Opponent Says Hundreds Of State Workers Could Lose Jobs
A state commission studying privatization will likely recommend privatizing Arizona’s parks and prisons as a way to help ease the state’s budget deficit when it releases its full report in December.
“This is one way to economize in a way that will cause the least amount of pain to the public,” said Glenn Hamer, a member of Arizona’s Commission on Privatization and Efficiency.
Gov. Jan Brewer created the commission to help Arizona save money.
The state is currently facing a more than $1 billion budget deficit.
“This is 101 for good government to look for ways that you can save taxpayer dollars,” said Hamer, who is also the president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Hamer said most of the commission’s recommendations will be kept secret until the report is released, but he expects the report to recommend privatizing Arizona’s state parks and privatizing more state prisons.
The last state budget debacle over funding for Arizona State Parks caught many unawares and tripping over their own feet to figure out what was going on. The state was already deep into the process of deciding cutbacks and closures before some support groups could organize.
That cannot be the case for the next budget battle – and it is already starting. The time to get involved is now.
Eleventh-hour brain-storming sessions and negotiations can lead to short-term solutions, as evidenced by last budget cycle’s results, but fixing funding problems for the foreseeable future demands more than that.
This time, instead of waiting until February or March or May, those concerned about the sustainability of the State Parks program need to jump in at the start.
The Verde Valley and Sedona have particular interest in this process because five Arizona State Parks are ensconced here. Current funding for three of them are a patchwork of local, county and state monies and volunteers, and that is only temporary.
Jerome has known the frustration of full closure, and Camp Verde and Sedona have felt the cost of keeping a park open. It has been a sweat-inducing exercise, but it has certainly left the communities with a feeling of ownership.
The way the state has provided funding for state parks and used money created by state parks has not been principled, but it has been allowed. It needs to change if parks are to have a future. A governor’s commission is pushing for more privatization of services currently provided by government, and some issues connected to state parks are being eyeballed in that regard.
After the breather afforded by intergovernmental agreements to keep parks open this year, municipalities are already looking again at their relationship to Arizona State Parks. And Thursday, Sept. 30, at the Sedona Library, several groups and elected officials will have a public discussion of proposals and possible solutions to the funding problems.
It is a dilemma that cannot wait again. If the state parks landscape is to be preserved, now is the time to get involved.
A panel appointed by Gov. Jan Brewer to study government made its first recommendations Tuesday to turn more of it over to the private sector.
The initial report by the Commission on Privatization and Efficiency suggested the state pursue more opportunities to turn parks over to private companies or at least let them operate retail concessions. Members also want to push Congress to repeal laws that now prohibit the state from letting private firms set up shop in rest areas along interstate highways.
Mark Brnovich. (Photo Credit: AZ Dept of Gaming)
But state Gaming Director Mark Brnovich, whom Brewer named to head the panel, said this is only the first step. He said the nine-member commission, hand-picked by the governor, is predisposed to believe that if a government service can be privatized, it probably should be.
“Like the governor, members of the commission are strong believers in the free enterprise system and the free market,” Brnovich said in an interview with Capitol Media Services. “History has shown that the private sector is able to come up with innovative and, very often, cost-effective solutions to problems.”
Brnovich acknowledged that private companies, unlike government, have to make a profit. But he said commission members don’t see this as meaning higher costs for taxpayers.
“The free market system, capitalism works because folks are forced to come up with better ideas and create greater efficiencies and come up with new innovations,” Brnovich said. He calls it the “yellow book test.”
“If a function is available, if you can look at it and find it in the ‘yellow book,’ you should ask yourself, ‘should government be doing that?'” Brnovich said. “And if government is doing it, should it be done in conjunction through public-private partnership or can it be done in a better, more efficient way?”
Brnovich said this initial list of options includes those things that either already are underway or can be done relatively simply.
For example, the state contracted last year with the city of Yuma to operate the Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Historic Park. And the Arizona Parks Board has since worked out other deals with local groups to help keep parks open.
The commission, however, wants more, including giving private companies the opportunity to actually run the parks, collect all admission fees and pay the state a percentage. The report suggests this would be profitable for private companies by allowing them to sell food and other items and even operate lodging, as concessionaires do at Grand Canyon National Park, albeit with the federal government still running that one.
Brnovich said that, despite the bent of commission members toward privatizing, that doesn’t necessarily mean state agencies would be put out of business and employees laid off. He said these agencies could submit bids, just the same as private groups.
That concept, called “managed competition,” has been used in some communities to award contracts for trash collection.
He said that concept will be studied before the final report is issued at the end of this year.
But Brnovich said measuring costs and benefits is only part of any analysis of what to privatize.
“Additionally, you have to ask the question, is this something government should be doing and, if so, can it be done in a better way and can it be done in conjunction with the private sector or by the private sector?” he said.
Brnovich said there are certain “core government functions” that, political philosophy aside, probably should not be farmed out. That includes his own agency which oversees tribal gaming.
He acknowledged there are functions within his office that might, under other circumstances, lend themselves to outsourcing, such as audits of the books of tribal casinos. But Brnovich said the secrecy required in the contracts with tribes makes it more logical for all that work to be done “in house,” with employees who are subject to background checks.
Lyman Lake State Park is closed. (Photo credit: Arizona State Parks)
Arizona officials might turn over management of two small state parks to private operators so they can reopen the sites that were closed because of budget trouble.
The 28-park state system already uses concessionaires to provide some services but now may go further by turning to the private sector for the actual operation.
The parks system has requested proposals due Sept. 23 for operation of Oracle State Park in southeastern Pinal County and is considering whether to issue a request for proposal for Lyman Lake in southern Apache County.
Ultimately that could result in the parks being operated by private companies, parks Executive Director Renee Bahl said Wednesday.
The move is being viewed with some skepticism by at least one potential bidder.
Arizona lawmakers wrestled with parks-related funding issues throughout their 2010 session, ultimately passing legislation specifically authorizing state officials to contract with public, tribal and private entities to operate parks.
Recreation Resource Management, a Phoenix-based company that operates campgrounds and marinas in about a dozen states, in February offered to take over operations of some Arizona state parks for a year so they could remain open.
Parks officials did not reject the request outright but said privatization was not a “silver bullet.” Instead, they have turned to cities, counties and other public entities, reaching agreements that help pay for continued state management of certain parks and management of others by non-state public entities.
Now, nine state parks remain open under state management, while seven others are being operated by state employees through partnership agreements. Five others are being run by other public entities and six are closed.
Partnership agreements haven’t proved to be feasible with all parks, including Oracle and Lyman Lake, said Renee Bahl, the parks system’s executive director.
“We weren’t able to find a solution for the public sector,” Bahl said of Oracle, which is located near a small unincorporated community of the same name and which closed in October. “Everything is on the table right now. We want the parks to be open for the public and the economy too.”
However, a Phoenix-based company that operates parks in about a dozen states and that previously offered to run some Arizona parks to keep them open to help out the state expressed only cautious interest in bidding to operate Oracle.
“The Oracle RFP is pretty thin gruel,” said Warren Meyer, president of Recreation Resource Management.
The park has many restrictions that appear to undercut its value as a “good commercial opportunity,” particularly as a stand-alone project without opportunities to spread overhead costs over several parks, he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
However, Meyer said RMM still might bid to operate Oracle to pre-empt any strategy by parks officials to undercut privatization efforts.
Meanwhile, Cindy Krupicka, president of a booster group for Oracle State Park, said she’d welcome privatization. “I’d just like to see the park open,” she said.
