Enough is enough. The Legislature must adequately fund our state parks.
By Chuck Anastas, Chair of MCV’s Board of Directors
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state’s park system served as an outlet for people to enjoy open space and nature, safely, away from their homes. Further, DCR plays a critical role in thinking about conservation and climate resiliency in the state as the Commonwealth continues to wrestle with the risks associated with climate change in the coming years.”
Department of Conservation and Recreation Draft Special Commission Report (link)
During the last week of October, the Democratic House slashed the Governor’s proposal to use $100 million out of the more than $5.0 billion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to $25 million. The House cut the $100 million despite a $1.0 billion deferred maintenance backlog at the DCR that the Commonwealth has carried from year to year for years.
Last week the Senate voted to reduce the House amount to $15 million. Unfortunately, park supporters like us have for too long been polite, deferential, and willing to accept the Legislature’s disinvestment in the state’s park system hoping gentle cajoling and good intentions would win the day. We were wrong.
The Legislature seems to be suffering from amnesia. State parks stayed open and accessible, not to mention free to all comers, during the worst of the pandemic. Visitations to the parks during that time increased exponentially, which took a toll on parklands, and the toll continues. Tragically, taking state parks, forests, and the Commonwealth’s natural resources for granted is a bipartisan exercise in Massachusetts.
We commend the Governor for his effort to make a significant down payment on our state park maintenance backlog. If the Legislature had accepted the Governor’s proposal, we would be a tenth of the way there and moving in the right direction to repair and restore more than a decade of devastating neglect of our state’s open spaces. In recent years, it has been the Legislature increasing the Governor’s proposed DCR operating budget. We need both the executive and legislative branches to be on the same page. Federal ARPA funds present the best opportunity to achieve that end in the short term.
The Legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic – both our legislators and the Democratic Party must atone for a decade of turning its back on our half-million-acre state park system and the millions of us who use it.
What can we do? First, we should look at a few of our legislative leaders and ask them why?
On top of the list is Senator William N. Brownsberger, the author of the DCR Special Commission and a virtual no-show for all the Commission hearings. Here he is quoted in the DCR Special Commission Report, “After 12 years in the legislature it is clear to me that we are not going to provide enough funding to the Department of Conservation and Recreation to do all that we ask of them.”
It’s not enough to recognize the problem, Senator, you’ve got to do more to correct it.
Next are Senator Rebecca L. Rausch and Representative Carolyn C. Dykema – both Democratic legislative leaders and the new chairs of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture. Both have significant DCR holdings in their districts, the Wrentham/Franklin State Forest, and Hopkinton State Park. Both will have a lot to say when the DCR Special Commission final report comes out before year’s end. The draft report has already acknowledged the woeful lack of operations and capital funding that has plagued the agency for a decade.
In a response to a query from MCV, Senator Rausch’s office in an email reply stated that she co-sponsored with Senator Adam Hinds an amendment to increase parks funding to $35 million. While laudable, it was $65 million less than the Governor’s proposal, and it too was rejected by the Senate.
There’s no avoiding the fact that this is the Democratic led Legislature getting played by the Governor and in doing so, turning its back on every voter who sought refuge in our state parks during the pandemic. The Legislature in two short weeks has taken another fateful step in disinvesting in our state park system.
While there is plenty of blame to go around, there is plenty of time for our legislators to make this right. There is still about $2.0 billion of ARPA money sitting in the Legislature’s hands. The final DCR Special Commission report is due before year’s end. It should be used as a blueprint to make this right and not sit on a shelf collecting dust, like DCR studies before it.
If you sought refuge in a park during the pandemic, then you owe it to yourself, to your family, and to your friends to support our natural resources by calling your legislators and demanding they fix this patently harmful decision while we clearly have the federal funds to do it. Find your legislator here.
It is time to say enough.
It is time for the legislature to make this right.
Chuck Anastas is the Chair of the Board of Directors