VERDE VALLEY -- Arizona State Parks are on pins and needles, not knowing how any successful state budget will treat or gut the agency. After faltering legislative moves to adopt a plan Thursday that would ease the $3.2 billion budget shortfall, it is unclear how the State Parks Board can proceed with its Monday's agenda.
Earlier this year, a "sweep" of funds handled by the State Parks Board Heritage Fund Grants and those of the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), took away a combined $50 million of the funds. In Jerome, a restoration project of the Sullivan Hotel in the "Cribs District" scrubbed as the project was in mid-stream.
The Jerome State Park was closed to accommodate structural reinforcement, but the closure also helped to satisfy part of the state department's needs to slash its budget.
The Fort Verde State Historic Park is among six parks now operating only five days each week.
Three other Verde Valley State Parks -- Dead Horse Ranch, Slide Rock and Red Rock -- continue to operate on a regular schedule for now.
Monday, the Parks Board is scheduled to approve a revised operating budgets for FY 2010, FY 2011 and FY 2012, as well as strategic plans, capital improvement plans and to cancel the grant cycles for its grant programs for the State Lake Improvement Fund, Land and Water Conservation Fund, Heritage Fund and OHV program.
A signal from the legislature Thursday seems to indicate more manpower could be cut in a compromise with the Governor Brewer to put her temporary tax increase before voters. Still there was no closure to the budget debate.
