If the state budget is not signed by Gov. Ed Rendell by 12:01
a.m. Monday, all but four of Pennsylvania’s 117 state parks and
forests will close until further notice.

This means in Region 1, or the region known through the
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) as the
Pennsylvania Wilds region, will see 417 full and part-time
employees without work until the budget is passed.

Greg Sassaman, Region 1 manager, provided that number and added
there are 37 parks in the region that will be affected.

“Critical park staff will remain, such as park managers and
salaried rangers, but all other maintenance staff will be
furloughed,” he said Friday.

Sassaman said he remembers going through a similar situation in
1991 when they spent 34 days working without pay.

At that time, said Christine Novak, director of
communications/press secretary for the DCNR, those employees
received compensation retroactively. She said after that event, the
Federal Fair Labor Act was created to protect employees from
working without immediate or timely compensation.

Pennsylvania’s parks and forests operate under the DCNR.

In a press release, Novak said that statewide, 2,300 staff will
be furloughed. She adds that 300 staff will remain working,
including those mentioned by Sassaman, as well as forest
managers.

The release reveals that Pennsylvania’s 117 state parks have
more than 2 million acres of state forest land.

It is estimated the DCNR will lose ,1.5 million in revenue for
each week of closure, states the release.

State Sen. Joe Scarnati, R-Brockway, contacted The Era Friday
evening to provide comments and to say that his district offices
will remain open over the weekend to help with any constituent
questions they have regarding the budget impasse. They will be open
from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“The governor planned a hostage crisis with 26,000 state
employees being held hostage by laying them off. He is holding the
gun to our heads,” said Scarnati. “The Federal Fair Labor Act
certainly doesn’t require the governor to furlough employees.”

That number of employees includes those who work for the
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, totaling about
11,000.

“It’s totally theatrics for this governor to bully the
legislature,” Scarnati said.

He added that if a person were to knock on the governor’s
mansion door Monday, he would be surprised if the butler and the
chef weren’t there because of the furlough.

Thursday, State Rep. Martin Causer sent a release stating his
disappointment in the governor’s tactics to get his priorities
passed that are not tied to the budget.

“Passing a budget is one of the most basic, and most important,
responsibilities of state government. Unfortunately, our
Commonwealth’s chief executive, Gov. Ed Rendell, apparently does
not take this responsibility too seriously, since not one of the
budgets in his administration has been passed by the June 30
deadline,” Causer said. “Now we are facing a potential government
shutdown and further erosion of the public’s trust in their
government.

“Gov. Rendell has been insistent that he will not sign a state
budget into law unless the Legislature delivers on several of his
priorities that are not directly tied to the budget, namely transit
and transportation funding, new borrowing and a new tax to support
his alternative energy plan, funding for the Pittsburgh Penguins
arena and at least some elements of his health care plan,” Causer
said. “These are issues worth discussion, but the governor is
flat-out wrong to delay passage of a state budget because we
haven’t given him everything on his wish list.”

Park manager of the Sinnemahoning park, Lisa Bainey, said Friday
that some employees have already received their furlough
notices.

She said any campers or intended user of the parks should be
notified by the central office in Harrisburg of the potential for
the parks to be closed. She said any visitors currently in the
parks are being notified by letters starting Friday, and continuing
today and Sunday.

Chip Harrison, park manager at Lyman Run, said they would not
turn anyone away over the weekend, but would make sure they are out
by 12:01 a.m. Monday, and if there were still people there Monday
they would notify them that they had to leave.