The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, on a unanimous vote, has set a budget for the state Department of Parks & Recreation for next year that reflects a 1.1 percent increase in state general funds, but a 5.4 percent decrease in total funds; the department has lost more than 80 percent of its state funding in the past seven years. In 2006, the general-fund budget for state parks was $7.5 million; today's budget-setting fixed next year's figure at $1.3 million in state general funds. The Parks Department now relies mostly on receipts and other dedicated and federal funds; its total budget for next year from all funds is $32.4 million.

The budget includes converting five part-time positions into three full-time permanent ones, and adding a senior IT systems technician by drawing on dedicated funds, as the department prepares for its new Parks Passport program. That program, which will kick off Jan. 1, 2013, will let Idahoans purchase $10 annual parks passes when they register their vehicles; the parks system hopes to generate more than $1 million a year in funding from the new program. "They're already overloaded with their existing technician, and then we're adding the Passport program, so it's pretty obvious, at least to me, that they need that additional position there to do the IT work that they need to do," said Rep. George Eskridge, R-Dover.

Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, commended the department. "A few years ago they were in a world of hurt, and I think they've really worked hard to get where they are today," she said.