NARROWSBURG, NY — When Dickens’ Oliver Twist asked for more, he was confined and the orphans’ workhouse put up a notice offering a reward for anyone who would take the troublemaker off their hands. The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) last month held out its bowl and is now concerned that a slap may be coming.

UDC, which has never received any increase to the $300,000 annual stipend it has operated on for the past 30 years, in September agreed to inquire about getting back some or all of a $30,000 refund that the Upper Delaware National Park Service (NPS) had recently returned to the U.S. Treasury as a budget surplus. “They’ll only piss it away anyway,” Berlin’s Al Henry had said of refunded money.

Rather than the intended goal, their subsequent inquiry to the NPS regional office prompted inquiries about UDC’s proper use of contingency funds and possible corrective actions. “I asked about the $30,000. They brought up the $128,000,” UDC Executive Director Laurie Ramie said, referring to interest earned by the UDC during the time when they received 100% of their annual allocation at the beginning of the year.

All that is to be discussed in an October 19 conference call including UDC, local NPS and regional and Washington finance officials, and no one locally is predicting an outcome.

UDC has no contingency fund. They have unrestricted funds, derived from interest that the UDC once earned on its federal allocation. During first the 23 years of UDC existence the National Park Service provided the static annual $300,000 grant as a lump sum payment at the start of the fiscal year. That allowed for UDC investment in certificates of deposit and the resulting $128,000 in interest.

Federal money doesn’t come that way anymore. Now bills are submitted and reimbursement is paid.

Unrestricted money kept UDC afloat during five months earlier this year when the Department of Interior held up all grant payments during a system-wide audit of all its hundreds of similar grant and cooperative agreement programs. Under normal cicumstances, it pays up-front monthly bills for which UDC is then reimbursed.

The money discussion kicked off on October 5, following a presentation on NPS budgeting by Upper Delaware NPS Finance Officer Karen Henry. Her appearance was largely in response to the $30,000 surplus discussion in September and a subsequent letter UDC sent to park Superintendent Kris Heister.

Asked why there has been no UDC budget increase, Henry explained that increases have been sought, but the entire NPS budget is coded as discretional spending and has been subject to cuts from the cost of wars and sequestration for debt reduction. UDC’s budget is viewed as a fixed cost in the park’s largely static operations budget.

Heister, who did not attend the September meeting, said, “If we gave you $20,000 or $30,000 more, we’d have to cut our budget.”

Karen Henry noted that all budget money expires at the end of the fiscal year, but suggested that the October 19 phone call would determine whether UDC would be allowed to roll over any unspent money from the $300,000, which presumably includes the $128,000 of unrestricted funds.

With federal money no longer paid up front, “You have to have some money of your own,” Cochecton’s Larry Richardson said.

Ramie said that loss of unrestricted funds would create an “an untenable situation.”

“It’s all riding on the October 19 call” with the regional and Washington staff, Karen Henry said.

“If the unrestricted funds are zeroed out, how does UDC operate?” Al Henry asked.

The UDC’s auditor, Richard Eckersley, was on hand. He suggested that the UDC budget could be written to allow for a surplus. “If you budget more than is appropriated, the reserve won’t be touched,” he said.

Al Henry said UDC had to have a plan for the conference call. When Eckersley confirmed that the unrestricted fund was UDC property, Henry recommended that no part of it be spent, except to pay bills.

Regarding the future of UDC’s existing funding level, Heister said the $300,000 is probably “a safe bet now. After December 8 [the expiration of the latest budget extension], I don’t know.”

Shohola’s Aaron Robinson said the authorizing legislation requires NPS to contract with the council.

Heister responded that the language left the contract as optional.

Karen Henry, a 36-year NPS veteran, was more direct. Funding “might change with Trump. The government giveth and the government taketh away.”