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Commentary by Bill Meek
Special to the Herald/Review
The Arizona state parks system is crumbling and the Arizona Legislature is threatening to apply a sledgehammer to the problem.
For those who are not parks savvy, the 30 state park sites preserve some of the state’s scenic gems, like Red Rock State Park in Sedona, Catalina near Tucson and world-famous Karchner Caverns near Benson. State parks also protect historic treasures like Homolovi Ruins near Winslow and the Yuma Territorial Prison. And they include a bevy of wildly popular water-oriented parks at lakes and rivers across the state.
State parks welcomed 2.3 million visitors last year. In exchange for meager state funding, the parks generate about $126 million annually in tourist revenue for counties and municipalities that are neighbors to state parks, according to a 2002 study by Northern Arizona University.
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The Legislature appropriates only $8.2 million to the Parks Department from the state’s general fund. The rest of the department’s operating budget and all of its money for park upkeep and improvements comes from funds made up of user fees, various grants and a voter-approved share of the state lottery.
That might be marginally acceptable, but the Legislature won’t let those funds alone. During the last state budget crisis, in 2002-2003, the Legislature “swept” more than $40 million out of those funds, leaving the parks system with almost no resources for capital spending. The parks have never recovered and now the Legislature is proposing to do it again.
Legislative budgeters have proposed a list of parks fund sweeps totaling $38.3 million in the current fiscal year to help the state out of its projected $1 billion budget deficit. Much of that money is actually designated by law to be used as grants to counties and municipalities for parks and open space, but the net effect of the sweeps is that state parks would again be left with no capital money.
Clearly, there is a problem of fairness here. The parks system is being asked to contribute to fiscal rescue far out of proportion to its tiny $8.2 million impact on the state budget. But the real issue is that this scheme will leave the parks with no resources to stop the steady deterioration of the system.
The Parks Department has identified nearly $44 million in urgent capital needs encompassing 27 of the 30 state parks. For example:
• The parks system is under orders from the Department of Environmental Quality to clean up many of its waste disposal systems. The cleanup would cost $6.5 million, which the Parks Department can’t afford.
• At Buckskin Mountain on the Colorado River, priceless riverbank is eroding away. Stabilization is a $2 million project, but never mind, that park also has a $75,000 wastewater pump that is inching toward failure and that would cause the park to close.
• The historic lodge at Tonto Natural Bridge would be a moneymaker if it could be refurbished to house paying guests, but a leaking roof, which went unrepaired, has turned a cosmetic renovation into a $1 million reconstruction project.
• Significant cracks and structural weaknesses are showing up with regularity in historic buildings like the Douglas Mansion in Jerome and McFarland Courthouse in Florence. A ceiling at the historic Yuma Quartermaster Station collapsed recently.
The list of capital needs is nearly endless and the Legislature’s strategy is cynical and purposeful. The strategy appears to be to leave the parks system enough operating money to avoid layoffs but to pilfer the less visible funds that pay for system upkeep and improvements.
What can we do to prevent this? We can write, e-mail or call our state senators and state representatives and tell them to take the state parks system out of their budget cross hairs. The future of the park system may absolutely be at stake.
BILL MEEK is a member of the board of directors of the Arizona State Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed to provide financial and other support for state parks. He can be reached at (602) 375-1967 or billmeek@fastq.com.
Ed Tilton wrote on Jan 5, 2008 9:00 AM:
That would help out the old budget "