Morrison Institute for Public Policy

7 ways to pay for great state parks

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[Source: Arizona Republic Editorial] – The ominous clouds hanging over Arizona State Parks need to start raining money. Parks managers struggle to protect valuable resources with no money from the General Fund. Unique remnants of Arizona’s heritage have lost dedicated money streams meant to protect them.

At risk are playgrounds for urban Arizonans and sources of tourism for rural residents. At stake is the chance for your children and grandchildren to travel through time from cave formations that began 200,000 years ago to prehistoric Indian ruins to a Spanish presidio to a territorial prison — and wrap it all up by waterskiing across a man-made lake.

What’s at stake is something irreplaceable and beloved. “It’s time people got their dander up and told the Legislature this is one thing that touches their lives,” says Ken Travous, former executive director of Arizona State Parks.

Here’s what people should tell lawmakers:

• Restore the State Parks share of the Heritage Fund. In 1990, voters approved $10 million a year from Lottery revenues for parks. During the recession, lawmakers took that funding. Several attempts to restore it have failed at the Legislature. It’s past time to give it back.

• Restore the authority of State Parks to spend money raised from gate fees, gift shops and other money-making enterprises. Park managers used to put increased revenue to work for the parks. Now they need legislative authorization to spend the money the parks make. Beginning in 2003, that enhancement fund was swept by lawmakers and used to supplant General Fund appropriations.

• Encourage innovation and resource development through parks’ concessions and development. Parks Director Bryan Martyn is looking at a plan to contract with a single concessionaire for all the state parks. It could result in more investment in the parks if the private contractor serving big money-makers, such as Lake Havasu, also is required to develop resources in less-visited parks. The State Parks Board needs to carefully scrutinize any contract to make sure it serves the public’s best interest.

• Recognize the need to create additional sources of permanent dedicated funding. A 2009 Morrison Institute report put the cost of operating and maintaining the parks at $40 million to $44 million a year. The current budget is half that. In addition, the parks have at least $80 million in capital needs. The idea of a surcharge or voluntary donation on vehicle registration has been floated — and rejected by lawmakers — since 2009. It is a painless way for people to add $5 or $10 every year to benefit state parks.

• Dedicated means dedicated. Protect funds that benefit the parks from legislative raids or sweeps.

• Restore the authority of the State Parks Board to hire and fire the parks director. That position became a political appointee with 2012 changes in the state personnel system. The director now serves at the pleasure of the governor. The parks board lost clout. The director lost the independence of being insulated from a governor’s whims.

• Face facts. “No state parks system in the United States pays for itself from earned revenue,” according to the Morrison Institute report, “The Price of Stewardship: The Future of Arizona’s State Parks.” Parks need more than they get from Arizona’s Legislature. They deserve more.

Arizonans demonstrated their support by establishing the Heritage Fund in 1990, and they reiterated that sentiment nearly two decades later when a Gallup Arizona poll released by the Center for the Future of Arizona found that “the state’s natural beauty and open spaces are seen by citizens as our greatest asset.”

It’s time to stop stiffing state parks.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

Arizona State Parks are a resource for today and a promise for tomorrow. But short-sighted funding decisions imperil their future. You can help change that.

  • VISIT. Arizona’s state parks offer dazzling natural wonders, family recreational activities and authentic windows into Arizona’s history and prehistory. azstateparks.com
  • BE A CHAMPION. There’s an election coming up. Ask candidates for state office how they plan to support Arizona’s parks and let them know you want this to be a priority issue.
  • GET INVOLVED. More than a dozen parks have volunteer “friends” groups that provide fund-raising and other services for their chosen park. For information on joining or starting one: azstateparks.com/volunteer/v_foundation.html

Arizona State Parks Foundation is a non-profit that engages in advocacy, fund-raising, and other support. Visit their website at arizonastateparksfoundation.org  The Arizona Heritage Alliance is a non-profit that promotes and protects the Heritage Fund and its goals: azheritage.org

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ABOUT THIS SERIES

Arizona State Parks are a valuable resource in great peril. Stripped of funding during the recession, they struggle without state money and stagger under deferred maintenance. Yet they offer open spaces and outdoor recreation for a growing urban population and an economic engine for rural communities. Popular with the public, but lacking political support, funding solutions can help the parks deliver on their remarkable potential.

State parks, a vision now out of reach

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[Source: Arizona Republic Editorial] – The bulldozers were a distant rumble when the push began in 1973 to create Catalina State Park north of Tucson. It took another decade before the land could be acquired and the park dedicated by then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt.

The land was remote then. Its 5,500 acres of foothills, canyons and streams lie between Tucson and Oracle, near the Pusch Ridge Wilderness, where the Coronado National Forest climbs up into the Santa Catalina Mountains.

The park, dotted with 5,000 saguaros, is so rugged that desert bighorn sheep were relocated there. More than 150 species of birds live within its boundaries.

