PORT TOWNSEND — The ability to effectively operate the state park system is in the hands of the state Legislature, a parks commissioner told a group of rangers Thursday.

The outcome, according to Rodger Schmitt, depends on whether the Legislature approves numbers submitted by Gov. Jay Inslee, the House of Representatives or the Senate.

“We have identified a $65 million gap as what we need — what you need — to do your jobs in the right way and support better services to the public,” Schmitt told the rangers at a training session at Fort Worden State Park.

The gap exists between what is needed to operate the parks — $154 million — and what can be collected from various funding sources, he said.

State Parks Director Don Hoch and Assistant Director Mike Sternback were scheduled to address the rangers but had to stay in Olympia to fight the budget battle and called Schmitt to fill in at the last minute, he said.

Proposed allocation

Schmitt said Inslee proposed an allocation of $39 million, “which gets us a little more than halfway there,” and the House agreed, but the Senate’s budget allocated only $15 million to the parks.

“If we are lucky, we will get something closer to what the governor and the House of Representatives have proposed,” Schmitt said.

“But it all depends on their ability to fund education, which affects how much we will get.”

Schmitt predicted there would be “a lot of negotiations between the House and the Senate” before a solution is reached.

The training session, which was from Monday through Thursday, was one of three such sessions that take place each year at Fort Worden.

Each session trains about one-third of the 160 year-round and seasonal rangers now employed statewide, according to Brian Hageman, Fort Worden park manager.

This was the second of this year’s training sessions. The next is scheduled for May.

They are all held in the offseason to maintain park staffing levels, Hageman said.

Schmitt said ranger in-service training is required every year because rangers are law enforcement officials and need to renew their skills on a regular basis.

“The training focuses on what the options are and what the choices are,” Schmitt said.

“The rangers need to know what they have the authority to do and then apply their judgment in order to fit each situation.”

Hageman, who has worked as a ranger for 17 years, said the yearly in-service training is a valuable process that provides legal updates and sets up role-playing scenarios so rangers know what to do when a situation occurs.

Rangers armed

Rangers have been armed since 1999. Those serving before then were offered a choice as to whether they would carry guns. Mandatory firearms training is now required.

Rangers have used guns to make arrests or to euthanize injured animals, but there have been no active shooting incidents, according to Rob Ingram, who conducted the in-service’s defensive training.

“We use this to test skills and knowledge,” Ingram said of the sessions.

“This year, we had a class about how the rangers can verbally defuse situations where there are people with mental illnesses, recognizing some of those, and how to and how not to deal with them with the purpose of de-escalating them effectively.”

Ingram said Fort Worden is an ideal site for the training because it has so many different classrooms and outdoor options to provide scenario-based training.

“We are unique as to what we do,” Hageman said.

“So participating in these scenarios are valuable in determining how we will react to a situation.”

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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.