS and the President of the National Park Foundation.
• - Provided in $30,000 donation returns from Limber Chest collections. These funds were used by the park for reproduction of historic photographs, and for monument repairs.
• - Paid $15,000 to hire a museum aid, to assist the Park Curator in backlog cataloging.
• - Provided $3,000 for the preparation and printing of the annual Economic Impact analysis.
• - Paid $10,500 to clear the remnant of an auction barn off park property, restore the land, and return it to historic agricultural use.
• - Provided $8,000 to fund the park's Junior Ranger program.
• - Hired a summer scholar, at $5,000, to work on troop movement maps for the first day's battlefield. The maps will be donated to the park when completed.
• - Purchased numerous artifacts for the park's museum collection, valued at $16,220
• - Raised $2,495 for land acquisition, through the annual March for Parks.

In addition to fund-raising, the Friends also participated in several special volunteer projects, including:

• - Providing 45 hours of volunteer crowd control and security during the exhumation of the human burial.
• - Conducting the annual peach orchard sale, which required 95 hours of volunteer time.
• - Painting all the headstones of Civil War burials in the National Cemetery. For this project, the Friends recruited 103 volunteers, who contributed 647 hours of labor.
• - Coordinating revisions to the Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District National Register documentation.

Eastern National Parks & Monument Association

As always, Eastern National Parks and Monuments Association provided a crucial portion of the park's operating programs in FY96. In addition to their "normal,, bookstore operations, Eastern National provided personnel services to operate the interpretive fee programs for the electric map and cyclorama painting, and provided all custodial services for the visitor center and cyclorama building, as they have for several years past. Due to the park's severe financial problems in FY96, Eastern paid all the utility bills for the entire park, to keep the park from laying off even more seasonal staff than we did. This will, of course, reduce our donation returns in FY97, but we had little choice, and we are very grateful to Eastern National for assisting us through a very tough budget year.

Eastern National's donations return to Gettysburg NMP in FY96, from fiscal year 1995's operations, totaled $373,807. of this, $142,914 was the donation return from bookstore operations, $100,559 was the return from the interpretive fee program for the

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electric map, and $130,334 was from the interpretive fee program for the Cyclorama program. These donations funded the living history program at Gettysburg, the PIX interactive interpretive exhibit, backlog cataloging, flora and faunal surveys, national register and cultural landscape inventory work by the Denver Service Center, repairs to four historic structures, rehabilitation of historic fences, and support of general interpretive operations at both Gettysburg and Eisenhower NHS.

Like the NPS, Eastern National Park and Monument Association was hit hard by the federal shut-downs in December and January; in fact, they were hit harder. Unlike NPS employees, Eastern National employees who were furloughed during the shut-down were not paid for their lost time when they returned to work. Eastern National did all they could to soften the blow to their employees, including liberal use of vacation time. Because of lost sales caused by the federal shut-down, donation returns to the parks will be smaller than normal next year.

Licensed Battlefield Guides

The park's renewed sense of partnership with the Licensed Battlefield Guides continued through the year. In addition to their normal interpretive tours, Guide volunteers gave evening talks in the National Cemetery, placed flags on the graves for Memorial Day and the battle anniversary, conducted "frozen finger" interpretive walks in the winter, and conducted over a dozen "brush-cutting" days to help the park staff keep views and vistas open for interpretive perspective.

For much of the year, the park worked closely with the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides on a proposed new reservation system, which has the promise of dramatically increasing the level of service available for park visitors. The guides were consulted during all major park planning activities, including the development concept plan for the new visitor center and museum complex.

Volunteers

As noted in the introduction, volunteers - whether individuals or groups - were a key to the park's success in maintaining its operating and preservation programs in FY96. For the year, the park recorded 961 volunteers, who collectively donated 86,048 hours of expertise and service to the park's interpretive, resource management, law enforcement, and maintenance programs. In addition to the growing corps of individual volunteers who helped us at the information desk and parking buses, the park's, organized volunteer programs - two of which were first introduced in FY97 - were immensely successful.

