Did drop in state park revenue lead to creation of Great Outdoors Initiative?

As Governor Ron DeSantis now calls on the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to 'rework' their Great Outdoors Initiative, WPTV Investigates is continuing to seek an explanation for the controversial plan to develop thousands of acres of park land.

The state's pullback on the project comes after concerned residents across Florida protested FDEP's proposal to put golf courses, hotels, pickleball courts and disc golf courses in eight state parks.

"Keep our parks wild and free!" chanted a group protesting golf courses proposed for Jonathan Dickinson State Park on Tuesday.

"We are not for sale!" yelled Walton County residents at a Tuesday protest, concerned over the state's proposal to build a 350 room lodging center.

Yet, even after the state seems to have listened to their cries, many questions still remain surrounding the project, and one of the most common questions we get: Why choose developing park land as a way to increase access to it?

"Nobody’s asking for these golf courses," Ted Verbockel of Jupiter Farms.

"It just is a waste," said Marjorie Levy of Walton County.

FDEP isn't talking to WPTV, but State park financial records may be.

We looked through nearly ten years of finances and found both attendance and overall revenue starting booming in State parks during the COVID-19 Pandemic, including in eight parks selected for the Great Outdoors initiative.

However, despite FDEP boasting its $3.6 billion in park revenue this year , that revenue is more than $317 million below levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This past year, in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, park attendance dropped to the lowest since 2016, and statewide attendance was the second lowest in the past eight years.

"Do you see a lack of revenue as a potential reason this proposal was put into place?" WPTV's Kate Hussey asked Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis.

"Part of the rational was that people got to enjoy the outdoors during here in record numbers during 2021-2022," said Patronis, "So I'm sure there was some deliberations that happened internally saying how do we continue to capitalize on this beauty we’ve got in our state and find other ways to get people into our parks."

Patronis said he's just speculating, but Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz said if finances played a factor, they shouldn't.

"Our state budget has billions of dollars in reserves, when our state legislature meets every year, the big fight they have is how we’re going to spend all of the new money we weren’t expecting," Gaetz. "So we don't need to go and create new sources of revenue."

Hussey went in person to FDEP's headquarters in Tallahassee to ask if that could have played a factor in creating the initiative. FDEP refused to answer in-person questions and still haven't sent us an emailed response as promised.