We have multiple opportunities to help our parks, just do it
by Doug Pizzi
On June 17th, the Baker Administration announced a plan to spend $2.8 billion of the state’s $5.3 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funding, including a sorely needed $100 million on state park infrastructure. Proving the Legislature can act extremely quickly when it wants to, 11 days later Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill scrapping his plan and putting $4.9 billion of the relief funds into a special account legislators will control. Lawmakers will eventually dole this money out, perhaps with, perhaps without input from the governor, but have promised a public hearing process to inform spending decisions.
MCV was solidly with the Administration’s plan to spend the $100 million on park infrastructure as a good down payment to reverse decades of not so benign neglect of our vitally needed, historic state park system. We also suggested that Baker steer some of the federal money from other categories he outlined, an additional $740 million in all, to our parks system. The parks and the agency that runs them, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), could absolutely benefit from spending on workforce development, cultural and tourism programs, broadband networks, as well as water, sewer, dam, and culvert improvements.
Now that the Legislature has put itself squarely in the driver’s seat, we would urge lawmakers to work with the governor to spend this money wisely but quickly. The task of restoring our park system was urgent before the pandemic and is clearly more urgent now because the increased demand on DCR facilities the pandemic brought is not going away any time soon, if ever. Baker himself chided legislators to follow his lead on this, especially as it concerns underserved populations and regions of the state when he willingly signed the bill that put his initial plan into the round file.
Meanwhile, the Legislative Special Commission on DCR continues to meet. MCV hopes that as the Special Commission continues its deliberations, including evaluating public comments, that commissioners, the Legislature, and the Administration consider DCR’s vast holdings and responsibilities and take seriously the task of reversing the decades long process of the dismantling of our state park system.
Perhaps no other statistic tells that tale more than the fact that in FY 2020, even after a significant increase, the DCR Parks and Recreation Operations account (2810-0100) was still more than $3.0 million short of what DCR had to spend in FY 2009. The Great Recession and its aftermath also saw DCR’s staff shrink to an unacceptable level, from 1,279 full-time equivalents in 2008 to 892 FTE’s today.
Adding insult to injury, as operating funds disappeared, the Legislature and successive gubernatorial administrations put significantly more pressure on DCR to increase user fees and other charges related to leases, concessions, and other non-tax dollar income. So as operating funds shrank, the money the powers that be asked DCR to raise itself more than doubled. In FY 2009, DCR brought nearly $12 million into its Retained Revenue account. The FY 2022 budget, now in a legislative conference committee, will in all likelihood ask DCR to find $25.8 million in Retained Revenue.
The pressure this puts on DCR, in addition to taking resources better spent operating parks, results in decisions we feel are ill advised. That includes this year’s decision to install parking meters on Revere Beach Parkway, America’s first public beach, which prior to this summer had been free to all for 125 years.
For our part, MCV would hope that the Special Commission’s recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature, expected in early September, recognize the huge operational and capital hole our state government has put DCR in, which includes an estimated billion dollars in deferred maintenance. In addition to any federal funding that comes DCR’s way, MCV is calling for $250 million in capital spending, not just authorized but spent, in each of the next ten years, as well as a $10 million increase in tax dollar operating funds over the same period. The July 22nd DCR Stewardship Council Meeting has a presentation of DCR’s capital needs on the agenda. Hopefully, the Special Commission, the Legislature and the Governor will be listening.
If the pandemic has proven anything, it is that our state forests, parks, beaches, pools, splash pads, watersheds, and other DCR assets are need to have not nice to have amenities. Our physical and mental health depend on the 500,000 acres under DCR management. We would hope that the plan to catch up on a decade of lost opportunity will avoid pet project earmarks and instead focus on environmentally just park projects that benefit all of us, especially our most green-starved neighborhoods and residents.
As we see climate change manifesting itself through longer and more frequent heat waves and sea level rise that continuously floods places like Morrissey Boulevard, let us invest in our beaches, pools, tree canopies, and drainage for our shady historic parkways. Let us build a 21st Century, climate resilient, park system that is worthy of its creators and advocates, Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot and contributes to our $16 billion annual outdoor economy. Just do it.
Doug Pizzi is the Executive Director of Massachusetts Conservation Voters