The Friends of the Park

Iowans should celebrate spring by getting out to one of our 72 magnificent state parks.

One caution, though: Chronic underfunding has stretched thin the park managers and rangers and left many sites with a mounting backlog of maintenance and repairs.

Visitors should be especially wary of unaddressed safety hazards, such as a missing ramp for the handicapped, a rotting footbridge, a muddy, rutted access road, an overgrown footpath, a dilapidated building, and more. We want the state to show greater respect for our parks and the millions of us who use them, and fix this problem, not make it worse.

We appreciate the dedicated park rangers and managers and their seasonal crew members who make the wonders of nature accessible to us. They clean, repair, and tend to shelters and restrooms, campgrounds and cabins, boat docks, water and electrical systems, trails and roads. And the managers and rangers provide us with guidance and other help at the park when we need it.

This is no easy job. The Iowa state park system is over 100 years old, and many of its features were built in the 1930s. Besides their regular work, the crews respond to damages from storms, fires, erosion, and vandalism. Park staff also battle invasive plants that constantly try to overrun native species.

These challenges are made even harder by budget and staffing cuts over the years as Iowa politicians have pressed to curb taxes. For example, Iowa Public Radio reported that the number of Iowa park rangers dropped from 55 in 1995 to only 35 in 2021, leaving one park ranger for roughly every half million visitors that year. Because of the budget and staffing squeeze, park crews have been unable to keep up. In 2023, David Downing, the former director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), reported a $100 million backlog in needed repairs and upgrades for Iowa state parks. Despite these needs, the state has allocated only a little more than $7 million for park maintenance and repairs in each of the past several years–less than 50 cents per visitor based on 2020 attendance. These flat year-toyear budgets mean less work gets done annually as years go by because of increases in material costs and competitive wages for seasonal help.

Iowa’s neighbors are struggling with their state parks, too, but are willing to devote a

much larger percentage of their state budgets to their parks. The share of the total state budget spent on state parks is three times greater in Missouri (0.249%) and Nebraska (0.231%) than it is in Iowa (0.081%), according to a 2020-21 survey by the National Association of State Park Directors.

To help address the funding shortfall, Iowans approved a constitutional amendment in 2010, supported by 63 percent of voters, establishing the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund. The amendment calls for a 3/8-cent sales tax to finance the protection and enhancement of natural areas, including parks. Unfortunately, the Trust remains

unfunded by the state legislature. In view of these limitations, it is remarkable how well park field staffs have done keeping our parks functional and attractive. But they cannot do this forever.

If we want to maintain and enhance the value of our prized state parks, we must do more to support these important public

assets and their staffs.

Here’s how:

1. Visit the parks. A whopping 16.6 million visitors did that in 2020, the fraught year of Covid. Many park events are posted online – but you don’t need an event to just go enjoy the natural beauty.

2. Say “thank you.” Now that you know what the park crews are facing, take the time to thank them live and online.

3. Volunteer and support Friends of the Park. The parks and their Friends groups offer numerous chances to roll up your sleeves, get out in nature, and do some good—and probably make new friends. Join your local Friends group or at least make a tax-deductible donation to it.

4. Support candidates who support the parks. Humans have evolved to communicate with nature as a way of defining their Volunteer Day at place in the world. As urban and agricultural development swallows up our wildlands, we have fewer places to do that.

Those places are valuable to us personally, and they attract Volunteer Day outdoor at others, which helps our economy. According to the DNR’s 2018 comprehensive recreation plan, the Iowa state parks and other protected areas directly and indirectly generate $8.7 billion in consumer spending, employing 83,000 Iowans, contributing $2.7 billion in wages and $649 million in in-state and local tax revenue. Some candidates for office value our parks, others don’t. Vote for those who do. To see if your current state legislators support Iowa’s state parks, send them this article and ask them what they will do to help resolve this chronic under funding crisis.