The National Park Service may be undergoing organizational changes akin to the changes that are underway to the US Forest Service. The proposed plan is to transition NPS to a new “hub and spoke” model, with some “hub” parks being in charge of setting goals and priorities and the nearby “spoke” parks being in charge of carrying out the work on the ground. Because the proposal apparently includes retaining Regional Offices, it may result in the larger parks becoming mini-Regional Offices.
However, the question is whether such a model will actually increase inefficiency. A reorganization would be successful if it reduced the redundancy caused by each park needing its employees to know how to address every type of issue the park dealt with by setting up teams of experts which were focused on specific issues that applied to more than one park. The key element to any such reorganization being successful is correctly determining which types of issues merit a specialized team which would then reduce redundancy and thus increase efficiency. Another key element would be a process by which the local NPS park staff could provide information about their park’s situation to ensure the specialized team was well informed before making any decisions.
Other options which could be considered are outsourcing tasks which do not involve any inherently governmental considerations, such as inspections of concession operations. Doing so would also normalize the inspection ratings which otherwise can vary dramatically.
Absent actually achieving improved efficiency, the reorganization would simply change for the sake of change.
