OKLAHOMA CITY — At least two bills are moving forward at the State Capitol that hope to fix up and improve all of Oklahoma's state parks.
The state currently has 32 state parks, and state lawmakers and tourism officials alike say they have been borderline neglected for years, if not decades in some cases.
"We have some cabins that have honestly, I'm not kidding you, have not been refurbished since the early ‘80s," said State Representative Tammy Townley, R-Ardmore, about conditions at Lake Murray State Park.
Townley and State Senator Brenda Stanley, R-Midwest City, are working on bills this session that would not only fix up state parks, but would make it easier for the state Tourism Department to purchase things they need in a timely manner instead of waiting for a central state purchasing agency to approve of the purchase, which can sometimes take weeks.
"If they have reservations in a park, in a state park, and they haven't got clean linens, or the food, or whatever they need to take care of these reservations, this would allow them to move forward," Stanley said about changes to purchasing the state Tourism Department asked for to make the state parks experience better.
On Monday, the Senate Tourism Committee passed House Bill 4042 that, if it becomes law, would give state agencies like Tourism the ability to make a purchase on their own in a transparent manner if it is not approved within 10 days. Stanley said currently, Tourism cannot prepare for out-of-state visitors or even Oklahomans wanting to use their own state parks in a timely manner when it comes to simple things like food or even toilet paper at times.
Stanley and Townley's bills hope to reverse a trend that State Tourism Secretary Shelley Zumwalt said began during statewide budget cuts in 2015.
"We've been operating the state parks, as far as deferred maintenance, like we're in a revenue failure, and we have a billion dollars in assets, and right around $10 million to take care of those assets," Zumwalt said.
Part of the problem when it comes to repairs, Townley and Zumwalt told FOX23's news partner KOCO News 5 in Oklahoma City, is that state parks can only keep $9 million of the money they make, and they must give the rest back. The $9 million cap has never been adjusted for inflation either. Townley's bill wants to eliminate the cap to allow state parks to take care of their own needs with their own money that they earn.
"There's a cap on the tourism money, and they only get to keep up to $9 million. So we are going to lift that cap so they can keep more of their own money they are generating," Townley said.
In addition to lifting the cap, state lawmakers hope to pump in tens of millions of dollars over the next three years to make the repairs that the state has refused or couldn't afford to make for years.
"$72 million the first year, years two through seven, we're asking for 42.5, and the final year we're asking for 20 million, but we expect in that time period, we'll realize savings," Townley told KOCO.
If the bills are passed this session, they will not take effect in time for the upcoming summer, but the repairs would begin in 2025.
