Parks: ‘We’re going to bleed’

Idaho’s state parks system is still going despite funding cuts, Director Nancy Merrill told JFAC this morning. “We did see successes,” she said. “Our visitors recognized the efforts that were being done to keep all these parks open with lack of staff and lack of funding.” Three parks that had been targeted for closure were kept open, she said: Dworshak, Thousand Springs and Yankee Fork. Volunteers and park fees were key, Merrill said. “This is definitely a pay-to-play system.”

The 30 state parks are operated with just 84.5 full-time employees, plus up to 225 seasonal workers and volunteers, Merrill said. They received 4.4 million visitors last year. She said she figures that means the roughly 85 full-time employees were each responsible “for around 54,000 people.”

In the past year, the parks department saw a 77 percent reduction in state funding, Merrill said. It tapped cash reserves for $1.1 million, reduced its workforce by 15 percent, and took $2 million from the RV registration fund, which Merrill said is “a short-term fix.” She said, “We realize we have three to five years in which we have to wean ourselves off” using that fund. … If we don’t have a stable funding source when we pull that Band-Aid off, I think we’re going to bleed.”

Looking to the future, she said, the department is looking at increased fees, marketing and business strategies, and corporate sponsorships.