By Judy Erickson, government relations director
Within a very short time frame, the House and Senate passed their Environment and Natural Resources Budget Bill (HF2123) and conferred them last weekend (May 2 and 3), with final passage coming on Monday evening, May 4. The bill has been sent to the Gov. Tim Pawlenty for his signature.
While neither Gov. Pawlenty nor the House proposed budget reductions for the operations and maintenance of Minnesota's State Parks and Trails, the Conference Committee adopted a $2.7 million base budget reduction for the biennium for state parks and trails. It is the largest general fund reduction within the Department of Natural Resources' General Fund budget. Overall the agency received a $10.164 million base reduction for the biennium.
A base reduction means the cut this year is carried forward into the next biennium, as opposed to a one-time reduction. It will take a specific act of the Legislature to return these funds to the base budget for state parks and trails at a future time.
The agency budgets and spreadsheets can be very confusing to understand. But very simply, the governor proposed a 20 percent base reduction to Payment-in-Lieu of Taxes (PILT), $8.7 million for the biennium. (Payment-in-lieu of taxes is the program that reimburses counties for taxes lost when the state acquires public lands.) The Legislature did not adopt this recommendation and so had to find somewhere else to achieve the reductions. Within the DNR's budget, State Parks and Trails have a lot of general fund in their base. So when you go looking for places to make general fund reductions within the DNR's budget, there are not a lot of options.
This reduction is very disappointing and puts the Legacy funding from the Parks and Trails Fund dangerously close to the substitution line. DNR has been put in a position to make some difficult choices in determining where to achieve these savings in order to avoid being accused of substituting Legacy funds for lost general fund.
Certainly closing a $4.5 billion budget deficit is challenging, but at the same time, the decision by the legislature continues the downward trend line for park and trail funding. It is a slippery slope, and hopefully when times are good again, we can regain some of these lost funds.
Parks & Trails will be working with Conservation Minnesota following the conclusion of the 2009 legislative session when they do their final report and budget analysis. Their work will shed additional light on the decisions made by the Legislature, both in terms of the state budget as well as the outcomes on the Legacy funding.
For details on the Conference Committee Report:
https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=ccrhf2123B.html&session=ls86
The spreadsheet accompanying the Conference Committee Report:
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/fiscalpol/tracking/2009/EnvEngConf.pdf
