The Des Moines City Council discussed Nov. 12 the essentials as they worked to balance a budget with a $2 million shortfall from last year, and another year of anticipated falling revenues.

The four employees in charge of taking care of Des Moines parks are unable to keep up maintenance now-- a situation which will only get harder next year when that number is reduced to three, lawmakers were told.

Staffers said in the late 1990s and early 2000s the city employed 6.5 full time employees to maintain the parks. This was before the addition of Steven J. Underwood Park.

Councilwoman Carmen Scott spoke about the conditions of the buildings and field at the Des Moines Beach Park. She said the staffers and council members have allowed conditions to become "atrocious. "

"I was down at the beach park today, wandering everywhere, looking at ugly, ugly deterioration. I am ashamed of the condition we have allowed many of those pieces, those buildings, to fall into," Scott declared. "I think we seriously need to talk about, whenever we have this discussion, taking care of what we are responsible for."

"Railings are falling apart, windows are boarded up, doors have the paint peeling off of them, there is water puddled under buildings that doesn't go away, it is just a pond. Those are atrocious things to allow."

The toys that used to be next to the picnic table were moved over a year ago to the field house and all of the facilities at the beach park have been mothballed, according to staffers.

The amount of money to bring the beach house buildings completely back is not known, but repairs just to the picnic shelter were reported to be $200,000.

"The Sun Home Lodge is atrocious. Other things are bad. We are allowing things to fall apart to the point that I don't know if we can bring them back. We should be ashamed of ourselves for that," Scott said. "When we bought that park the citizens of the city voted by 73 percent that they wanted it, they cared deeply about it."

"And it is the city that has made the decisions, the city and this council and previous councils to just let it deteriorate. I'm having a large problem with allowing that to happen."

While Scott is not wrong, if the money is not there it is not there, Councilman Ed Pina noted.

City Manager Tony Piasecki said any additional funding would have to come with voter approval, unless the city gets a lot more in real estate excise tax than is expected.

The amount of revenue the city gets from the real estate excise tax has dropped by almost two-thirds in recent years. according to Piasecki.

Two or three years ago Des Moines received $1.4 million a year.

Next year, the city is expecting only from $500,000 - $600,000.

Councilman Dave Kaplan said, at this time, he would not recommend a voter levy to fund improvements to the parks.

"I don't think we can right now," Kaplan said. "I think the voters were generous to us in adopting the park district to fund the pool."

Beach Park is not the only park in Des Moines that needs help it may not get, according to staffers.

The turf on the ball fields at Steven J. Underwood Park is in danger of dying if it is not properly aerated. A machine to aerate the field was on the budget but was removed because the money was not available.

While nothing is official until the council passes the budget in late December, lawmakers have still not decided on whether to remove five police officers from the department.

The parks will be discussed again at the next council meeting on Nov. 19.