Today, the park is anything but remote. A bustling shopping center sits across from the park entrance. Development tickles the boundaries.

Without the vision of state leaders 40 years ago, this pristine piece of Arizona could be covered with houses and 7-Elevens today.

Today, creating a Catalina State Park would be impossible. Buying the land “would be out of reach,” says Ken Travous, who was executive director of Arizona State Parks for 23 years. “It was almost out of reach then.”

Catalina draws a wide variety of visitors even on a weekday. Campgrounds are full and horses wait in the corrals at the equestrian center.

The value of this lush, open desert in an increasingly urban landscape far exceeds dollars and cents. The wisdom of those who preserved it sings on the wind through the needles of a saguaro: Prescient. Far-sighted.

As Arizona’s population grows and the cost of land increases, places like Catalina become even more important to a state shaped by its wide, open spaces.

The same is true of other state parks that celebrate the state’s natural beauty, as well as those that recall the past, such as the historic courthouse in Tombstone, the Spanish presidio in Tubac, the prehistoric ruins at Homolovi (closed for a year because of budget cuts) and the world-class geological formations in Kartchner Caverns. And don’t forget the bikini country of Lake Havasu or water skiing at Lyman Lake.

These are picture-postcard places where families make memories and rural communities make bank.

Nearly 2.5 million people visit the state parks each year, with half coming from out of state, says State Parks Director Bryan Martyn.

The parks are a playground for urban Arizonans, but they are an economic driver for rural areas.

Martyn says state parks bring more than $300 million to rural economies annually. That’s a powerful economic driver, but years of funding cuts have left those who run the parks unable to keep up with necessary repairs, let alone acquire new parks for future generations.

“Simply put, without a stable, sustainable funding, Arizona’s park system will not be able to survive,” according to a 2009 report from Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute.

When it comes to the consequences of not putting resources into our parks, Travous puts it even more bluntly:

“It will get to the point where they are so hammered you don’t want to go there.”

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

Arizona State Parks are a resource for today and a promise for tomorrow. But short-sighted funding decisions imperil their future. You can help change that.

  • VISIT. Arizona’s state parks offer dazzling natural wonders, family recreational activities and authentic windows into Arizona’s history and prehistory. azstateparks.com
  • BE A CHAMPION. There’s an election coming up. Ask candidates for state office how they plan to support Arizona’s parks and let them know you want this to be a priority issue.
  • GET INVOLVED. More than a dozen parks have volunteer “friends” groups that provide fund-raising and other services for their chosen park. For information on joining or starting one: azstateparks.com/volunteer/v_foundation.html

Arizona State Parks Foundation is a non-profit that engages in advocacy, fund-raising and other support:arizonastateparksfoundation.org

The Arizona Heritage Alliance is a non-profit that promotes and protects the Heritage Fund and its goals: azheritage.org

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ABOUT THIS SERIES

Arizona State Parks are a valuable resource in great peril. Stripped of funding during the recession, they struggle without state money and stagger under deferred maintenance. Yet they offer open spaces and outdoor recreation for a growing urban population and an economic engine for rural communities. Popular with the public, but lacking political support, funding solutions can help the parks deliver on their remarkable potential.

What do lawmakers have against state parks?

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[Source: Arizona Republic Editorial Board] –Arizonans consistently say they value public land and open spaces.

But Arizona lawmakers slashed funding for state parks during the recession and show no intention of healing those cuts.

That’s a disconnect of colossal proportions.

A Gallup Arizona poll released by the Center for the Future of Arizona in 2009 found that “the state’s natural beauty and open spaces are seen by citizens as our greatest asset.” Nearly two decades earlier, Arizona voters overwhelmingly voted to create the Heritage Fund to dedicate proceeds from the Lottery to state parks and the Game and Fish Department.

Today, no general-fund money goes to state parks. The parks’ share of the Heritage Fund money has been eliminated, and a bill in the Legislature would further limit the funds available to run state parks.

“Parks are limping along right now,” says Walter “Bill” Meek, president of the non-profit Arizona State Parks Foundation, which works to preserve, promote and enhance state parks. He says partnerships with cities and counties that have helped keep parks open are in jeopardy as municipalities face budget woes.

Meanwhile, two bills — House Bill 2178 and Senate Bill 1286 — that would re-establish the parks portion of the Heritage Fund are not expected to make it out of the Legislature. Last year, a parks’ Heritage Fund-restoration bill never got out of committee.

Another bill — HB 2601 — would redirect money from the State Lake Improvement Fund that Meek says has been helping run the parks. It passed committee last week.

How bad are things for parks’ funding? In 2009, Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy estimated it would take $30 million to $34 million a year to operate and maintain the current system of 32 state parks and natural areas. The total agency operating budget for fiscal 2014 is $22.46 million, according to the Arizona State Parks fiscal 2012-13 annual report.

