To fund a park

While legislators in Montgomery were trying to fix a $200 million budget deficit, Greg Lein was asking his employees to figure out the exact minimum amount of money they would need to keep the parks running.

As director of the state parks division of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Lein said he had not anticipated being faced with park closures across the state. However, the state legislature’s budget discussions for the 2016 fiscal year had included potential transfers of millions of dollars from DCNR’s budget to the general fund to cover other state expenses.

Since fiscal year 2012, Lein said, the state has transferred a collective $27 million from the DCNR budget to the general fund to help alleviate other budget shortfalls. The park system and conservation departments have been operating on less and forced to downsize programs and cancel projects and renovations across the state.

“Enough is enough,” he said at an Aug. 27 press conference.

In the current fiscal year, DCNR’s budget is $157.6 million. Prior to the special sessions, the governor had requested a $146 million budget for the department in 2016. Lein wants funding to remain level with the current year.

The state parks division’s budget was close to $40 million this year, Lein said. About 75 percent of that comes from guest revenue.

Proposed transfers ranged from $3 million to $18 million, enough to make Lein and others fear the temporary closure of some or all state parks. Local government officials and park users held a rally at Oak Mountain State Park on Sept. 12 to encourage residents and park guests to contact their legislators and request level DCNR funding.

At the time of the rally, the most recent House proposal had planned to take about $3 million from the DCNR budget, much of it from the parks division. Lein noted that with the previous budget proposals, the Senate had made increases to the transfers from DCNR.

Prior to a Senate budget session on Sept. 16, however, District 16 Senator Jabo Waggoner seemed confident that the funds taken from DCNR would decrease and the general fund deficit would be resolved in another way.

“In my opinion the state parks will end up being level funded,” Waggoner said. “Right now it is our plan to level funds for the state parks programs, and that would keep the parks open and hopefully flourishing.”

After that special session, Waggoner turned out to be right. The Senate had decided to transfer only $1 million from the DCNR budget, making it more likely that OMSP and other state parks will stay open through the year. This version of the state budget was passed on to Governor Robert Bentley for approval.

This is good news for guests of OMSP and parks statewide. An overall lack of funds on the state level, however, will have an impact on Shelby County’s ongoing master planning process for Oak Mountain.

County Chief Development Officer Chad Scroggins said the draft of the master plan was finished in mid-September and is currently being edited and reviewed. The draft is a massive binder filled with pages of potential projects, each corresponding to one of hundreds of numbered sites on the park map. The projects range from fixing cracked concrete around a post to building a handicap-accessible fishing pier.

Once the master plan is complete, it will be used to prioritize completion of those projects. The county has pledged $3.1 million over the next several years to the completion of these projects, and County Manager Alex Dudchock has asked the state parks division to pledge around $2.7 million in funds. Even a $1 million cutback to the DCNR budget, Scroggins said, will almost certainly slow down their pace of improvements.

With hundreds of projects, fulfilling the entire master plan is an endeavor that will take years. Scroggins said the county is not letting the state budget discussion impact the planning process. Its effect will be seen once a list of priorities is made and action begins.

“From the county’s aspect, it has not caused us to have any pause or delay,” Scroggins said of the state budget. “We’re going to continue with our planning because we don’t know what that end result is going to be.”

One other OMSP project, however, is being halted due to unrelated funding difficulties. In September, the Shelby County Commission agreed to suspend study and research for the proposed lodge and conference center in the park.

Scroggins said that the county had studied financing options for the development and found that beyond daily operating costs, the lodge and conference center would require additional pledged funding in order to borrow money and otherwise operate. This would require an investment on the state level, and Scroggins said that the DCNR is not in a good position to provide that funding, regardless of current budget discussions.

Without the state’s help, Shelby County would need to provide this investment, either from county lodging taxes or a general obligation debt from the commission. Dudchock wanted the lodge development to support itself through its own lodging taxes and generated revenue, and he said he couldn’t justify using other projects’ money for that purpose.

“When they asked for some additional collateral that could expose our other projects like at University of Montevallo, the infrastructure improvements that we’re doing at Oak Mountain and other lodging tax projects, it is not a project that would warrant having any exposure on our other lodging tax initiatives,” Dudchock said.

“We can’t let that one hotel and conference center project [and] the financial needs for it impact these other projects, because these other projects are just as important,” Scroggins agreed.

When the commission suspended the project, Dudchock also recommended changes to the lodge plans once the state and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is able to provide funding in the future.

He suggested reconsidering the entrance, which is currently located on Terrace Drive. The entrance is impractical, Dudchock said, due to the area’s day use and the road conditions. He also requested infrastructure actions to accommodate vehicle, pedestrian and bike traffic be considered.

The amount the state would need to provide for the lodge’s investment is still undetermined. The project is not off the table entirely, but the county will not be spending money on environmental studies or other site research until they can partner with the state.

“It’s in a suspended mode… until it’s got the backing of the state,” Scroggins said. “That’s likely years down the line.”