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• - Internship programs at the park doubled in FY97, thanks to the individual initiative of several members of the park staff. As a result, the park received 2,091 hours of volunteer intern assistance.
• - The volunteer living history program, which was expanded in 1995 to include black powder firing demonstrations, continued to grow in FY96. During the summer season, 25 re-enactment groups presented 64 living history programs on the park, involving 372 volunteers who donated 7,016 hours of interpretive programs. On 10 of the 16 weekends of the living history program, 40 black powder firing demonstrations were held, including 12 artillery demonstrations, 24 infantry demonstrations, and 4 cavalry demonstrations.
• - In January of 1996, the park introduced its Adopt-A-Position program, by making an appeal to Civil War Roundtables, reenactment units, and civic groups to "adopt" a regimental position on the battlefield. By adopting a position, the groups committed to performing two volunteer work weekends per year (once in the spring and again in the fall) to assist the park in brush clearing, fence repair, tree trimming, ditch cleaning, or whatever needed to be done to maintain their regimental position in good repair. The response to our call was phenomenal. By the end of the fiscal year, 121 groups had adopted 156 positions on the park. Even though many of these groups did not receive their "adoption papers" in time for spring cleanup, the park received over 400 hours of volunteer labor by the end of the fiscal year.

In addition, four of the groups who had adopted a position not only provided physical labor to maintain their site, but also raised and donated funds to the park for the repair of the monument on their positions. The park received $5,528 in donations, which will be used next year to repair those four monuments.

- Due to an unusual - and unaccountable - increase in vandalism to the park's monuments, the protection staff launched a Park Watch program in the summer of 1996. This effort was helped considerably by local and regional media coverage of park vandalism. Once again, the response was phenomenal. By the end of the year, over 80 volunteers had signed up for Park Watch training, and those who had completed the training had already donated 1,619 hours of volunteer time.

Internal Partnerships

Both myself and several key members of the park staff spent a fair amount of time on Sub-cluster, Cluster, and Northeast Field Area committees, task forces, and advisory groups, as we gradually learned how to work with one another in a reorganized Park Service.

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I served as Chair of the Mason-Dixon Sub-cluster throughout the year, which included Gettysburg, Eisenhower, Hampton, Fort McHenry, Assateague, and George Washington's Birthplace. In addition, I served as Vice-Chair of the Chesapeake Cluster, and as the cluster's representative on the Northeast Field Area's line-item construction priority team.

Dave Dreier, Chief of Maintenance, was instrumental in forming the cluster's Maintenance Advisory Group, which assisted us in priority-setting for cyclic projects, and in several other areas. Brion FitzGerald, Chief Ranger, served on the Northeast Field Area's Museum Services Steering Committee, as well as the cluster's Protection Management Group, and Interpretive Advisory Group. Rusty Thompson, Administrative Officer, continued to lead the cluster's administrative officers through the maze of reorganization, downsizing, and delegation of personnel, administrative, and contracting responsibilities to the parks. Dave Dreier, Kathy Harrison (Senior Historian) and Richard Segars (Park Architect) provided professional assistance to Fort McHenry, by serving on that park's cultural resource committee for review of projects with the potential to effect historic properties.

Gettysburg also assisted Fort McHenry, by donating an unwanted auction barn for their use. Actually, Fort McHenry assisted Gettysburg by dismantling the barn and taking it away, thereby saving us the costs of demolition. The barn is now in storage at Fort McHenry, and will be re-erected next year, as their new maintenance facility.

After a hurricane hit Shenandoah National Park, Gettysburg assisted its neighbor to the south with cleanup efforts, both by sending a crew down to assist with cleanup efforts, and by transferring $35,000 in storm damage funds. Although those funds were needed at Gettysburg, they were needed worse at Shenandoah. The park also sent a crew to Upper Delaware, after a tree fell on the Zane Grey house, to help repair those damages.

RESPONSIBILITY

Appropriations

FY96 (after assessments) $3,052,500
FY95 3,026,000
FY94 2,877,000
Other Revenues

Fee enhancement funds $ 164,000
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Housing (quarters) 79,102
Agricultural fees 32,223
Licensed Battlefield Guide fees 15,862
Donations 591,788
Eastern National 373,807
Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg 186,648
Adopt-A-Position groups 5,528
General (public), 25,805
One-Year Funding

Underground Storage Tank Removal $45,000
Storm damage funds 43,910
Cyclic funds, underground utilities 80,000
Cyclic funds, gutter replacement 16,909
Cultural cyclic, monument preservation 80,000
Repair/rehab, parking lot 88,000
Vehicle replacement 41,000
Systemwide Archeological Investigation Program (administered by Valley Forge Center) 75,000
Backlog cataloging 48,500
Museum Collections Preservation & Protection 27,500
Line-Item Construction

The Federal Highway Administration awarded a $1.4 million contract, for phase one of repair/repavement of Gettysburg park roads, in the fall of 1995. Funds were available from a FY95 appropriation. Work was originally scheduled to be completed within one year, but a combination of extremely poor winter and spring weather has delayed completion into the spring of 1997.

