Kentucky State Parks update: Improving but still much ground to cover

Executive Summary

Considerable improvements have been made at Kentucky State Parks since the Bluegrass Institute issued a policy report last year entitled "Mousetraps and Stale Coffee: Making the Case for Privatizing Kentucky State Parks." This roadmap offered ideas for reducing spending while improving services provided for visitors to Kentucky State Parks.

Numerous improvements made by the parks system during the past year, including outsourcing camping reservations, reducing mowing areas and eliminating unneeded personnel positions will save taxpayers money and improve the quality of service at Kentucky's state parks.

Although these are great improvements, we offer the following steps that leaders of the Kentucky State Parks should take to further improve services and become fiscally self-sustaining:

Charge user fees.

Other states, including Vermont where user fees have allowed the system to become self-supporting have proven that most people are willing to pay a small price to enjoy a day at a beautiful state park.

Abandon the golfing business.

Detroit, Los Angeles and New York have gotten their greens out of the red by outsourcing their facilities. The deficit-ridden Kentucky State Park system could also benefit from contracting out its operations and services. However, some Kentucky officials seem determined not only to maintain the 20 government-run state parks' public courses, but also to build new ones.

Use competitive sourcing.

Officials could make parks more efficient and effective by opening up state jobs to competition from the private sector. The provider who performs the service best at a competitive price ought to win and taxpayers should reap the benefit from the savings produced through competition.

Taking these steps to adopt best practices from other states and nations will improve the services provided by our state parks, increase their revenue streams and go a long way toward eliminating the system's $28 million deficit.

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