This disconnect between what the public wants and what the politicians do is not just an Arizona thing. Colorado College’s recent “State of the Rockies” poll found that residents of Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, as well as Arizona, expressed deep love of the public lands and a strong desire for the agencies that manage them to be adequately funded.

This is particularly striking in a region known for criticism of the federal government, yet support for federal land and federal land-management agencies was strong regardless of party affiliation.

Westerners treasure the public lands that celebrate the spirit and beauty that is as vast and liberating as our endless horizons.

So, what’s with the politicians?

The National Park Service faces more than $11 billion in deferred maintenance, according to congressional testimony by NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis last summer. The spending bill approved in January included a modest increase.

Meanwhile, states are pushing for new park lands. Arizona wants to expand Saguaro National Park and Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. This desire to protect unique lands shows foresight as population pressures increase. But land comes with maintenance needs.

Congress and the Arizona Legislature need to recognize that the public’s love of parks and open spaces is not a casual or passing fancy. It’s a deep commitment that has held strong and steady over many years.

Support for public lands should reflect that profound and enduring fact.

After years of budget cuts, greener outlook for Arizona State Parks

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[Source: Cortney Bennett, Cronkite News Service]– After years of delivering deep cuts, lawmakers this session are discussing ways to give Arizona State Parks some more money and bring back a lottery-funded grant program the agency administered.

Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, said there seems to be a core group of representatives who are concerned about funding state parks properly. “It is a pleasure to come to the Legislature this year and see several bills that are supporting state parks instead of the opposite,” Bahr told a House committee recently.

HB 2621, introduced by Rep. Juan Carlos Escamilla, D-San Luis, would establish a voluntary fee that owners could pay when registering vehicles. The House Agriculture and Water Committee unanimously approved the bill Feb. 19. “Our state parks are a lot of times our economic tool for small, rural areas,” said Escamilla, whose district includes two state parks. The fee, which under the bill would be set by the Arizona State Parks Board, would provide 85 percent of total proceeds to Arizona State Parks and 15 percent to the Arizona Department of Transportation.

Bryan Martyn, executive director of Arizona State Parks, said Escamilla’s bill would help the agency, which operates primarily on gate fees and since 2009 has received no general fund appropriation. “Make no mistake, Arizona State Parks is a business,” Martyn said. “And we have to search every day to try to figure out how to fund these state resources.”

Cristie Statler, executive director of Arizona State Parks Foundation, an advocacy group, said money generated by the fee would help parks with operations and maintenance. However, she said, it doesn’t solve the agency’s need for sustainable long-term funding. Statler noted that many of the state’s 30 parks currently rely on partnerships with nearby municipalities and nonprofit organizations. “Cities and towns cannot sustain these partnerships,” Statler said. “Their revenues have been stripped as well. What we’re doing is passing this obligation from the state to these cities and towns.”

Bahr said that in the past the Legislature has seemed to view state parks as an expendable luxury. She said the Legislature should come up with a sustainable revenue stream. “These are important assets that protect amazing cultural and biological resources as well as help to sustain many rural economies,” Bahr said.

Joseph Garcia, communication director for Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, said it’s encouraging to hear discussion about finding a funding mechanism for state parks that are operating on shoestring budgets. “But if we’re really talking about improving and preserving state parks so they’re more visitor-friendly, then that needs an investment,” Garcia said. The Morrison Institute published a 2009 study that found Arizona spent less on its park system than nearly any other state when viewed as a percentage of the overall budget. “It’s sad that with all the money and energy thats been invested in state parks they’ll close or deteriorate or people won’t visit them because they don’t have modern amenities,” Garcia said.

Meanwhile, HB 2594, sponsored by Rep. Ethan Orr, R-Tucson, would among other provisions reinstate the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund, which used Arizona Lottery proceeds to provide grants for park programs, trails, historic preservation, environmental education and related projects. Arizona State Parks used some of the money for acquisitions and improvements. Arizona State Parks and the Arizona Game and Fish Department had received up to $10 million annually before the Legislature eliminated the Heritage Fund in 2010.

The House Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources endorsed the measure Feb. 18, forwarding it to the Appropriations Committee. Janice Miano, director of administration at the Arizona Heritage Alliance, said communities across the state would benefit from reinstating the Heritage Fund. “Every community in Arizona has received at least one Historical Fund grant over the last 23 years,” Miano said. “It’s certainly an economic engine for the rural communities. It brings in projects that wouldn’t normally be funded.”

Statler said that access to parks in terms of affordable entrance fees could be jeopardized if Arizona State Parks doesn’t receive adequate funding. “You can’t jack up the fees so much that the public can’t visit these parks that are state-owned assets,” Statler said.

Meanwhile, Martyn, the agency’s executive director, said he’s happy that Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposed budget included Arizona State Park’s requested operating budget of $21 million along with $2 million in Arizona Lottery proceeds for capital improvements. “The onus still is on us to demonstrate our value added to Arizona,” Martyn said. “Arizonans have to believe in state parks if we expect them to contribute.”