Saturday, January 20, 2007
Legislators who learned of state park funding shortfalls too late last session have filed legislation they hope will help remedy the park crisis.
"If Texas is going to grow, we need more state parks, not less," said Rep. Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin.
When the former Boy Scout troop master learned Texas state parks were laying off employees, reducing hours of operation and planning to close some facilities, McReynolds said called Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, chairman of the House Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee during the 79th Legislature.
"For us who live in more rural parts of the state, state parks are economic development," McReynolds said. "We rural people want our parks funded. Period. It brings dollars to these areas."
State parks, he was told, were receiving less than a fourth of the revenue generated by the sporting goods sales tax created by Legislature in 1993 to fund the 114 state parks in place of the tobacco tax — a declining source of revenue.
Legislators, however, set a limit on how much revenue generated by this new tax would be given to state parks at $27 million, and the cap was increased in 1995 to $32 million. The difference was diverted back to general revenue.
Of the revenue appropriated to state parks, half goes toward local park funding.
Then in 2006 when sporting good tax revenue had nearly doubled since its inception with $100 million, legislators reduced state parks' portion to $20.5 million.
"I think the will of the people is to fund these parks," McReynolds said. "It was a huge issue to all of us when we learned after that session that parks aren't funded better than they are. We all pledged that when we got back (to the 80th Legislative session) we would fund the parks."
On Jan. 8, Hilderbran filed House Bill 6 which removes the cap and allocates all sporting goods sales tax revenue to state parks.
"True to his word, Rep. Hilderbran included everything that was asked for by the parks advisory committee," said John Parker, a state commissioner from Lufkin.
Under HB 6, state parks will keep 74 percent of revenue generated and appropriate 26 percent to the Local Parks Matching Grants fund, Parker said.
"By doing that, the Texas State Railroad State Park will stay operational and the engines will continue to run," said McReynolds. Up to $50 million is needed for repairs in the next 10 years to keep the historic steam engines on track, according to state parks regional director Ellen Buchanan.
As of Thursday, 73 members had signed the bill including McReynolds on Jan. 12.
"Now we have to guard the hen house to keep the wolves from eating away at the bill," Parker said. "We have to begin the final push to bring HB 6 through the House, through the Senate and on to the Governor's desk for his final signature."
And it will be a fight, agreed McReynolds, referring to Gov. Rick Perry's announcement earlier this year that $12 billion is needed to cover the cost of reducing property taxes.
"It may be a little difficult. We'll have to fight like heck," McReynolds said.
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