Under the Obama administration’s fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget request, funding for programs within the Historic Preservation Fund at the National Park Service will generally see healthy increases while funding for cultural and historic partnership programs will remain flat.
The bill provides $25 million for the Centennial Challenge program that will be used to leverage private donations. 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. Congress did not provide any funding for the program in FY 2009.
Please note below that for comparison purposes, the FY ’09 appropriation will be included in parentheses after the FY 2010 budget request.
Cultural Programs–$23 million ($22.6 million) +$371K
Heritage Partnerships program–$15.7 million ($15.7 million) +$34K
Historic Preservation Fund–$77.6 million ($69.5 million) +$8.1 million. The Fund includes:
- Preserve America program—$3.1 million (zero funding) +$3.1 million
- State Historic Preservation Offices–$46.5 ($42.5 million) +$4 million
- Save America’s Treasures program–$20 million ($20 million) no change
- Tribal Grants–$8 million ($7 million) +$1 million
It is important to note that under the Administration’s Economic Recovery Act, the Park Service recently received a total of $750 million in budget authority for the following programs: Operation of the National Park System ($146 million); Construction ($589 million) and the Historic Preservation Fund ($15 million.
