Cuts approved that could close 13 state parks

The Georgia Board of Natural Resources on Wednesday unanimously approved recommended budget cuts that could close up to 13 state parks and historic sites, shut down a trout hatchery, and remove conservation rangers from wildlife management areas in north Georgia.

Final decisions on how to cut spending by as much as 10 percent await Gov. Sonny Perdue and legislative leaders. But Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Noel Holcomb has already frozen hiring, stopped replacing old vehicles and equipment, and curtailed all non-critical travel. And employees are unlikely to receive a promised 2.5 percent pay raise.

Every other state agency is facing the same squeeze. The economic downturn has forced Perdue and state leaders to find at least $1.6 billion to slice out of the state spending plan approved in April that topped $21 billion.

Holcomb and the DNR board members are taking heat from park lovers, anglers and hunters.

Tom Mills, who visited 30 state parks in 30 days in June with his family of four from Grayson, asked the board “Every park is so unique, so special, so what do you close?”

Mills, who is a member of the board of directors for Friends of Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites, a nonprofit advocacy group, brought his 6-year-old daughter Claire to the board meeting near the Capitol. On the drive to downtown Atlanta, she told her father “I’ll give them all my money,” Mills said. “So maybe there’s a funding source there.”

Mills posted a video of the family’s adventure online.

Holcomb said it’s uncertain which parks would be closed, but the ones on the bubble have been targeted in the past, based on expense and visitation numbers. They include Traveler’s Rest Historic Site in Toccoa; Robert Toombs House Historic Site in Washington; Sprewell Bluff State Park in Thomaston; Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site in Fitzgerald; Providence Canyon State Conservation Park in Lumpkin; and Fort Morris Historic Site in Midway.