Gettysburg and Eisenhower received a $2.55 million appropriation in the FY96 line-item construction budget, for the installation of park-wide sewer systems. The project will replace failing

18 septic systems by connecting 38 structures at both parks into local municipal sewer systems. The project was designed by a consultant to the local Gettysburg Municipal Authority, and will be awarded and constructed by the Authority, with funds from the NPS. Design was completed in FY96, and construction is expected to start in the summer of 1997.

CONCERNS FOR THE FUTURE

State of the Park

My concerns for the future are no different than this time last year. Gettysburg NMP is broke. Financially, the park is in even worse shape than it was this time last year, due to the "unfunded mandate" we received from Congress in FY96: a 2.4% pay increase for park employees, and a 2.5% increase in the Consumer Price Index, and a mere 0.08% increase in the park's operating base.

As I often state in speeches to the Civil War constituency, if Gettysburg NMP (or the NPS) were a Fortune 500 corporation, we would be in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings right now. We are not even close to having adequate funds to preserve our cultural resources, or to ensure that they will still be here for the enjoyment of future generations.

Government Accounting office Study

In the spring of 1996, we had the opportunity to provide specific details of our bankruptcy. Gettysburg NMP was one of eight parks selected by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) for a "study of activities within nation park borders - known as internal threats - which may adversely affect park resources." The information we provided to GAO identified nine specific threats to the preservation of cultural resources, nine specific threats to the preservation of natural resources, and 11 threats to the maintenance of visitor services. For all but one of these 29 threats, the single, root cause of the threat was the fundamental and overwhelming lack of dollars to do the job. In other words, 97% of our problems arise from the simple fact that we're broke.

The summary of our report to GAO showed that we were operating at about 67% of what was needed to adequately preserve our resources unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

- The park has a FY96 operating base of $3,052,500. In order to complete base natural and cultural resource inventories, care for the artifact and archival collections, preserve 98 historic structures, 1400 monuments and 400 cannon carriages, maintain park facilities and infrastructure, provide adequate law enforcement protection for park resource and visitors, and

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provide basic interpretive services, the park needs an operating increase of $1,899,685. Our current operating base is 62% of what is required for basic resource preservation and visitor services.

The park used 97 FTE in FY96. In order to accomplish all the currently unfunded work described above, the park needs 35 additional FTE. Our current personnel strength is 73% of what is required for basic resource preservation and visitor services.

- Finally, Gettysburg NMP has a maintenance backlog of slightly over $75 million dollars. This is the combined one-time cost of historic structures rehabilitation (as opposed to preservation described above), monument rehabilitation, cannon carriage rehabilitation, historic fencing and earthworks rehabilitation, conservation of artifacts and archives, road and building rehabilitation, and land acquisition.

Plans for the Future

Although we will continue to talk to everyone who will listen about the abysmal status of Gettysburg NMP and the National Park Service, we do not expect instantaneous relief from the Congress. Accordingly, we will continue to emphasize three principle areas where we can help ourselves - a little - while waiting for the American public to come to the realization that their national treasures are in jeopardy.

• - We will continue to seek all feasible and possible means to increase the flow of "non-appropriated" revenues and donations in support of the inadequate park budget. This includes working with our principle partners, Eastern National Parks and Monument Association and the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg.
• - we will continue to emphasize our volunteer programs, including both the individual programs and the "group" programs such as Park Watch and Adopt-A-Position. Already, the Adopt-A-Position participants have come to realize that their personal fund-raising efforts are the only way that their "adopted" monuments, cannons, fences, structures, etc., will ever be rehabilitated and cared for in the foreseeable future.
• - We will continue to make the Request for Proposals for the Visitor Center and Museum complex our number one priority in FY97. If we can find an appropriate way to acquire $43 million in private funds for capital improvements, and create $1.4 million in annual (non-appropriated) revenues for the operations and maintenance of that complex, we will have taken the first step out of bankruptcy at Gettysburg NMP. Best of all, if we can do it right, we will have provided other parks with a model that they may be able to use to solve similar problems.