Acadia tightens its belt yet again

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – Pork? What pork?

Other states may lay claim to government-funded bacon like Alaska’s infamous “bridge to nowhere,” but in Maine, park officials are quietly trying to put Acadia on a diet. Again.

Due to a federal budget allocation for 2006 that will effectively decrease the park’s buying power by $400,000, officials said they plan to engage once more in the belt-tightening measures that have become as familiar as they are disheartening.

“The increases that we have been getting have been insufficient to keep up with the cost of doing business,” Len Bobinchock, deputy superintendent at Acadia National Park, said Monday. “We can do this for a while, but we can’t do it year in and year out.”

Park staff has had to make do with these de facto decreases in the budget for the last three or four years, he said, and they have had a “cumulative effect.”

The $6.35 million budget authorized by Congress in February will pay for a lot, but not for a full complement of seasonal and permanent positions, Bobinchock said. This year officials have decided not to hire as many summer seasonal employees as usual, have lifeguards start two weeks later and keep some of the 14 vacant permanent positions unstaffed for the time being.

The summer staff will be down by two maintenance positions, one law enforcement position and one interpretive ranger.

Bobinchock said that the 21/2 million visitors, on average, who head to Mount Desert Island each year should not notice any changes in the park’s service or mission.

“What we’re trying to do is save some money, and at the same time minimize any impact that there would be to park visitors,” he said.

Among the park’s overall reductions will be a decrease in what Bobinchock deems “preventative maintenance” on the Park Loop Road.

“Some roadsides might not get mowed so quickly,” he said. “Some might not get mowed at all this year.”

Though Acadia National Park did receive a small increase in federal funding, a 1.5 percent across-the-board cut negated that by $79,000. Inflation, the high price of fuel and the government-mandated employee pay increase combined to make the park’s bottom line look more red than black, according to the deputy superintendent.

“Although there’s been increases for the park, it’s not sufficient to cover the full range of needs that we have here,” Bobinchock said.