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Interior Department to continue receiving free concert tickets

(CNN) The Interior Department will continue to receive free concert tickets -- worth hundreds of dollars per show -- when headliners like Sting and Tony Bennett perform at a National Park Service site, according to a new contract released Friday.

The longstanding practice has come under scrutiny twice from the department's inspector general, which wrote last year the practice raises "ethical concerns." It estimated the value of the eight tickets per show averaged out to more than $500 per performance last season, or around $43,000 for the year.

Top performers in this year's season include Ringo Starr, Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz, The Beach Boys and Weird Al Yankovic.

Greenwire was first to report the new contract.

The 20-year contract allows the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts to continue operating the similarly-named outdoor performance venue in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, DC. The facility is owned by the National Park Service.

The contract specifies that the tickets must be used in accordance with certain federal ethics regulations, but did not spell out a prohibition on senior department officials for their personal entertainment. Appropriate uses could also include "inspections of the park during ... performances," a park service statement said.

The ticket allowance has been provided "since at least the late 1970s," the inspector general special report concluded last September. It summarized a 1979 inspector general report as having recommended "strictly prohibiting free tickets for employees," but noted the practice continued.

The 2018 report recommended the department conduct an ethics review, which officials said was completed before the new contract was finalized.

"The tickets at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts have been a long-standing tradition for the Department, and after an ethics and legal review, it was confirmed that the tickets are government property and may be used by the Department for authorized purposes," said Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, a park service spokeswoman.

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