MONTICELLO – Citing tight finances, Allerton Park has placed several programs on hiatus, including day camps and music concerts.

Summer day camps for children will not be offered, but the 4-H Memorial Camp programs will continue.

The Music in Nature Concerts, which were held outdoors in the park during the summer, will not be held this year. However, the University of Illinois School of Music's Allerton Music Barn Festival in early September is still on.

"Given the university budget and the state budget situation, we're trying to be as careful as possible. We want to be as careful with our resources as we can," said Jim Gortner, the park's associate director.

Last summer, the Allerton employee who handled these programs left, and the park decided not to fill her position. No one employee is responsible now for coordinating volunteers and handling publication of the park's newsletter, which will also be on hold.

"They were nice things to do, but they were not profit generators," Gortner said.

This does not mean the programs will never be offered again, he said. If enough money is raised to hire another person, the programs could be restored.

"I'm saddened by the loss of those programs," said Jim Ayers, a Monticello resident and former mayor. "I've gone to many, and many friends have gone and participated in the programs. One of the advantages of having those programs is they have expanded the vision for Allerton, through educating the youth, and for creating the musical experiences."

In his conversations with people, everyone has always said the concerts have been "spectacular," Ayers added.

The park also hosted university students during spring break. They would work on various projects, such as clearing brush or organizing an Easter Egg hunt. A dwindling number of participants has also brought that program to an end, Gortner said.

Instead of filling the open position, the focus will be on the park's capital campaign, or "preserving the core historic areas of the Allerton estate," Gortner said.

The university loaned the park $2.5 million for projects such as repaving roads, repairing masonry work and rebuilding terraces around the mansion.

Robert Allerton donated the estate in 1946 to the university for use as an educational and research center, as a reserve, an example of landscape architecture and as a public park. In recent years the park was named one of the seven wonders of Illinois by the Illinois Bureau of Tourism.

The park, previously under the umbrella of the university's Department of Continuing Education, is now part of the Office of the Provost. Revenue from rental of the park's farmland goes into an endowment to support the park's operations. Last year, the university sold about 150 acres of the Allerton land – most of it within the Sangamon River floodplain and none of it adjacent to areas of the park frequented by visitors – to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Money from that sale was also added into the endowment.

Information on the park is available at www.allerton.uiuc.edu.