Forest, Parks and Recreation outlines FY27 capital plan emphasizing toilets, roads and seasonal housing

Commissioner Danielle Biscoe told the Senate Institutions committee on Feb. 26 that the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation’s FY27 capital proposal is organized into three primary funding buckets: parks infrastructure and rehabilitation for the 55 designated state parks; public-lands access ("play") projects on lands outside designated parks; and clean-water investments targeting road segments that contribute sediment to waterways.

"We have about $280,000,000 of assets across state parks with over 1,000 structures and 40 miles of piping on the ground," Biscoe said, framing the scale of deferred maintenance. She said the department is proposing $200,000 in capital for the clean-water line in Section 10 (line 91) for FY27, which when combined with other clean-water general-fund dollars brings the FY27 clean-water package to roughly $1.2 million. Biscoe also cited an estimate that the State Forest Highway system needs about $4,550,000,000 to reach desired standards.

Frank Spalding, parks project manager, described how the parks-infrastructure money is managed inside the park system in three internal categories: small-scale projects (for example, an accessible water launch), a roughly $250,000 short-term reserve for urgent septic or similar failures, and major capital projects such as replacement restroom buildings and operations hubs. Spalding highlighted recently completed work at Gifford Woods State Park and an operations/maintenance campus at Groton funded in earlier appropriations; he said a second Groton facility is planned for construction next summer.

Spalding described sustainability features at new buildings including heat pumps and wood-pellet boilers, calling the heating/cooling system on some new facilities "entirely fossil fuel free." He also reviewed projects funded with ARPA and other federal support under stormwater ("three-acre") regulations, saying the department used roughly $2,000,000 to fully complete four parks and partially complete two more, and cited North Yarra and Kingsland Bay as projects that restored natural shoreline and improved stormwater treatment.

On federal matching, Spalding said the department currently has six projects paired with federal funding totaling $2,900,000 through a Land and Water Conservation-type grant administered by the National Park Service; those grants typically require a 50% nonfederal match. He cautioned that federal awards can delay bidding ("four to six months") because projects often must be ready to proceed when the grant is finalized.

The department described a cabin-construction program intended to increase overnight capacity and revenues: Spalding said cabins are designed without kitchens or private bathrooms ("dry cabins"), can be stick-built or prefabricated, and that the department is asking contractors to price offers so construction costs annualized against revenue would produce a positive return. He said the occupancy rate for cabins is about 78%.

Spalding and staff also discussed seasonal-staff housing: the park system hires roughly 450 seasonal employees each year and typically provides on-site housing for about 30% of those staff; the FY27 plan includes converting two single-family units into duplexes at sites such as Grand Isle and Albert Dunes to boost capacity.

For the "play" bucket, Commissioner Biscoe said the department received $700,000 in FY26 and proposes $700,000 in FY27, and that staff have a multi-million-dollar pipeline (Biscoe cited a $13,000,000 list of candidate projects) from which they prioritize 17 planned FY27 projects using a stewardship review process that includes water, forestry, recreation and wildlife specialists. She said the department completed 7.7 miles of prioritized road work in FY26 and plans to complete about 25 miles of high-priority road segments in FY27 by bundling road segments into larger contracts.

Visitation and operational context: Biscoe said parks recorded just under 1,000,000 visitors last year and that visitation declined in part because Canadian visitation fell about 60% and drought reduced attendance at water-based parks such as Sandbar; she said capital investments such as new restroom buildings and entrance improvements tend to increase visitation when completed.

Committee members asked about timelines and the backlog; Biscoe said the department has been doing this work for about three to four years and estimated it will take roughly 15–20 years to catch up on the identified needs while continuing ongoing maintenance. The department offered to provide spreadsheet details (including housing counts) to the committee offline.

No formal motions or votes were taken at the hearing; staff said they will return when the bill is available.