Inflation, government poised to cut DCR operations by 10%

There is one bright spot in an otherwise dismal FY2027 spending proposal for the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) in the $63.4 billion budget the Legislature sent the Healey-Driscoll Administration on July 1. Proposed at $105.7 million, the budget for the DCR Parks and Recreation Operations account (2810-0100) is $1.3 million more than the governor or the House of Representatives proposed earlier this year.   

However, even if the governor signs off, it will still cut the account by 7.1 percent over the FY2026 appropriation of $113.8 million. Meanwhile, neither the House nor the Senate took on the Administration's 2.8 percent cut to the Seasonal Employees account (2800-0501), which will drop from $29.3 million to $25.5 million, a cut of $833,000.

Accounting for inflation of about 3.0 percent, the operations account is poised to take an effective cut of 10 percent, while seasonals will take a 5.8 percent hit just as summer, DCR’s peak use season, kicks into high gear. This in a state budget slated to increase about 4.0 percent over FY2026. 

There is no getting around the fact that these cuts compromise DCR’s ability to provide the 26.2 million people who annually visit our parks, beaches, forests, campgrounds, pools, and other assets with clean, safe, fully staffed, fully open facilities. A cut of this magnitude also applies the brakes to our $13 billion annual outdoor recreation economy that DCR and park users help fund. 

Not long ago, state government was touting that Massachusetts has the fastest growing outdoor recreation economy in the nation. Lost in the conversation is the fact that the 2021 Special Legislative Commission on DCR cited a sobering statistic about state funding for public open space. According to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, Massachusetts was last in last place among all states in spending per capita general revenue tax dollars on this important environmental and economic sector. In the years since then, reasonable funding increases for DCR helped move us up that ladder, but only to 44th, a far from enviable status. 

This turn of events, along with recent cuts to DCR’s capital budget, also hinders the agency’s ability to retire the $1.0 billion deferred maintenance backlog accumulated during more than a decade of extreme underfunding during and after the 2008 recession.  

Returning to the FY2027 budget, in May, the Senate added the additional operations funding, largely in the form of a $1.0 million floor amendment filed by President Pro Tempore Will Brownsberger. The full Senate then approved the increase. Sen. Jamie Eldridge also filed amendments to level fund two accounts, operations and seasonal employees, at the FY2026 level. Neither of those amendments gained enough support to pass. MPA thanks both senators for their current and past support for our parks. 

In April, House Environment and Natural Resources Chair Christine Barber filed a House amendment to level fund the operations account. It failed to pass. No one filed a similar amendment for the seasonal account, which, given the current fiscal climate, would not have passed anyhow.  

With your help, in June we asked the House-Senate Conference Committee, which negotiated the differences between the House and Senate budget proposals, to accept the Senate’s FY2027 number. It did so, as did the full Legislature. It remains to be seen if the Administration approves the increase or uses the veto pen to reduce it by the July 11 deadline. While we appreciate these efforts, we lament the fact that DCR is back to the one step forward, two steps backward budgets we had hoped were in the past.

Last year, MPA, again with your help, sought and received a 3.5 percent increase to keep DCR just above the inflation rate. We sent a letter signed by 35 like-minded organizations asking the Administration to approve the increase. But the governor vetoed $400,000 from the operations account . We asked the Legislature to override that veto and last October it did just that. We have asked the Administration again this year to approve the Legislature’s figure.  

Earlier this year, 47 organizations joined us in asking for the same 3.5 percent increase for operations and seasonals for the FY2027 budget, just enough to keep DCR above inflation. It quickly became clear that there was no appetite in the Legislature to do that. So, we asked to level fund operations and seasonals at the FY2026 level, which, due to inflation, would have been a 3.0 percent cut. 

To say we are disappointed by this turn of events, especially following three years of reasonable budget increases for DCR, two offered by the Administration, the third accomplished by advocates and the Legislature, is an understatement.  

What then can we do?

We formed Mass Parks for All three years ago to unite park advocates under a single banner to support our parks inside and outside of state government. Our 200-plus organization database of park friends groups, watershed groups, land trusts and other like-minded advocates is a useful tool in shedding light on the plight of our parks and rallying advocates. 

Another useful tool would be a committed, effective open space caucus within the Legislature. Such a caucus could coalesce around DCR and the nearly half-million acres of land it stewards, making DCR the largest land holder in the state, and our park system one of the largest in the nation based on the size of our state. 

Currently, the Legislature has two caucuses that could generate a lot of support for our parks. But at present, the Parks Caucus and the Trails Caucus exist only on paper. In talking to legislators who have in the past attempted to make them effective voices for our parks and trails, the familiar lament is how difficult it is to get legislators interested in things that are not happening in their districts. That must change if DCR is to have any chance of delivering the 21st century park system that we all deserve, and that honors the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot, who together with contemporaries created the first metropolitan park system in the nation in 1893. 

Gubernatorial administrations that consistently support parks year in and year out would also be helpful. The Healey-Driscoll Administration’s first two budgets, fiscal years 2024 and 2025, and the Legislature’s approval of the same, began to reverse more than a decade of inadequate park funding. The Administration’s FY2026 proposal of a 2.5 percent increase for operations, against a 3.0 percent inflation rate, was a de facto budget cut, albeit a small one. The FY2027 proposal represents a significant retreat from supporting our parks, which the pandemic proved beyond all doubt are need to have assets, not simply want to have assets. 

This year, it would have taken about $15 million to give DCR the 3.5 percent increase in operations and seasonal employees accounts we and our park supporting allies asked for. That amounts to 0.024 percent of the $63.4 billion budget about to be approved. And yet, to our collective dismay, that proved to be a bridge too far for state government to cross. 

If we are to reverse this sad trend for more than a budget cycle or two, it will take all of us, MPA, our membership, allied organizations, the general public, the Legislature, and successive gubernatorial administrations pulling in the same direction for at least a decade. Only then will DCR get the operating and capital funding it needs to dig out of the hole that state government put the agency in starting in 2009. The First Rule of Holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. For several years, Massachusetts did just that, only to pick up the shovel again last February. Nevertheless, MPA is in it for the long haul. Our mission is to convince everyone else to join us.