Funding for cultural and historic preservation programs at the National Park Service will receive mostly modest increases under the fiscal year (FY) 2009 omnibus spending bill (HR 1105) enacted into law this week.

Please note below that for comparison purposes, the FY ’08 budget number will be included in parentheses after this year’s amount followed by the increase or decrease from FY ’08 to FY ’09.

The bill provides zero funding for the Centennial Challenge program down from $24.6 million. Congress did not provide money since the program has yet to be authorized. The Centennial Challenge is a ten-year initiative to generate $2 billion in public and private matching grants to prepare for the Park Service’s Centennial celebration in 2016.

Cultural Programs–$22.6 million ($21.4 million) +$1.2 million

Heritage Partnerships program–$15.7 million ($15.2 million) +$500K

Historic Preservation Fund–$71.5 million ($65.6 million). The Fund includes:

Within the Historic Preservation fund, the bill does not include $10,000,000 requested in for the Preserve America program or $2,000,000 requested to initiate an inventory of historic properties. In zeroing out the program, the Committees on Appropriations stated that future funding for the Preserve America program should be deferred pending a full evaluation of the effectiveness of the program in meeting national heritage tourism needs.

• Preserve America program—zero funding ($7.3 million)
• State Historic Preservation Offices–$42.5 million ($39.3 million) +$3.2 million
• Save America’s Treasures program–$20 million ($24.6 million) -$4.6 million

While the bill includes $20,000,000 for the Save America’s Treasures· program, it allocates $10,000,000 of this amount for specifically earmarked projects.