Preserving Texas In the News

By R.A. DYER

rdyer@star-telegram.com

AUSTIN —Texas lawmakers appeared close to a deal Thursday that would substantially increase funding for the state’s beleaguered parks system — perhaps even tripling funding for operations and maintenance.

Passage appeared less certain for separate legislation that would restore a potentially permanent source of money for the 600,000-acre system. That bill also would mandate various management changes at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and require the transfer of about 18 properties from the agency to the Texas Historical Commission.

During the past election season, key Republican and Democratic lawmakers pledged to address long-running funding problems at the parks department. A Star-Telegram investigation last year found the cash-starved agency foundering under the weight of layoffs, shuttered facilities, reduced operating hours, aging vehicles and inoperable equipment.

According to preliminary estimates provided by the House Committee on Culture, Recreation and Tourism, annual funding for state park operations, maintenance and small repairs could go from about $25 million to as much as $85 million, under a proposal being negotiated by House and Senate budget writers. That would provide the agency almost all the money it had sought during the upcoming budget cycle, according to tourism committee clerk Todd Kercheval.

Capital projects

Separately, the agency would also get more money for big-ticket capital projects, such as the restoration of the Battleship Texas at San Jacinto State Park near Houston.

However, the funding plans also include more than $8 million in additional money that the agency would have to generate itself through more aggressive collection of entry fees. Separate legislation also could take about $7 million annually from the parks department and transfer it to the Texas Historical Commission.

Kercheval said that budget negotiations are ongoing, and that firm numbers probably won’t be available until today or Monday. But state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, the chairman of the tourism committee, who has spent the past several years pushing for more parks funding, said he’s hopeful that the parks department will get much of the cash it needs.

“In the short term, it will let parks do as well as they’ve ever done in terms of funding,” Hilderbran said Thursday.

The Kerrville Republican was less optimistic about the fate of his separate House Bill 12, which would mandate various changes in the agency and lift a cap on how much revenue from the sales tax on sporting goods can go to parks.

The Legislature in 1993 promised that money for the agency, but ended up rerouting most of it. At the same time funding problems for the agency mounted.

The House has already given the green light to House Bill 12, but the bill has yet to win approval from the Senate Finance Committee. With less than two weeks left in the session, if the measure doesn’t start moving quickly it may die, Hilderbran said.

Property transfer

Besides addressing the sporting-goods tax issue and mandating various management changes at the Parks and Wildlife Department, HB 12 also would direct the agency to transfer 18 properties to the Texas Historical Commission. Thursday afternoon the Senate attached an amendment to unrelated legislation that would mandate the site transfer and institute some management changes identified in House Bill 12, but which only calls for a study of the sporting goods tax issue.

Parks advocate Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, said it appeared increasingly unlikely that lawmakers were going to lift that tax cap, although he said the overall spending boost for parks should come as good news. “It’s great to have an increase [in parks spending], but if we don’t have anything to guarantee a permanent funding stream, we could be back where we were two years from now if they slash the budget again,” Metzger said.

Tourism committee clerk Kercheval indicated there still remains a question whether the more than $9 million raised through the sale of park property at Eagle Mountain Lake in northwest Tarrant County will be used to acquire another regional park. Gov. Rick Perry earlier promised that the money would go to that purpose.

But Kercheval said there remains a strong chance that the money from the Eagle Mountain Lake sale would go to parks acquisition, and not go to shore up the department’s operating budget as had been suggested by some Senate budget writers.

“We’re pushing it for parks acquisition,” he said. “We believe that the commitments relating to that sale need to be lived up to, so let’s spend that money on building a [new] park. But that isn’t a 100 percent done deal.”