The gates at Melio Gaspari Water Play Park in Spanish Springs were padlocked to overheated children Monday as the next-door Spanish Springs Library announced its new, reduced hours. Nearby, the rangers at Lazy 5 Regional Park went about their work without the help of their usual seasonal staff.

Monday’s Spanish Springs snapshot was just one piece of a bigger budget puzzle that shed nearly 300 jobs from Washoe County’s budget and sliced services across the county’s library and parks systems.

As economic forces continue to rage, the county rubber stamped its 2009-2010 budget on June 23, sending it on to the state Legislature. The new budget is 18 percent smaller than last year’s, meaning layoffs and pinched parks programming.

The summer concert series at Hawkins Amphitheater in Bartley Ranch has been canceled. Summer campfire programs and ranger-led hikes at Galena Creek park are no more. The Great Basin museum will be closing at 4 p.m., an hour earlier than normal. Nature programs for youth have been cut. The Discover Your Parklands program will not be offered this year. Local library hours have been cut for the second time this year, and the spigots at the Gaspari Water Park run dry on Mondays and Tuesdays. When the park opened on Memorial Day, it was open seven days a week.

“Libraries and parks (took the biggest hit),” said Chris Matthews, a spokesman for the county. “Because they are not mandated services they unfortunately took the biggest hits.”

Matthews said that monthly county surveys found that people put a higher premium on public safety than their parks, hence the decision to let the financial ax fall where it did.

Those seeking seasonal parks jobs have also been cut out of the budget pie this year.

“The number of seasonal employees that we don’t have equals approximately 150 people including park aides, ranger aides, recreation aides, maintenance aides, etc.,” said Bob Harmon, county Parks and Open Space spokesman. “You can imagine the impact that is having on the staff that is left.”

The 150 people the parks department will be missing this year will mean a little longer grass at area parks and maybe some dry patches.

“The grass on the playing fields maybe isn’t trimmed to the qualifications it could be or it is browner,” Harmon said. “These (workers) take a lot of pride in their parks but they are stretched very thin.”

In the meetings where these staffing decisions had to be made, Harmon said the priority remained on keeping the parks open.

“The first thing we decided, bottom line, was that our most important asset was the parks themselves,” Harmon said. “Our parks will be open, clean and safe. The parks will be open.”

Libraries, however, may not open on the days locals are used to. The Spanish Springs Library announced Monday that it will lock its doors on Fridays and Saturdays and close just a little earlier during the rest of the week.

According to library manager Corinne Dickman, the cut hours and closed days are necessary because of reduced staffing levels.

Library spokesperson Bonnie Saviers confirmed that report with some system-wide numbers.

“As of today, we have 61 vacant positions, four of which were early retirements, 18 were voluntary severances and three were staff who resigned but were not part of the incentive program,” Saviers said. “The other 36 positions have been frozen for quite a while, as long as two years in some cases. If we were fully staffed, we’d have 231 positions but we only have 170 filled.”

Dickman added that the libraries have until October to come up with enough money to avoid further cuts.

Taking the budget snapshot back to the county-wide level, 91 people have lost their jobs through layoffs with the new budget, according to Matthews. One hundred and forty people decided to leave on their own, taking the county’s severance incentive package with them. The rest were frozen jobs that weren’t filled by a warm body before the cuts.

“We have 500 empty desks total, but only half of those had bodies in them before in the past year,” Matthews explained.

Today, the start of the 2009-10 fiscal year, is the last day of work for 32 county employees. Another 30 people were laid off in June.

The jobs of 145 employees who are retiring early will remain vacant, leaving 2,600 employees.

The budget cuts came because revenue wouldn’t, Matthews said. The county’s main source of income is property and sales taxes. In fact, those sources make up about 80 percent of the county’s revenue stream, Matthews added.

The most recent state sales tax reports show that taxable sales in Nevada fell more than $700 million in April to $3.2 billion — a 17.9 percent drop from April 2008.

And while the numbers may continue to slide, Harmon says that county swings and grassy fields will continue to provide free recreation for cash-strapped locals.

“Overall, the parks are still there and that is the most important thing,” Harmon said. “We want to protect those assets so when things do change (economically), those things will still be there.”