When Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced last month that he would be cutting $14 million from the Department of Natural Resources' budget, reaction from local park advocates was swift.

In a press conference at Giant City State Park, a chorus of lawmakers and naturalists decried the cuts and predicted the result would be a decrease in the quality and availability of park services. They argued that locked gates at park entrances and other effects of cutbacks would be a big hit to the region's tourism industry and tax base.

One month later the cuts have yet to be implemented and DNR officials are not sure what effect they will have.

"There will obviously be some impact to the way the department operates," DNR Spokesman Chris McLeod said last week. "We are working with the Office of Management and Budget and we really don't have a time line we are working on. We are working to come up with something we feel is responsible for both the agency and the people we represent. We have not made any specific decisions yet. Nothing has been finalized."

DNR operates with a $210 million budget. Twenty percent of the agency's budget is comprised by its general fund, which is where the $14 million cut is set to come from.

"The money does not have to necessarily come from state parks," said McLeod. "It's a complicated, complex scenario we have to go through to come up with something that makes the most sense."

State Rep. Mike Bost, a Republican from Murphysboro, said the cuts seem simple to him.

"They are going to have to make some real tough decisions as to where those cuts are going to go," he said. "The question is, what gets cut? Do we not mow the grass? We are already not doing that in some places. And certainly we are not doing certain maintenances."

Bost said there is a sliver of hope for a supplemental appropriation that could restore funding to DNR.

"We could go in and say their (DNR's) budget is short and do some modification of the budget," he said. "The problem is we are already behind money. We passed a budget that's $2.2 billion out of whack. Now with the governor's cuts, about $1.45 billion, we are still out of whack."

Local attorney and former Green Party Gubernatorial Candidate Rich Whitney said he thinks DNR's budget has become a political football of sorts.

"There's some gamesmanship going on here as the governor continues to jockey for position and is using the threat of the cuts to get some of his agenda passed elsewhere," he said. "That's one aspect of it (the cuts) and that's really the underlying story here."

Bost agreed.

"It's all about the governor and (House Speaker Michael) Madigan and who can stab who in the chest deeper," he said. "Until you get those two to come up with some agreement I don't expect anything to change."

Both Whitney and Bost said there is no denying the value of parks like Giant City and Pyramid State Park to the region's economy.

"Tourism is very important to Southern Illinois; it's a way for people in metro areas to get away from it all and our wonderful park system is a large part of the attraction," he said.

Barb McKasson, of the Shawnee chapter of the Sierra Club, said DNR seems to have been targeted in recent years.

"For some reason the executive office, the governor's office, has in their budget decided that, rather than spread the cuts out, to make deeper cuts in some departments, especially in DNR," she said. "The consequences are thing like park maintenance and trails and visitor's centers will suffer. But we don't know what the consequences will be."