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Merry X-mas to 160 WA State Parks employees


LostCamKenny

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I do not believe this belongs in spray, but it isn't necessarily directly climbing related. So Mods, please repost wherever it seems this would be appropriate.

 

Washington State Parks solution to keep parks open

 

The state parks, in general, will no longer have the staffing they have been used to in the past. Many people will be losing their jobs as a result of this new action, and this means that park services will lack in coming years.

 

There are a some parks with climbing and these will be the parks impacted most to climbers, but overall this is terrible news!

 

If anyone cares at all about the state parks, and in particular state parks with climbing, it would behoove them to write to:

 

Bruce Chandler Rep. Bruce Chandler's contact information can also be found here

427B Legislative Building

P.O. Box 40600

Olympia, WA 98504-0600

(360) 786-7960

Toll-free: (800) 562-6000

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Yep, it's a shame we can't fund State Parks through taxes (what, less than 12% of their funding now?). Personally I don't care if you don't want to pay for what you don't use, your grandkids might want to visit these parks some day. Raise my damn taxes! Please!

 

My sincere apologies to the workers losing their jobs (I worked several summers as a park aide). I just hope these decreases don't result in further closures, and even lower use fees collected, and further closures . . .

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It would be nice to know how much of the 6.7 mil raised by the discover pass went straight to enforcement.

In the up coming year, park managers will be allowed to hire two 5-month seasonal "rangers" with "limited authority." They will mainly be enforcement for the Discover Pass - basically the state parks will have a corps of meter maids for the spring/summer months. This probably doesn't answer your question but it does give a sense of how highly the Washington State Park system values the rangers below the park managers, and also what the WSP figures those rangers worth to be. Too bad! Seems to me that they cut from the wrong end of the management totem pole - can't run the parks without the little people!

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what can you say? pretty much the only thing our society values less than a park ranger is an assistant crack whore? at any rate, if the only way the parks are going to get any cash is from the meters, then of course its common sense that the core job of park employees will be reduced to minding said meters.

 

expected impacts on the beacon-wand?

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Even with increased patrolling and enforcement, fee revenue won't cover enough of the operating costs. The first round cuts chose to decrease staffing and only close a few parks. I'd expect to see a lot more parks "mothballed" in the next year. :-(

 

Beacon and Peshastin aren't exactly highest on the revenue generating list.

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It would be nice to know how much of the 6.7 mil raised by the discover pass went straight to enforcement.

 

It's actually more like...

 

"The new program yielded $7.2 million in total sales its first four months. Sales were projected at $65 million ($54 million for State Parks) over the course of the current 24-month budget cycle, which runs through June 30, 2013."

(according to the document posted)

 

The verbage used tells you all you need to know about how the state views the operations of our public lands...

 

"The goal is to keep customer service in place in order to continue building Discover Pass sales, while the agency also works on a longer-term shift to a new business model reliant upon new revenue sources, partnerships and marketing."

 

Since when did our public lands become a "business"? If they don't have enough money to keep the parks open why are they attempting to encourage more people to use them? Why does the public need to be "sold" anything? The parks dept. is now in the "business" of convincing me I need to give them more money so they can afford to "market" our public lands back to us?

 

None of this makes any sense and I'm sorry but I'm not going to shed a tear about the fact that the "Discover Pass" idea didn't quite pan out the way they were hoping. As far as I'm concerned they've squandered enough money trying to "upgrade" trail heads and add services that were not needed. Now they can figure out how to do with less. Just like everyone else.

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1042713/TR_Horsethief_Butte#Post1042713

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It would be nice to know how much of the 6.7 mil raised by the discover pass went straight to enforcement.

 

It's actually more like...

 

"The new program yielded $7.2 million in total sales its first four months. Sales were projected at $65 million ($54 million for State Parks) over the course of the current 24-month budget cycle, which runs through June 30, 2013."

(according to the document posted)

 

The verbage used tells you all you need to know about how the state views the operations of our public lands...

 

"The goal is to keep customer service in place in order to continue building Discover Pass sales, while the agency also works on a longer-term shift to a new business model reliant upon new revenue sources, partnerships and marketing."

