8/6/2009 6:13:00 PM State Parks appealing for more financial help
Like any organization, personnel costs are the largest expense at Arizona State Parks, despite many volunteers. After a 25 percent cut in their budget, the agency will begin the search for financial partners to help offset some of its employee costs.
VERDE VALLEY - After taking a financial battering over the last year, Arizona State Parks is putting out the word -- if you want your local state park to continue serving your community, in the fashion to which you have become accustomed, you are going to have to help out.
With its budget slashed by nearly 25 percent in the last year, Arizona State Parks will soon begin appealing to communities throughout the state to lend financial assistance or face the possibility of reduced schedules, reduced services or possible closures.
Over the last eight months, the legislature withdrew $8.5 million it once provided from the state's general fund, forcing State Parks to operate on money received from fees, along with supplemental income from off-highway vehicle taxes, and a couple of funds that were once dispersed throughout the state as community grants.
"The parks board has approved our ongoing operating budget. The next step will be to bring to the board, the recommendation of how we are going to meet that budget," says new State Parks Director Renee Bahl,
"We will be reaching out to all of our communities, I hope, formally, by the end of the week, to see if these communities can offer any formalized partnerships, primarily meaning financial resources or the offset of financial resources."
Bahl says the agency will be looking at a couple of programs it already has in place, one with the City of Payson and one with Yuma, as models of cooperative projects. Payson and Yuma have both committed money from their budgets to keep local parks open and running.
"Financial assistance is preferred, or for the community to offer a permanent staffer or something like that," Bahl says. "Volunteers are wonderful, but volunteers alone cannot operate a park system.
"We need something a little bit more concrete from communities. Whatever a community can offer we welcome that discussion."
Bahl says that in trying to come to terms with their budget, Arizona State Parks should be looking at all options.
"Everything is on the table. Internal expenses at our headquarters office to what we have out in the field," Bahl says. "It can range from hours of operations, days of operations, seasons of operations, to parks and their operation.
"We are going to explore it all to find the best answer we can for the limited dollars we have."
Posted: Monday, August 17, 2009
Article comment by:
No name provided
Just be sure you really want that park before committing local funds, because this will be seen as a permanent solution, not a temporary one. The parks ASP doesn't make a priority now will never be one again. Some of them have been considered under-performing and low value for decades. They can't be given away, but the burden of keeping them open can be shifted. If it's really important to the community, take it on; but consider it a permanent adoption.
Posted: Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Article comment by:
Roy Belcher
Just throw some event that centers around beer sales. The park will rake in the cash.
