What is Deferred Maintenance and Repair? 

The Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) invests in priority deferred maintenance and repair (DM&R) infrastructure projects at national parks, national wildlife refuges, recreation areas, Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)-funded schools, and other U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior)-managed public lands. DM&R is defined by the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board as a maintenance and repair activity that was not performed when it should have been or was scheduled to be performed but was delayed to a future period. 

Multiple factors contribute to the growth of DM&R over time, but the largest driver is decades of insufficient resources to perform preventative and recurring maintenance on assets such as buildings, trails, and campsites. The longer maintenance or repairs are deferred, assets may become unsafe or unusable, and repairs or replacements become more expensive. 

The DM&R needs for the four Interior GAOA LRF bureaus is estimated at $33.2 billion as of September 2024.

Geographic Distribution of Maintenance and Repair Needs 

The interactive map below displays the total dollar amount (in thousands) of DM&R by state for the four Interior GAOA LRF bureaus: BIE, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Darker colors indicate a higher DM&R total. Hover over or click on a state to see the DM&R and backlog by bureau for that state. Click here to download the data in Excel format. 

Footnotes:
• The DM&R data presented here reflects information reported to the General Services Administration (GSA) in the Federal Real Property Portfolio (FRPP). DM&R is calculated based on asset repair needs in FRPP, which does not include assets with a status indicator of Report of Excess Submitted, Report of Excess Accepted, Determination to Dispose, Disposed, Cannot Currently be Disposed, or Surplus.
• The DM&R estimates represent a point in time and are reported as of September 30, 2024.

Addressing Maintenance and Repair Needs with GAOA LRF Funding

Interior prioritizes GAOA LRF projects that address a high percentage of DM&R by repairing, demolishing, or replacing critical assets. 

Given their scale and complexity, many GAOA LRF projects take multiple years to complete. Once a GAOA LRF project is complete, the associated asset records are updates to retire, or remove, the reported DM&R. Interior is now starting to see the impacts of the first GAOA LRF projects on assets improved and DM&R addressed.

The chart below displays the anticipated cumulative DM&R addressed by GAOA LRF projects each fiscal year based on estimated project completion dates. Interior expects the first five years of projects to address nearly $6 billion in DM&R. 

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• Visualization is based on estimates as of June 2025, and is subject to change.
• Visualization assumes the DM&R for a given project will be removed approximately 15 months after construction work has been completed.

Although the GAOA LRF is making a large investment in public lands infrastructure, this funding alone cannot resolve all of Interior's asset management needs as routine maintenance and repair needs continue to outpace available funding. However, the GAOA LRF helps Interior shift to a strategic management approach aligned with Interior’s Asset Management Vision, which emphasizes making lowest lifecycle cost investments to deliver a right-sized, resilient, and sustainable asset portfolio that keeps assets in good condition for the future. 

Click through the Photo Gallery below to learn more about how GAOA LRF addresses DM&R needs on the assets visitors, staff, and volunteers rely on to access, enjoy, share, and protect public lands: