Merz: If Texas values parks, it must pay for them

by Evelyn L Merz, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter

After the statewide public outcry over its secretive attempt to sell nearly 46,000 acres of Big Bend Ranch State Park to an adjacent landowner, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission wisely abandoned its ill-advised plan. But other state parks do not have the iconic aura of Big Bend country, and it is these that are endangered.

Years of legislative neglect have finally culminated in a hemorrhage. The Parks and Wildlife Department is completing the elimination of 73 needed positions in its parks division. Of these, 39 are filled by experienced employees. The other 34 positions were unfilled due to a lack of money.

With a shrinking staff, public access to the parks will diminish. Hours of operation will be cut, overnight use in some parts will change to day-use only, some park sites will only be open on weekends — all consequences of a park system on a starvation budget.

An inadequate budget also has led some state policy-makers to push for the transfer of state parks to already financially strapped local governments.

To address these problems, we must look to Gov. Rick Perry and leaders in the Texas Legislature.

The Legislative Budget Board has stalled at setting a meeting where a desperately needed emergency appropriation for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department can be approved. The parks division needs about $5 million to stay afloat. And the state park system is not the only supplicant clamoring for funding from the budget board.

Holding the meeting would require the cooperation of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick, who jointly co-chair the budget board. These leaders must ensure that the board meets to fulfill its function.

But the key to a healthy state park system is not a one-time, $5 million transfusion, which is not a panacea for habitually underfunded budgets. The problem is rooted in a philosophy that says parks should pay for their own keep.

If we believe that state parks should be self-supporting luxury items, they will always be the red-headed stepchild in the state budget.

Parks commissioners will be perpetually reducing staff, delaying maintenance or selling/transferring parks out of the system. Long-term decisions will not be guided by what is best for individual parks or the public, but by an expectation of fiscal hunger. And the parks receiving the maintenance dollars and attention will be the ones easiest to market.

If we believe, however, that Texas' parks are essential to the public's need for recreation and education, that they are a place for stewardship of diverse natural and historical resources, then we must formulate a funding policy that provides adequate support.

In the short term, the governor should make the $5 million emergency appropriation a priority for the Legislative Budget Board. He should use his influence with Dewhurst and Craddick to push for the board to set a meeting date, put the parks funding item on the agenda and approve the funding. Perry shouldn't miss this opportunity to put himself on record as a supporter of Texas' state parks.

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Evelyn Merz is a member of the Sierra Club Lone Star chapter's executive committee and is chairwoman of the Club's Houston regional group. Originally published in the Austin American Statesman and the Houston Chronicle December 10 and 11, 2005.