At the federal level, it’s called the “Washington Monument Strategy.” When bureaucrats are threatened with budget cuts, they say they have no choice but to close important facilities or eliminate the most publicly recognized programs in their respective agencies, as the National Park Service might do with the Washington Monument. Even though it’s often successful, many consider the ploy to be nothing more than a bluff. Sadly, it’s no bluff for California State Parks.
While a direct cut of about $16 million, 11% of its General Fund allocation, may seem modest, the inevitable result will be the full or partial closure of a substantial number of California’s 278 state parks. Most accounts put that number at near 100.
How did we get here? Ironically, State Parks is a victim of its own efficiency, having learned to make do with less long before the current crisis. State budget deficits in the early 1990’s led to the elimination of nearly 600 positions and a streamlining of the Department’s structure to eliminate an entire layer of middle management. During the economic boom times in 2000, fees were decreased by nearly 50%, while the General Fund allocation was increased by some $30 million to make up for the lost fee revenue.
Over the course of the next several years, though, the Department saw its General Fund allocation reduced by $2.7 million in 2001-02, by $21.6 million in 2002-03, by $35 million in 2003-04, by $15 million in 2004-05, by $1.6 million in 2005-06, and by another $4.5 million in 2007-08. Coupled with the current cuts, the General Fun allocation to State Parks has been reduced by almost $93 million since 2000. Chronic underfunding has also left State Parks with a deferred maintenance backlog of over $1 billion.
There have been five fee increases since 2001 and a one time transfer of funds from a different account, but those offsets combined amount to only about 40% of the reduction in General Fund allocations from 2000 to the present. The offsets and fee increases are not enough to stave off the inevitable closures. In constant dollars, State Parks operations expenditures decreased by one-third per visitor since 1991. What fat there may have been has long since been trimmed away.
The hit to California State Parks will reverberate far beyond the borders of a closed park. State parks are the economic lifeblood of many communities. According to recent research from CSU Sacramento, California’s state parks are visited 75 million times annually. These visitors, in turn, spend $4.3 billion annually in visitation-related expenditures. These expenditures generate $300 million in sales tax revenues to state government. This includes $122 million in sales tax revenue generated each year by out-of-state visitors.
Is there a way out of this morass for the state park system? Perhaps. Some have suggested the use of more volunteers, although over 20,000 volunteers already provide over $21 million worth of donated labor to California State Parks annually. Some have called for more fees increases, but user fees can only be raised so much. There is a direct correlation between increased fees and decreased visitation.
Some have suggested the system is simply too big and needs to be downsized; bond money and legislation have in the past provided for park acquisition, but without the money to operate and maintain those lands. Other states successfully use a variety of funding sources other than general funds for a portion of state park operations. Oregon funds a portion of its state parks through the lottery.
Montana funds a portion of its system with a fee on vehicle license registration in exchange for free vehicular entrance into its state parks. A legislative attempt in California to adopt something similar to Montana failed in 2008, but may be on the ballot in 2010.
One thing, though, is for certain. As long as California State Parks stays on the General Fund rollercoaster, it will always lose out to education, prisons and health care and continue to suffer a slow and painful decline. As some wags have put it, while Californians my put parks first in their hearts, they’re last in their wallets.