Much to be happy about in Senate Ways & Means proposed FY2023 budget
Doug Pizzi, Executive Director | May 20, 2022
The Senate Ways & Means Committee’s FY2023 budget proposal, made public last week, contains some good operating budget and budget policy news. Ways & Means is seeking a healthy increase for the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR) parks and recreation operations account and, like the Governor and House before it, has replaced retained revenue, money from user fees, leases, other income, with general revenue tax dollars for DCR’s day-to-day operations.
Mass Conservation Voters (MCV) would like to thank Senate Ways & Means Chair Michael Rodrigues and the rest of the committee for advancing DCR’s, and more importantly, park users’ interests in our state parks. The Senate will begin debating the budget on Tuesday, May 24th.
Ways & Means is proposing to fund DCR’s Parks and Recreation Operations Account (2810-0100) at $85 million. Earlier this year, Gov. Baker’s proposed $73.5 million while the House came in at $78.8 million. This fiscal year, which ends June 30th, if DCR were to hit its retained revenue projection the agency would have $75.5 million to spend on day-to-day operations. This is comprised of $50.5 million in the 2810-0100 account and $25 million in retained revenue.
Mass Conservation Voters (MCV) has been urging a $10 million operations increase for FY2023. MCV has also been contending that relying on retained revenue for operations hamstrings DCR in two important ways. It makes the agency guess at its final operations budget and makes staff spend valuable time dreaming up new schemes to balance that budget on the backs of park users who are already paying to support our state parks via our state taxes.
Senators are now busy getting support for the amendments offered since last week, some of which concern DCR. We would like you to please support two of them.
Amendment #85, offered by Sen. Becca Rausch, Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, would appropriate $700,000 to establish an Office of Partnership Coordination within DCR that would be tasked with seeking out opportunities to work with private entities to help fund DCR initiatives. One current example of how these partnerships can work is the new visitor center at Walden Pond State Reservation, which had significant funding from private sources.
Amendment #94, offered by Sen. Adam Hinds, would appropriate $200,000 to establish an Office of Outdoor Recreation within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. This office would be responsible for coordinating state policy around the state’s $16 billion annual outdoor economy at the cabinet level.
MCV will be following the Senate budget process. We ask you to support the Ways & Means Budget, especially the $85 million proposed for operations. If your senator is on Ways & Means, please thank her or him for their efforts. We also ask you to let your senator know you support these amendments and would like them to sign on as co-sponsors.
As always, we thank you for your support and activism. We need to stay active to get these improvements across the finish line in what could be an extraordinary year for our parks.
And never forget, the park you save may be your own.
Doug Pizzi is the Executive Director of Massachusetts Conservation Voters