{"id":24123,"date":"2015-06-11T11:25:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T16:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=24123"},"modified":"2015-06-11T12:27:48","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T17:27:48","slug":"state-parks-in-danger-after-tourism-departments-16-million-budget-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/06\/11\/state-parks-in-danger-after-tourism-departments-16-million-budget-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"State Parks in Danger After Tourism Department&#8217;s $16 Million Budget Cut"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_24142\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-24142\" alt=\"Justin Stratford and several of his nieces and nephews play in Lake Thunderbird on a road trip from Arizona.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2015\/06\/PHOTO-6-11-TourismBudget-620x410.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"410\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Justin Stratford and several of his nieces and nephews play in Lake Thunderbird on a road trip from Arizona.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The <a title=\"KGOUlink\" href=\"http:\/\/kgou.org\/post\/governor-fallin-signs-legislation-funding-state-services\" target=\"_blank\">$7.1 billion state budget<\/a> Governor Mary Fallin signed in June 2015 included deep cuts to the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation \u2014 the agency that runs the state park system. That could mean some parks will have to be closed or transferred to new operators, and some eastern Oklahoma lawmakers are fuming.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/209871250&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p><p><!--more-->Generally, these parks aren\u2019t big money makers for the state. Lake Thunderbird State Park near Norman is one of the <a title=\"StateImpactLink\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2011\/09\/15\/the-five-most-expensive-state-parks-in-oklahoma\/\" target=\"_blank\">most expensive parks the state runs<\/a>. A little more than half a million people visited the park in 2013, and the park brought in about half a million dollars. But it cost $1.2 million to run. State funding makes up the difference, and that\u2019s one reason why people who enjoy state parks in Oklahoma might be worried.<\/p><p>Lake Thunderbird isn\u2019t likely to close, even though the state loses money on it. It\u2019s well attended and the only state park in the Oklahoma City metro. But these are uncertain times at the Tourism Department.<\/p><p>\u201cThe executive director and the chief financial officer have been meeting everyday, and have been working on a budget everyday, and it\u2019s still being worked on is all I can say,\u201d says Claudia Conner, deputy director of the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation..<\/p><p>Conner says the 5 percent cut to the agency\u2019s funding from the legislature only tells part of the story.<\/p><p>\u201cThat\u2019s only part of the cut, which is approximately $1 million,\u201d Conner says. \u201cThere were also cuts to apportionment of $7.8 million, and some of the Tourism funds were swept, so to speak, at $7.5 million.\u201d<\/p><p>She\u2019s talking about reductions in the amount of use and sales tax money that\u2019s set aside for tourism, and cuts to two of the agency\u2019s revolving funds that usually pay for park maintenance and travel promotion. When you add it all up, the agency is losing more than $16 million.<\/p><p>\u201cWhich is on top of approximately 26 percent cuts that have happened in the past several years,\u201d she says.<\/p><p>That\u2019s not even considering the cost of repairing all the recent flood damage at several parks. Since 2011, budget cuts have forced the Department of Tourism to <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/02\/13\/budget-cuts-might-mean-more-state-park-closures-in-2015\/\">stop funding parks and transfer them to new owners<\/a>. State Rep. Johnny Tadlock, D-Idabel, sits on the House Tourism Committee, and predicts more parks will be offloaded.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19309\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19309\" alt=\"The word 'state' has been removed from Brushy Lake Park's entrance sign. The park, near Sallisaw, Okla., was transferred to the city's control in 2011. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/04\/BrushyParkSign.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/04\/BrushyParkSign.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/04\/BrushyParkSign-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/04\/BrushyParkSign-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2014\/04\/BrushyParkSign-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Logan Layden \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The word &#39;state&#39; has been removed from Brushy Lake Park&#39;s entrance sign. The park, near Sallisaw, Okla., was transferred to the city&#39;s control in 2011.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>\u201cHow are they going to sustain those sort of cuts?\u201d Tadlock asks. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take some big economist to, kind of, put the pencil to that and figure it out. How are they going to keep running, you know? They\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p><p>Tadlock voted against the budget bill this year, and so did Rep. Brian Renegar, D-McAlester. He has harsh words for the Tourism Department under Gov. Fallin, and specifically, Deby Snodgrass, who Fallin appointed as director of the agency in 2011, and secretary of commerce and tourism earlier this year.<\/p><p>\u201cShe\u2019d been a bean counter for an oil company in her previous life,\u201d Renegar says. \u201cAnd she thinks for some reason that our parks should make money, and that\u2019s not what they were built for. State parks were built to stimulate economic development in the rural areas.\u201d<\/p><p>There are definitely two different philosophies on parks. But while the number of parks has shrunk during Snodgrass\u2019 tenure at Tourism, Claudia Conner says there\u2019s no conspiracy to shut down the system in the name of smaller government.<\/p><p>\u201cI find that odd, because the parks that were transferred, not closed, were on Governor Brad Henry\u2019s list of \u2014 in his budget book, prior to this administration \u2014 parks that should be considered for closure,\u201d Conner says. \u201cSo, I don\u2019t understand that reasoning.\u201d<\/p><p>But park philosophies aside, the big question now is which parks \u2014 if any \u2014 the state agency might shed because of the most recent cuts to its budget, which go into effect on July 1.<\/p><p>\u201cI can\u2019t tell you right now what\u2019s going to happen in the future,&#8221; Conner says. &#8220;It wasn\u2019t until less than a month ago \u2014 just a couple of weeks ago \u2014 that we got the information about the exact budget cut.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conner says the 5 percent cut to the agency\u2019s funding from the legislature only tells part of the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":19309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[42,48,111],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24123"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24138,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24123\/revisions\/24138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}