Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration released seven recommendations Friday afternoon on how the state ought to handle its partnerships with local emergency services within the Ohio State Parks system.
A year ago, DeWine vetoed a budget measure that would have forced the state to reimburse local emergency services for calls to South Bass Island State Park, which is close to Put-In-Bay and Port Clinton on Lake Erie.
When he issued that veto, DeWine convened a task force to study the partnerships statewide, writing the state recognizes a city or a town that houses a state park “might receive increased emergency calls due to the number of state park visitors in their jurisdictions.”
And right now, just 188 officers with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) patrol 76 state parks as well as forests, waterways and other natural areas, according to that multi-agency Public Safety in State Parks report. So the state often contracts with local agencies, when needed.
Mary Mertz, the director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said that some tinier communities face high demand and limited resources.
Mertz added that ODNR can get begin some Public Safety in State Parks recommendations immediately.
“A few of them, we can just go ahead and do, right?” Mertz said in an interview Monday. “Some of it is information sharing and making plans to do exercises and drills together.”
But others, like establishing Ohio Department of Public Safety grants for local agencies, would require state appropriations. Those likely have no shot until the next budget, which the next governor will sign—and, in some cases, veto.
Aside from the seven recommendations, the report also concluded that “increased funding to hire additional ODNR officers would be the most straightforward method to bolster public safety services in Ohio’s state parks.”
