Downsizing the California Parks and Recreation Department: Benefits to Taxpayers and the Parks
By Donald W. Murphy

Six years ago when I became director of the California Department of Parks and Recreation, California was in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The $200 million budget of the department had been cut by $40 million, yet I had to continue to provide the same level of service to the public.

Rather than the normal government drill of across-the-board cuts, we embarked upon a strategy which began with a simple question: What is our business and who do we serve? We formed a team that performed a functional analysis of everything we did. I gave this team simple instructions: Answer the foregoing question, eliminate administrative redundancies, don't reduce positions that provide direct public service (such as rangers and maintenance workers), put in place a quality service program, and, where consistent with our mission, aggressively pursue public/private partnerships.

This was a major departure from the way things are done in Sacramento. Often, to demonstrate to the taxpayer that it is being efficient, government implements across-the-board cuts. By that I mean some administrator or Legislature decrees that a department will take a percentage cut in its budget, and to be "fair" the cuts are taken equally across all areas of operations without regard for actual consequences. Hence many across-the-board cuts actually cost more in the long run, or they are only short-term producers of efficiencies. Without a functional analysis, and data on what proposed cuts will really produce, you are shooting in the dark.

The "downsizing" that the department experienced was more like a careful pruning so we could better bear fruit in the long run. In the process we did eliminate five administrative regions and consolidate 57 administrative districts down to 22. But this is only part of the story. We also reduced our headquarters overhead by about 10 percent. The savings to taxpayers totaled slightly more than $10 million. This too only tells part of the story.

The real story is how we managed the department after these changes. The governor sought volunteers to participate in a pilot Performance Based Budgeting (PBB) program. (See page 20 for an analysis of the program.) State Parks was chosen for the program. Simply put, PBB (also known as results - based budgeting, or outcome - based budgeting) ties dollars spent to specific, measurable outcomes. This means the taxpayer will know what the tax dollars are producing. The PBB program begins with a strategic plan. That plan leads to strategies and tasks out of which flow specific goals and objectives. Measures are developed to determine if the objectives are being met to a certain standard and dollars are tied to the outcomes.

Fundamental to PBB is collecting accurate data and analyzing that data to determine what is needed to accomplish the department's mission, how it should be done, what the expected results should be, and what standard should be applied. A simple example is visitor satisfaction. How do we know if the public is satisfied with our services? To find the answer we developed sophisticated visitor surveys. The visitor - the taxpayer - was able to tell us how we were doing and where we needed to improve. We then knew where to focus our resources and monitor how were doing.

Donald W. Murphy resigned as department director on December 12, 1997 and is exploring private-sector opportunities. He joined the department in 1980, serving as a ranger, training officer and superintendent before taking over as director six years ago. Under his leadership, the department won major awards for quality and service. "We are the only department that has successfully tied dollars spent to specific, measurable outcomes. In short, we are more responsible to the taxpayer," he wrote Governor Wilson in his letter of resignation.

A more complex challenge is presented in our goal to preserve and protect the state's natural and cultural resources. We had to start from scratch to develop criteria for measuring the health of our resources. This process is ongoing. But it is crucial to knowing whether dollars we are spending on resource management are producing the desired results.

The message is this: You can do all of the across-the-board cutting you want. But it will bear little long-term results in terms of efficiencies unless these cuts are coupled with a functional analysis, a quality program, and PBB. Every department director should be able to tell California taxpayers what their dollars are buying. Every administrator in government should be held to the same standard of knowing what outcomes are being produced for the dollars they are spending. I believe the result of this would be less cynicism toward government, more efficient government, a greater willingness on the part of citizens to participate in government, government more accountable to taxpayers, and taxpayers more willing to pay for the legitimate services which government must provide.

Performance Based Budgeting has been a noteworthy success story at State Parks - but the system is not without a serious problem. California's great parks are suffering from a tremendous backlog in deferred maintenance. This deferred maintenance is often not visible to the park visitor. It may be a worn out water treatment plant, leaking roofs, or campground loops that have been closed to the public. Worst of all, many of our historical structures and other cultural resources are in jeopardy of being lost forever.

It is my hope as the former director that taxpayers will recognize our sincere efforts at being good stewards of both their tax dollars and their state park system by supporting efforts to address this ongoing problem. As taxpayers we have all made a tremendous investment in our park system. To ensure that our children and grandchildren benefit from this investment, we must provide the necessary tax dollars to maintain this investment for future generations.

Governor Pete Wilson has proposed a $791 million bond for parks, wildlife, and coastal protection and improvements. It is my hope that taxpayers will support this measure and see it as maintenance of our collective investment and good environmental stewardship.

In a democracy, government at its best is government in which the governed and the government are one and the same. To the degree that public servants are responsible financial stewards, they should be able to rely upon the continued support of the taxpayer for resources necessary to carry out the duties of government. To the degree that public servants neglect that responsibility, cynicism toward government will continue. I believe that what State Parks has accomplished in the past several years warrants the continued support of taxpayers.