DCR To Give Public A Clear View of Capital Spending
One of the biggest complaints the public and other stakeholders have had about the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) over time is that the agency can be opaque when it comes to information about what DCR does on a day-to-day and month-to-month basis.
The 2021 Special Commission on DCR’s final report, which considered input from a wide variety of sources, including our organization, also concluded that DCR needs to be more transparent in its planning and operations.
Enter DCR Commissioner Brian Arrigo, now on the job for about six months, who is trying to change the public’s perception of DCR. This includes a much-increased social media presence, many public appearances across the state, and putting systems in place to let the public see into the agency on things like its capital spending on park and related infrastructure projects.
Mass Parks for All (MPA) welcomes this approach as a way to build upon previous DCR presentations to the DCR Stewardship Council on the capital and operating budgets. The Council, for its part, is taking a more active, public role getting DCR to shed light on its activities. And while the Council’s meetings are public, they do not often get to the wider audience that will garner broad-based public support DCR needs.
After identifying the capital budget process as something DCR wants to improve, the agency put out a request for proposals and hired Boston-based Auribus Consulting to help create a capital program dashboard. This will include an interactive map that will list projects by facility and details about projects under way and in the pipeline, including when it was approved, annual cost by fiscal year, total cost, and funding source.
We have long been part of the chorus calling for this kind of transparency as one way to rebuild public trust in DCR. It is heartening to see the Healey-Driscoll Administration and its appointees at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, under which DCR sits, take this step.
Auribus is working to finish the tasks outlined in its contract. DCR will begin to take public input early next year via public listening sessions around the state. This is a long time coming and MPA welcomes DCR’s effort to be more transparent.
Update on DCR’s FY2024 Operations Budget
If you’ve been following this space, you know that the Healey-Driscoll Administration, in its first budget submitted to the Legislature last February, proposed to give DCR’s Parks and Recreation Operations account (2810-0100) a $22 million increase, from FY2023’s $85 million to $107 million. Prior to being elected, candidates Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll both told us they greatly valued our state parks and that if elected, they would have DCR’s back. And they did, proposing the largest increase ever for DCR’s day-to-day operations. The Legislature, balancing all needs across the state, settled on $105 million, still the largest increase ever in that account.
Last spring, DCR informed the Stewardship Council that it had been paying about $14 million in salaries and related expenses from the capital spending side of the budget. During that meeting, the agency said it was going to move those expenses back to operations. We understand why DCR, faced with massive post-Great Recession cuts to its budget and staff, decided to pay some mission critical staff from the capital side of the budget. We also see why, given an opportunity to move this spending back where it belongs, the agency wanted to do just that.
In an effort to continue a series of budget increases we and our allies inside and outside of state government have been able to win for DCR, we asked the Administration to consider breaking the transfer up over two fiscal years. To do so would have meant that the 2810-0100 account, now funded at $105.0 million, would have had a $13.0 million increase for FY2024, versus a $6.0 million increase if the transfer was done in one fiscal year.
The Stewardship Council and some park friends groups joined us in this request. But we recently learned that the Administration decided to transfer the funds all in one fiscal year. DCR officials have assured us that the increase they did receive will be used to hire engineers, full-time park operations staff, forestry, fire, and conservation operations, as well as administrative and support staff in legal and procurement, which will keep these operations moving forward. In addition to bringing essential staff on board, the funding in FY2024 will be invested in park maintenance, snow and ice operations, and fleet maintenance.
For our part, we will continue to monitor and advocate for our long-standing position that DCR needs a $10 million increase in this account each year for a decade to reverse a like period of disinvestment that dropped Massachusetts to last in the nation for per capita tax dollars spent on public open space. We look forward to working together to improve our parks for the millions of people who use them and the $16 billion annual outdoor economy our parks help support.
Doug Pizzi is executive director of Mass Parks for All