Budget Roll Up and Allocation- Park to Region to National. | P17AS00575

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00575

The grant opportunity "Budget Roll Up and Allocation - Park to Region to National" (Funding Opportunity Number P17AS00575) is a National Park Service research-focused cooperative agreement aimed at improving how limited fire management budgets are built and distributed across the National Park System. The central idea is to create and test a mathematically based model that can take a national-level budget and allocate it down to regions and then to individual parks, while also being able to roll budget needs upward from parks to regions to the national level in a way that matches the logic used in allocation. In other words, the project is trying to solve a long-standing problem in multi-level budgeting: the methods used to ask for money and the methods used to hand out money often do not align, and this project targets that mismatch directly.

A major focus of the work is internal consistency across administrative levels. The opportunity calls for an approach where budget formulation (how parks and regions build and justify budget requests up the chain) is consistent with budget allocation (how national leadership distributes funds back down). The intent is to reduce contradictions between what the system says it needs and what it ends up funding, and to make the process more transparent and defensible when decisions are questioned by leadership, oversight bodies, or stakeholders.

Another core objective is proportionate performance, meaning that budgeting decisions should respond to measurable contributions to outcomes rather than relying primarily on history, politics, or ad hoc negotiation. The notice highlights return on investment (ROI) as the key performance concept, specifically across preparedness and fuels programs within fire management. Under this framing, parks that demonstrate stronger proportional contributions to performance, as evidenced by ROI, would receive allocations that reflect that contribution, and the same proportional logic would apply at the regional level. The opportunity notes that this proportional approach could eventually be expanded beyond the National Park Service to broader Department of the Interior bureaus, although that broader application may be outside the immediate scope of the proposed work.

The practical problem the research is meant to address is that budgeting across the Park Service's multiple administrative layers has been difficult to do in a way that is simultaneously tractable (workable with real-world constraints and timelines), mathematically sound (based on clear and coherent quantitative logic), socially stable (not so disruptive that it becomes impossible to implement), and performance promoting (encouraging outcomes and accountability rather than entrenching the status quo). The opportunity explicitly emphasizes that past attempts to achieve those goals for preparedness and fuels programs have been elusive, and it seeks a solution that can be implemented operationally, not just described theoretically.

In terms of deliverables and impact, the project is expected to produce a pragmatic, repeatable, and defensible budgeting methodology that can be used as a guideline for allocation decisions at every level, from national to regional to park units. While the work is centered on federally managed parks, the description also signals broader relevance: improved national-scale budgeting methods for fire management planning could influence other federal agencies and bureaus, as well as state governments, non-governmental organizations, and the general public who are affected by wildfire preparedness, fuels reduction, and related land management decisions.

Administratively, this was a discretionary funding opportunity offered by the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, under the Natural Resources activity category (CFDA 15.945). It was structured as a cooperative agreement, meaning the agency likely anticipated substantial involvement or collaboration during the project rather than a hands-off grant. Eligibility was limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education. The opportunity was posted on July 28, 2017, with an original closing date of August 6, 2017. The expected award count was one, with an award ceiling of $98,004, indicating a single, relatively focused research effort intended to produce a usable model and process rather than a large multi-site program.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Budget Roll Up and Allocation- Park to Region to National." and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 28, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 06, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $98,004.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P17AS00575

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: