Why is it that teachers, firefighters, police ect, are the first people that the left always threaten to lay-off if a new tax isn't created or if a huge spending bill isn't passed? I'd like to think there are plenty of less vital public sector jobs that could be laid off before we get to that point.
It's understandable why it's desirable to think that--it's why politicians campaign against "waste, fraud, and abuse" all the time, there's surely always spending that can be cut and won't be missed--but certain categories of personnel are represented in huge numbers among state and local government workers, education spending is a big part of state and local spending, and since those governments can't borrow (unlike the federal government), that's where the cuts are.
California closed its parks, too, but there are probably more people working in a given mid-sized school district than in an entire state park. It's a personnel-intensive service and widely used.