 

Since when did our public lands become a "business"? If they don't have enough money to keep the parks open why are they attempting to encourage more people to use them? Why does the public need to be "sold" anything? The parks dept. is now in the "business" of convincing me I need to give them more money so they can afford to "market" our public lands back to us?

 

None of this makes any sense and I'm sorry but I'm not going to shed a tear about the fact that the "Discover Pass" idea didn't quite pan out the way they were hoping. As far as I'm concerned they've squandered enough money trying to "upgrade" trail heads and add services that were not needed. Now they can figure out how to do with less. Just like everyone else.

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1042713/TR_Horsethief_Butte#Post1042713

Well said, Kirk... they are now making the public pay to use their own resources. The parks haven't ever charged for day use fees before and taking their management funding off the general fund is a clear indication that there is no intention of ever getting it back there - once they start to charge you for something they won't ever take it away, especially if you've agreed to pay it once: they will only increase it! This is what is happening now, and mark my words: the Discover Pass will increase in price after 2013.

 

The WSPs are actually hurting their customer service with this move. By cutting jobs at the field-levels(rangers, park aides, park office assistants, etc..) the customer service is going to get worse, not better just because they are able to keep the park open. I hate always using it as an example, but Beacon is a pretty big park and if it is going to be maintained by two full-time, year round employees i guarantee that the quality of service is going to go waaaaay down and in turn the usership of the park will decrease. And that will lead to the park closing due to lessened use.

 

[And Kevin, even if it was in jest, that is the dumbest thing you could have added to this conversation!]

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they are now making the public pay to use their own resources. The parks haven't ever charged for day use fees before

pretty easy to argue we've always been paying to use the land, just in a different form (sales taxes here in washington) - i'm not looking at the current situation optimistically, but just in the past 10 years i've seen volatility that coudl send the pendulum swinging back our way - there used to be a parking fee (no real difference from a day use fee), but that gave way to no fee for 4-5 years, and now we're on the discovery pass (which isn't too expensive yet, and in fact might be cheaper than the previous method i paid?).

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http://www.king5.com/news/cities/olympia/State-wasted-nearly-2-million-on-little-or-unused-cell-phones-134152503.html

 

Nov 18 at 4:49 PM

 

Nearly one-third of state-issued cell phones reviewed over a 12-month period by the State Auditor’s Office were used infrequently or not at all at a cost to taxpayers of $1.8 million.

 

More than 2,000 of those phones weren’t touched -- not used at all -- during the audit period of March 2010 through February 2011. The bill for the unused phones was $533,000.

 

The state spent $1.3 million on phones that were only lightly used in the time period. According to the audit, about 4,700 phones were used fewer than 30 minutes a month.

 

The audit also found the state missed opportunities to save money by choosing costly and inefficient cell phone plans.

 

“When we analyzed the use of phones serviced by AT&T, we found the state could save an additional $347,000 by changing most regularly used phones to a prepaid plan,” wrote Sonntag.

 

The audit comes exactly two weeks after Gov. Gregoire issued a directive to all state agencies to cut down on the number of cell phones and cell phone costs.

 

The state’s largest agency, the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), had the largest number of little- or unused phones during the time period. DSHS spent $1.4 million on cell phones in the year’s time on 4,284 phones. Of those, 649 were identified as unused and 1,327 were identified as not used much at all. The cost to taxpayers for those phones was more than $500,000.

 

The auditor recommended that state agencies turn in all unused and little-used cell phones unless they’re required for emergencies. Sonntag also recommended that the Department of Enterprise Services (DIS), which maintains the phone contracts, use more pre-paid plans and offer stipends to employees who use personal cell phones for state business. According to the audit, some state agencies, including the Department of Transportation, already follow this practice.

 

Sonntag commended state agencies that have already cut back on their cell phone expenditures.

 

“I also would like to give credit here to state agencies that, in total, already have taken nearly 2,000 phones out of service and that have changed plans, resulting in an estimated savings of $732,565 so far,” wrote Sonntag. “We are confident others will follow as they work to be good stewards of precious public dollars.”

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