Georgia state parks face budget crunch

WINDER — Even this weekend, as Fort Yargo State Park eased into the slow season, its 1,814 acres were filled with workers, campers, mountain bikers, families, police officers, firefighters, Master Gardeners, rowers from the University of Georgia, volunteers from the Friends of Fort Yargo cooking lunch and the Living History Society building a smokehouse.

Its 500,000 yearly visitors might know its lake and trails by heart, but not the cost of keeping the park clean, maintained or safe. On Saturday, the visitors were even less sure what will happen now that the $1.6 billion state budget shortfall requires budget cuts of 6 to 10 percent at the Department of Natural Resources, which runs the park system.

“There’s no trimming left,” said park manager Eric Bentley. “We’re trying to do a good job, but we’re trying to do it with no money.”

Fort Yargo is one of the state’s most popular parks, but it still loses money.

For the 2007 fiscal year, its budget was $513,000, but it spent almost $717,000 on employees, gas, fresh coats of paint and general operations. To cut back this year, a law enforcement position will remain unfilled, and a retiring secretary won’t be replaced. Park employees will put off big projects, repair old equipment, drive less and skip extra runs with the mower.

They’ll also rely more on their most loyal visitors, like the Friends of Fort Yargo volunteers.

Rick Cline, who sits on the Friends board, said the group expects to spend more time fund-raising, covering projects the state used to handle.

“It costs a certain amount of money just to open the door on the place,” said Cline, 55, of Winder. “It’s those little things when there’s a budget cut. You look at what you’ve absolutely got to have – then you look at your want list.”

For the Living History Society, it means its members will have to keep a closer eye on the security and cleanliness of the area around their historic sites. They’d kill for a bathroom near the Fort Yargo building, but they’ll build an outhouse in the meantime.

“We thrive on getting visitors in,” said Omer Alexander, 53, of Bethlehem. “If [park employees] can’t do their job, we can’t do ours.”

For the University of Georgia rowing team, which houses all its boats and equipment at the park, the cuts bring security worries. Its members are there to practice at 5:30 a.m. three times a week, and they’ve got a security system, but they rely on park managers to respond to a problem.

Their boats cost $20,000 to $32,000 each, and the first boathouse they built burned down after someone sprinkled gasoline on it and set it afire in 2003.

“It is concerning,” head coach Maya Alderman said of the cuts while her team loaded skinny rigs into the newly enclosed boathouse on Saturday afternoon.

Fort Yargo State Park is well-off compared to some other parks, historic sites and state-owned golf courses that might have to lock their gates or hand their operations to private companies.

State parks weren’t intended to make money, says Bentley, the park manager. He’s 36 and has and worked in the park system as long as he’s had a job, except for a few weeks at a machine shop as a teen.

“When times were good,” he said, “if a position came vacant, within two, three months, it would come filled. Now, realistically, it’ll be three or five years before we can fill jobs. We’re trying to do more projects with less money.”

For now, they’re trying to handle the fixes that visitors most want – clean spaces, safe campgrounds, pretty views – while making it cost less.

“You don’t want to go some place that’s run down, [with] trash all over the place,” said visitor Travis Seel, 36, of Dacula, who rode a mountain bike over the trails with his wife on Saturday morning. “This gives you a reason to work during the week – having a good weekend.”