|
Editor's Note: The first Legacy Report of August 1999 dealt primarily with our national parks. Unfortunately, little has been done by the Congress or Administration to rectify the challenges faced by the park managers, especially in the area of public ownership.
The National Association of State Park Directors (NASPD) is a professional organization which was formed by the Directors of the 50 State Park Systems in 1962 to foster the following goals:
* To provide a common forum for the exchange of information about state park programs.
* To take collective positions on issues affecting state parks.
* To encourage the development of professional leadership in the administration of state park programs.
* To establish and maintain a working relationship with other agencies involved in park and recreation programs.
* To enhance the ability of the individual state park directors to perform their responsibilities for administering state park programs of the highest quality for the benefit of the state park resources and the public.
The NASPD does not, nor was it ever intended to, fulfill any directive function over state parks. With this in mind, here are what NASPD officers see as current directions or trends that in some, perhaps many, but by no means all, of the individual states are experiencing at the present time.
Legislation at the Federal Level
The NASPD has been supportive of two legislative initiatives that are pending in the U. S. Congress, at this writing. The first is the "Land Legacy Program" of the Clinton Administration. In the Federal Fiscal Year 2000 this program provided approximately $40 million for a re-energized State Side Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) appropriation. That funding has recently been allocated to the states, according to the standing LWCF formula, minus $2 million the Administration wishes allocated to selected state projects
In the Federal FY-2001 budget, there is a Land Legacy Program request by the Administration for $150 million for state side LWCF with $72.5 earmarked for grants to the states, $72.5 earmarked for Administration-selected projects, and $5 million for program administration. The National Park Service administers the state side LWCF grants to the 50 states for outdoor recreation land purchases and facilities development.
However, the legislative initiative NASPD supports is the "Conservation and Reinvestment Act" (CARA) H.R. 701, pending in the US Senate at this writing. This bill was voted out of Committee and passed the House on a historical vote of 315 "Ayes" to 102 "Noes" with 17 not voting. Passage by the Senate is much more problematical at this time and a veto by the President is likely. The House bill (H.R. 701) contains the following provisions:
- Revenue sharing with coastal states to mitigate the impacts of offshore oil and gas drilling - $1 billion
- LWCF revitalization - $900 million to be equally divided among states, local governments, and the federal government
- State-level wildlife conservation, restoration and revitalization funds (with state and local parkland eligible for these funds.) - $350 million
- Urban Park and Recovery Program (UPAR) - $125
- Historic Preservation Fund - $100 million
- Federal and Indian Lands restoration - $200 million
- Conservation easements and species recovery - $200 million
- Payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) for federal lands and species recovery - $200 million
State Park Foundations
If there is a trend becoming visible among the various state park systems, it is that of forming "foundations" to assist in supporting state parks and allied state conservation agencies, such as wildlife or forests. The term foundation can cover a very broad range of interests. (The idea is drawn from the college and university area where such foundation funds are the norm.) Typically the term is meant to indicate the formation of an Internal Revenue Service code section 501(C)(3) type organization which accepts tax-free contributions and holds them as a "corpus" on behalf of the state parks and other state agencies. Interest from the corpus is then used to purchase threatened lands or to provide other critically needed assets for the operation of state parks. In recent years, Oregon, Texas, and Pennsylvania, among others, have formed some type of foundation to assist their state parks and associated agencies.
Dedicated Funds
In times of recession when tax dollars shrink parks are usually affected more than other state agencies. When legislatures are faced with cutting support for education, prisons, or welfare, as opposed to cutting support for state parks, state park budgets typically receive heavier percentage cuts than the budgets of these other higher profile agencies. One way to overcome this problem with funding state parks from general tax fund sources is to secure a dedicated revenue source for state parks.
Missouri and more recently Arkansas have both been successful in securing a small percentage of sales tax funds dedicated to the operation of state parks. Other sources for dedicated funds have been state lottery proceeds, real estate transfer taxes, and more recently some small share of the projected settlement from the tobacco suits that states have brought.
Self Sufficiency
State legislatures, starting with the 1991 recession, are putting pressure upon state park agencies to become more "self sufficient." Self sufficiency, for purposes of this discussion, is defined as the state park being able to cover operating expenses with revenues from entrance fees, campground use fees, cabin and lodge room rental fees, picnic shelter rentals, and profits from retail sales of other goods and services. Only two states are self sufficient in this sense -- New Hampshire and Vermont. The rest of the states run at some percentage of self sufficiency, e.g., Ohio at approximately 40% and Indiana at approximately 80%.
Most state legislatures seem to understand that the investment in additional capital construction, land acquisition and heavy capital maintenance items cannot be covered by revenues collected. These expenses typically come out of bond issues or general revenue tax funds.
In the drive to be more "self sufficient" in the 1990s, state park systems have initiated entrance fees where none existed before, increased fees for campsites, cabins, lodge room rentals, boat dock rentals and the like, and undertaken the retail sale of other goods and services. Today, nine states still lack some type of entrance fee or parking fee for state parks.
Partnerships
One of the items highlighted in Osborne and Gaebler's Book Reinventing Government, published in 1992, was the necessity for public organizations to work at forming productive partnerships with other public and private organizations. This has become a marked trend of the 1990s. State park agencies have reached out to form mutually productive partnerships with NGO's, such as the NASPD's ongoing relationship with the National Park Trust and a previous collaboration between Arizona and the Nature Conservancy.
New York State Park's contract with Pepsi Cola is an example of a mutually beneficial partnership with a private business corporation.
The NASPD is working at developing its partnership with the National Park Service and establishing mutual training courses and conferences. This last example of a productive partnership with a federal agency strengthens both the work of the state park agency and of the federal agency involved.
To obtain a copy of the report "Saving
the Legacy of the National System of Parks", please contact Susan Hawley, National
Park Trust, 202-548-0500.
|
