News

Following action by the Arizona Legislature on Dec. 18 to withdraw $8.6 million from Arizona State Parks to help balance the state budget, the state park board must make tough decisions on what will happen next, which could include closing parks.

Follow up:

Since February 2009, the future of the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park has been tenuous. Currently, there are two employees and the park is open five days a week, down from seven days a week a year ago.

It was, for a time, slated to be closed, but the parks board handled cost-cutting in other ways. At this point, it's uncertain what will occur next.

The latest reduction to the state park budget resulted from House Bill 2001, which authorized cutbacks and sweeps of $8.6 million from conservation funds such as the State Parks gate fees, donations, State Lake Improvement Fund and Heritage Funds. The bill was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on Dec. 23.

The state parks board met Dec. 31 for an update of the situation and discussion, but no action was taken. The board has a regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 15 in Phoenix.

The state parks in Santa Cruz County include Tubac Presidio State Historic Park, Patagonia Lake State Park, Sonoita Creek State Natural Heritage Area and the currently closed San Rafael State Natural Area.

Spokeswoman Ellen Bilbrey said on Dec. 17 that the consequence of the sweeps will be the closure of state parks, causing an additional $266 million revenue loss to rural communities by reducing leisure business generated by the 2.3 million park visitors.

Before the Legislature acted, Reese Woodling, Arizona State Parks Board Chairman, said in a prepared statement: "These sweeps will be catastrophic to the agency and will eliminate any hope of us operating the system or contributing to the economies of these rural communities.

"If this bill passes we would need to reduce staff by approximately 75 of our remaining 218 employees and that step would force park closures. Also, these cuts are based on the parks being open and earning over $8 million from gate fees, which will not happen with parks closed."

Arizona has 31 state parks. There are four in Santa Cruz county but none in Maricopa County, in which the state capitol, Phoenix and nearby cities are located.

State Park board members are Woodling, William C. Scalzo, Phoenix; Arlan Colton, Tucson; Tracey Westerhausen, Phoenix; Larry Landry, Phoenix; Walter D. Armer, Jr., Vail; and Maria Baier, State Land Commissioner.

By Kathleen Vandervoet
(Reach the writer at kathleenvan@msn.com.)