Governor’s Budget Deserves Serious Consideration
Doug Pizzi, Executive Director | February 8, 2022
When Governor Charlie Baker filed his FY2023 state budget last week, he proposed a major, welcome policy shift in state park funding for the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
Baker wisely eliminated the retained revenue account and replaced the money DCR would have to bring in from park user fees with general revenue tax dollars. Mass Conservation Voters (MCV) has long voiced concerned about the pressure on DCR to rely on user fees. Over reliance on user fees led to last year’s ill-fated decision to place parking meters on Revere Beach Parkway. After complaints from the public, including MCV, the Legislature ordered the kiosks removed and that the money they generated be used for beach maintenance.
In our comments to the Special Legislative Commission on DCR, which wrapped up its report in December, MCV called for the retained revenue account to be capped at $20 million and asked for a $10 million increase in taxpayer funded operating expenses each year for the next decade to reverse ten years of chronic underfunding, which saw the agency’s budget decrease by 22 percent.
For the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, DCR has $50.5 million in its parks and recreation operating account (2810-0100) and has a retained revenue target of $25 million (2810-2042). Because DCR can only keep 80 percent of the money it takes in as retained revenue, the agency would have to bring in almost $32 million in user generated funds to hit the $25 million goal. The uncertainty of reaching that goal has a profound impact on the agency’s ability to fully plan for the fiscal year.
Baker’s proposal to eliminate retained revenue while funding operations at $73.5 million is fiscally sound and responsible for two reasons. It allows DCR to better plan its budget because the agency would know with certainty how much money it has to spend from day one. It also would relieve the severely understaffed agency, down 300 positions since 2009, from having to use scarce resources thinking up new schemes to nickel and dime park users to keep the agency’s head above water.
In addition to eliminating retained revenue, Baker would give DCR an additional $7.0 million in funding for seasonal employees. While the Baker Administration, like those before it, relies too heavily on seasonal employees to replace full-time employees, this is a welcome addition to quickly get boots on the ground in our 500,000-acre park system.
“Would give” is the operative term here, as we know, first the House and then the Senate will vote their own budget proposals. We need all of you to weigh in with the Legislature and voice your support for this commonsense way to fund our state parks. And while you are at it, please ask for $3.0 million above the $73 million in DCR’s operating account (2800-0100) to get us to the $10.0 million annual increase we’ve proposed. The additional funds could be used to hire engineers so DCR can catch up on $1.0 billion in deferred maintenance projects. Remember, the DCR budget is roughly the same as it was a decade ago.
And please don’t forget to remind your legislators that we need to restore Governor Baker’s proposed $100 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, which legislators cut to $15 million last December, in the next round of ARPA appropriations. With $2.3 billion left in federal COVID relief funding, and billions more coming in from the already passed federal infrastructure bill, our state legislators have the funds to make things right by our parks.
As we noted in our last blog post, other states are already making these critical investments in their parks. At 500,000 acres, Massachusetts has one of the largest state park systems for a state our size. Yet we are at the bottom of the barrel in funding them. It is long past time to reverse the decade-long defunding of our park system. Our parks are essential to our physical and mental health. The pandemic and DCR’s gargantuan efforts to keep our parks open during the worst of it is all the proof we need for this claim.
So please join us over the next several months as we work to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity. It is time we bring our vital, historic state park system back to the vision of its creators, Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot.
Remember, the park you save may be your own.
Doug Pizzi is the Executive Director of Massachusetts Conservation Voters