Broke and broken

In 1995, the Observer reported a story about a troubling trend in public education. The traditional compact between citizens and government that tax dollars would cover school costs had busted. Across America, communities were raising serious private money in all sorts of ways to cover budget cuts in local schools.

In Kenilworth, Ill., parents raised $92,000 for a new playground at an elementary school. A parent in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles loaned her landscaper to her kid's school. In Brookline, parents kicked in $30,000 for computers at the Driscoll Elementary School .

The same dynamic has hit the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. The assumption that the department can meet its core mission by itself has collapsed. Where many volunteer groups in the past had adorned the DCR effort to maintain its properties, they now have become essential to its core mission.

The shift is profound. Without them, the department would face disaster.

"It's true," says new DCR Commissioner Rick Sullivan. "The volunteer makeup is different. Twenty years ago, things might have been done by the DCR. We need more help." When does the situation cross the red line? "We're already there."

"That's right on the money," Kathy Abbott, the agency's commissioner from 2003 to 2005, says about the changing role of volunteers.

There are, according to the department, 105 "friends" groups across the state who work as volunteers -- such as the Friends of Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth and the Esplanade Association along the Charles.

They do God's work, where they choose to. The problem is that isolated, less-attractive state properties get ignored. "It's not equitable to have public parks privately funded," says Abbott, head of field operations for the Trustees of Reservations. Indeed.

The core mission of the department is to maintain 450,000 acres of parks, forests, beaches, lakes, and a host of other outdoor facilities in the state. It is also responsible -- God knows why -- for the registration of well diggers; maintaining the safety of 3,000 dams, most of which are in private hands; four state piers; 32 bridges ; and the Storrow Drive tunnel. It goes on and on. This is insane.

Department properties across the state are notoriously shabby. Most glaring around here is the decaying Longfellow Bridge, an architectural gem across the Charles that belongs to the DCR. Today, its steel is rusted and degraded, its granite covered with graffiti. And the department continues to do nothing.

Meanwhile, countless buildings on department property are in ruin. There is one park ranger in all of Western Massachusetts. The litany is long.

The DCR is a sweet target because of its manifest failure to do its job. The Observer wrote in May about its inability to clean up the surface of the Charles River. But, in truth, the department is not the major bogeyman here. It's broke.

"With the current money and staffing, it can't maintain things anywhere near the standards they should be," says Don Eunson, senior project manager of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a volunteer group that effectively uses prison inmates to clean areas. (The Boston Parks & Recreation Department, he adds, is in even worse shape.)

"Why not have a hundred of those crews?" asks former governor Michael Dukakis about Eunson's program. "There's no reason why the state can't maintain its parks and infrastructure."

It's not a matter of skill, Abbott says. She says DCR workers are as capable as those who work for the trustees. "The only difference between them is money."

The DCR budget for the new 2008 fiscal year is essentially flat over last year -- $89.3 million compared to $88.7 million. The Legislature will increase its budget, Sullivan says, once the DCR has shown it can use the money well. "The L egislature is saying this year, 'Show us you can be good stewards and we'll be supportive,' " says Sullivan, 48, the former mayor of Westfield. Fair enough.

The golden years were in the '80s, when the combined budgets of the Department of Environmental Management and the Metropolitan District Commission ran as high as $125 million.

Then the fiscal crisis exploded at the end of the Dukakis administration, which led to huge cuts in state services under Bill Weld. The DCR got whacked and has never come back. (When the two agencies merged in 2003 to form the DCR, its first budget was $72.8 million.)

Sullivan will focus on improved maintenance of properties over new projects. Good plan. He's staring at a deferred maintenance backlog of more than $1.5 billion.

For starters, let's liberate the $10 million of tax dollars Patrick is bent on giving the developer of a huge Boston project and steer it to the DCR. That's small money in a $26.8 billion budget for the return it generates. Polls routinely cite outdoor access to public recreation as a huge draw for young families -- precisely the people we want to keep in the state.

If the DCR folks use it well, graft it into their annual budget. If they blow it, throw the bums out.

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.