Funding sweeps leave state parks in shambles

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FLORENCE — The steady gaze of Earnest McFarland, who in the mid-20th century served Arizona as a U.S. senator, governor and state supreme court justice, looks down on every visitor to the state park that bears his name, a restored frontier courthouse in dusty Florence, built in 1874.

“We will never be perfect in our government, but high ideals can predominate,” reads a brass plaque beneath the portrait, quoting one of McFarland’s favorite sayings.

Yet perfection is hardly the word that comes to mind during a tour of McFarland State Historical Park. Massive cracks stretch from floor to ceiling on more than one of the building’s original adobe walls. A support beam braces a crumbling exterior wall, keeping the wall and sections of roof from collapsing. In another room, which over the years served variously as a jail, county hospital and prisoner-of-war camp, caution tape warns visitors to avoid a gaping hole in the floor.

“McFarland did a lot for this state and this community, and I think he would be very saddened if he saw the condition of this building today,” says assistant park manager Terri Leverton.

McFarland’s park is not the only one in need of repair. Similar problems plague many of the 30 parks that comprise the Arizona state parks system, from failing septic systems in popular parks along the Colorado River to leaky roofs and crumbling walls at monuments like Tombstone Courthouse and Yuma Territorial Prison.

Fixing all of the system’s infrastructure and maintenance issues would cost $20 million a year over five years, says Arizona State Parks director Ken Travous.

“If you’re looking at the things that need to be repaired or refurbished, you’re talking $100 million,” Travous says. “Buildings are falling down, literally.”

But the cash-strapped parks system found no relief this year, as state legislators again swept millions of dollars from special funds earmarked for capital projects. The money comes from user fees, taxes on boating fuel and a share of state lottery proceeds, and state law dictates they are supposed to be spent on developing and maintaining parks and open space.

The statutes lack a provision that can prevent legislators from steering the funds toward other purposes – a loophole they have taken advantage of repeatedly.

During the economic downturn of 2002, for example, tens of millions in capital funds were stripped to make up for deficits in other state agencies. The economy rebounded, but the funds were never replaced.

“It started getting really bad in 2003,” Travous says. “They cut the money for the grants, and then they cut our capital money. We never made it back to where we were before.”

With the state again in an economic tailspin, pleas for increased funding for the parks system have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, an additional $13 million has been stripped from maintenance and improvement funds to help plug a $2 billion hole in the 2008-09 budget.

“In a year like this, frankly, upgrading toilets is not as important as meeting the state’s budget crunch,” says Arizona Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox. “Right now we were very, very short, and there were no other options.”

As in the past, the stripped funds — which now total nearly $40 million since 2003 — are likely never to be replaced. “It just doesn’t happen,” Arzberger says. “There is never any anticipation that those funds can be paid back.”

Supporters of the park system acknowledge that during the present budget crisis, some cuts were inevitable.

But they also argue that the continual shortchanging of the state parks budget is shortsighted and will eventually cost the state far more because small problems that were once funded year-to-year are snowballing into major restoration projects.

Mounting problems at popular parks like those on Lake Havasu, a big draw for out-of-state visitors, negatively impacts tourism – a bright spot for Arizona in this economic storm.

“Our system is in real decline, and it has been since the last budget crisis, in 2001,” says Doug Frerichs, president of the nonprofit Arizona State Parks Foundation. “Sitting here and imagining that no cuts are necessary is absurd, but serious cuts in the state parks budget – the sweeping of funds – will just devastate this system, and it makes no sense to do it.”

If maintenance issues continue to spiral out of control, some popular parks may have to be closed temporarily, parks officials say.

Buckskin Mountain State Park, near Parker on the Colorado River, is one. State parks officials say it has a failing sewage lift station, which is a critical component of its septic system.

“If that sewage waste system goes down, that park goes down,” says assistant Parks director Jay Ream. “If that were to overflow, sewage would flow into the Colorado River.”

Money could likely be found to repair the septic system, Ream says, but it would come at the expense of pressing maintenance issues at other parks. “It’s getting to be like triage in a train wreck,” Ream says. “You have to take care of the most critical patients first.”

In difficult economic times, a cure for the state parks system’s woes is not readily apparent. That is in spite of the fact that data shows the parks system to be an overall moneymaker for the state, generating over $126 million in tourist revenue per year, according to a 2002 study by Northern Arizona University.

Sen. Arzberger said she supported an eventual increase in the state parks budget, as well as a restructuring of the department’s funding mechanism to ensure a more steady revenue stream. But until the state learns to match its revenues to its expenses, additional spending on the parks department will be a difficult sell to other lawmakers.

“It has to come behind building schools and building roads and meeting the essential issues. It has to come behind that,” Arzberger says.

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