By Kelly Young
June 17, 2006 05:20 pm
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The San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site marks the location of the battle of San Jacinto, where Texan troops under General Sam Houston achieved independence from Mexico by defeating General Santa Anna on April 21, 1836. The San Jacinto Monument is 570 feet tall and stands as the world’s tallest monument tower — 15 feet taller than the Washington Monument. The site is now also the berthing place of the decommissioned Battleship Texas, which fought heroically in World War II and was later named the flagship of the Texas Navy. The park commemorates some of the most cherished events in Texas history.
The Big Bend Ranch State Park is the largest state park in all of Texas; spanning roughly 450 square miles. The park is more than a third of the size of Rhode Island. Volcanic mountains loom ominously over a vast desert expanse. Meandering rivers carve their way through the rock of the mountains in a slow trek to the gulf.
The Texas State Railroad State Park is home to the official railroad of Texas. The Texas State Railroad runs from Rusk to Palestine and back again. Originally laid down to connect the prison’s iron smelt with the K&G railroad, today the TSRR is one of Texas’ biggest and oldest tourist attractions. The park maintains over 25 miles of track and 24 bridges. The TSRR is the only steam railroad that runs two steam trains simultaneously each day of operation. Due to its incredible size and lack of traversable rivers, trains played a larger role in the history of Texas than they did in other states. The TSRR is as Texan as beef brisket.
Its hard to dispute the historical and cultural significance of Texas state parks. They help remind us where we have come from and give us glimpses into the lives of our ancestors. Some allow us to marvel in the native beauty of the land that surrounds us; whether it be a lake, a mountain or a desert. Some help us to remember the achievements and sacrifices of those who came before us.
It is equally hard to ignore the power state parks have in attracting tourists. Surveys conducted by the former Tourism Division of the Texas Department of Commerce asked tourists to list reasons why they would be willing to come to Texas from abroad. Of the 28 reasons given, 13 of them were because of Texas state parks.
Yet over the past three bienniums, the Texas State Legislature has cut parks spending. Parks receiving less funding can’t grow, can’t improve, can’t even maintain themselves. Needed cost-cutting measures are forcing park officials to make do with inferior equipment, fire employees and occasionally even close.
The Texas Legislature has recently released its latest wave of cuts. Just last Monday, the Legislature Budget Board told state agencies — TPWD included — to cut their 2008-09 budget proposals by 10 percent of their current operating budgets. Dropping the budget another 10 percent means TPWD will be forced to operate on two-thirds of the funds it enjoyed in 2001.
“How can we continue to maintain our state parks with 33 percent less money than we had in 2001?” asked Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissioner John Parker of Lufkin.
Today, state parks are fighting to stay functional. The parks would be hurting now even if their funding was remaining constant; the cost of maintaining the park system has grown due to unfunded personnel costs, additional areas to manage and operating cost increases.
These costs are compounded by the added costs of an aging infrastructure. Thirty-one of the state parks were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s and many other historic buildings are more than 100 years old. All of these factors have caused operational needs to far exceed current authorized funding levels.
Parks have offset the rising costs of fuel, utilities, other supplies and building repair by reducing the number of staff, thus using their lost salaries to pay the bills.
The TSRR has had to cut 17 employees — more than any other park in the state — and runs on borrowed time and cannibalized vehicles. The San Jacinto Monument’s elevator and observation deck are closed to the public until the park can conduct repairs they cannot afford — currently, only the gift shop is open to the public. Big Bend Ranch has been largely unaffected, but even they have been forced to decrease the number of educational programs they produce.
While every state park has been affected by lack of funding; some have been hit harder than others. Parks hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have been particularly slow to rebound.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently notified TPWD that several parks hit by Hurricane Rita were not eligible for reimbursement. FEMA requires flood insurance as a condition for reimbursement, and several coastal parks are not covered for floods, and are ineligible for aid.
“We are, as is typical for a state agency, self-insured in most cases. And flood insurance on coastal properties is impossible. We’re unable to get it,” said Steve Whiston, infrastructure director for the parks department.
Hurricane Rita caused $3.1 million in damage to 11 state parks when it hit last September. TPWD had expected FEMA to pay for about 75 percent of the repair costs, but instead it looks like TPWD will pay more than 70 percent of the damages.
Robert Crossman Jr., environmental consultant and parks expert, says that parks are being forced to survive on ancient vehicles and obsolete equipment because they can’t afford to upgrade.
“Most of the parks vehicles are operating far beyond their economic life. Some parks vehicles have over 900,000 miles on them,” Crossman said. “Today’s park vehicles are cannibalized jumbles of rusting parts.”
According to Crossman, the list of park problems goes on — Cooper Lake’s water level is becoming too low to launch boats, the Battleship Texas is so inundated with rust and asbestos that it is becoming unsafe for visitors, and Galveston State Park is unable to repair its broken rest rooms. In fact, Crossman said he was told the cancer-causing asbestos aboard the Texas could not be removed from the ship because it would detract from the historical accuracy of the site.
In a list compiled by Rep. Chuck Hopson’s (D-Jacksonville) office, 46 parks have had to alter their regular operations to facilitate the budget shortfall. Some have closed portions of their park — like the Choke Canyon State Park swimming pool and the group recreation hall at Lake Brownwood. Some have limited their hours — like Fort Lancaster State Historic Site and Mission Tejas State Park. Some have closed completely until new money can be found — like Sea Rim State Park and Sabine Pass State Historic Site. Unless money is found from elsewhere to fund its ongoing operation, by the end of this year, the TSRR will either change into a static display, or it will be purchased by a private party and cease to be Texas property completely.
But there is good news for patrons of Texas state parks. There exists a tax that supposedly goes directly toward TPWD funding; allowing parks to fix what’s broken, clean what’s dirty and update what’s obsolete. Unfortunately for state park fans, less than 30 percent of the money collected from that tax each year actually goes to TPWD. Instead of the roughly $110 million collected, TPWD gets $32 million. And of the $32 million that the TPWD receives on a yearly basis, $5 or $6 million is immediately handed off to local city and county parks. And of the $26 million left after that, the Wildlife portion of Texas Parks and Wildlife takes a hefty chunk. State parks are left with the barest scraps.
The tax mentioned above is a sporting goods tax that was initially earmarked for parks use. In 1993, when the tax was first introduced, money was collected based on the amount of cigarettes that Texas smokers bought. Fifty cents of every 1,000 packs was sent to TPWD. In September of 1995, the tax was switched from smoking to sporting goods, and the current amount the cigarette tax was bringing in was set as the cap for the sporting goods tax. Thus, the amount spent by smokers in 1995 is today determining the fate of our state parks.
The first $32 million of the sporting goods tax goes to TPWD; the rest goes to the general fund. The problem is that the sporting goods tax now brings in far more money than the cigarette tax ever did, and 70 percent of it isn’t going to its intended source.
Arguing to take money raised by the sporting goods tax and returning it back to the parks has been especially difficult because the money collected above the cap has been going to necessary causes like funding education costs and property tax reductions.
Rep. Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerrville), chair of the Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee, filed House Bill 1292 last February that would raise the sporting goods cap to $85 million, hopefully giving the parks the ability to repair and maintain themselves. House Bill 1292 didn’t make it out of committee, but Hilderbran’s office is currently working on another bill, for the upcoming legislature, that will be similar in purpose to the previous bill.
“Not having these parks up to snuff could have a huge negative impact on the tourism business in Texas,” said Todd Kercheval, Hilderbran’s chief committee clerk. “Unfortunately in the past it’s been a situation of if we give state parks more money, then we are taking money away from children and health, some of those kinds of things. That’s a pretty tough vote to make.”
Raising the sporting goods cap would be a positive step, but wouldn’t necessarily solve the problems facing the parks. That money is earmarked for the TPWD, not the Parks Service specifically, and could very well go towards wildlife and gaming concerns. This is a very real concern, as the current administration of the TPWD has been accused of showing preference to Wildlife over Parks.
“Currently the TPWD is more interested in game than in parks, more interested in hunting and fishing than in taking care of our parks,” Crossman said. “More important than raising or removing the sporting goods cap is placing someone in the TPWD that will put parks first and ensure that parks are actually given enough money to maintain themselves and grow.”
Parker also said he believes raising the cap is not the be-all and end-all answer to the parks’ problems.
“I understand that the Texas Coalition for Conservation and Texans for State Parks are in the process of mounting a campaign to lobby the Legislature to lift the sporting goods tax cap,” Parker said. “But that is not the problem. You can remove the cap altogether, but if the Legislature does not appropriate the money, as they have not done in the last three sessions, then we are in the same problem we are in right now — only worse.”
The appropriation process occurs when needs are submitted to the Legislative Budget Board. When the budget is submitted to the legislature, it is discussed by committees and is still subject to change. Not everything submitted is kept on the budget, so if the LBB determines that TPWD doesn’t need the money, no matter how many sporting goods taxes exist, TPWD won’t get the money.
Here is where the parks lose most of their supporters — giving TPWD the money it needs to survive will probably raise taxes. If more of the sporting goods tax is devoted to parks, then the programs in the general fund that had been receiving that money will suffer their own budget shortfall. Moving the money around just shifts the problem to different departments.
There is simply not enough supply in the current state budget to handle so many demands. If the parks are to flourish again, new money will need to be found.
“The cold, hard fact is that if we want parks, or any other state service, all Texans will have to pay,” Crossman said.
This means more taxes. Fortunately for the parks, a poll by Hill Research Consultants suggests that 65 percent of Texans support lifting the cap on the sporting goods tax. An even higher number, 69 percent, of those polled said that they would be willing to pay at least $1 per month in additional state taxes for the development of new parks and to protect Texas’ natural resources.
If this poll is accurate, and the people of Texas are not averse to a slightly heavier tax load, this could very well be the answer to the funding shortfall.
One dollar a month doesn’t seem like much, but it would have an enormous impact on the parks. Such a tax would alleviate the burden placed on the TPWD without taking much needed funds from elsewhere.
The situation facing the Texas State Parks has no easy answer. If Texans want a parks system that they can be proud if, they are going to have to prove it with their wallets.
— The Associated Press contributed to this story
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