Waterford — Vandals have broken glass at buildings at Harkness State Park on three separate occasions in the past three months, according to the Friends of Harkness President Robert Dixon.

Dixon, who runs the volunteer organization that works alongside park management on capital improvements as well as some park programming, said that at various times in the past few months some unknown person or persons broke a number of windows at the park.

Mostly the damage has been confined to the "support complex" or the Carriage House, where the gift shop is located, but the iconic mansion, which hosts many weddings and brings in revenue to the park during the summertime, also saw some damage.

"The first round was probably the worst," Dixon said of the damage to the Carriage House. "They didn't just break glass, they damaged the frame of the windows, which were all historically accurate (and) very expensive."

The vandalism must have occured either during the night or when no one was on site, he added, and has happened as recently as this week.

Some repairs have been done so far and "they've tried to cover up the openings in the glass," said Dixon, but the damage likely will still be visible during the Friends' plant sale Saturday that will raise money for the greenhouse and garden restoration projects at the state park.

Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Spokesman Dennis Schain said he could only confirm that it was an active investigation, and that no charges have been filed to date.

Reports of the vandalism come as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy put forward a plan that would sweep various state accounts for money to close a gap in the state budget, including taking $500,000 from the wedding rental account, which is used for maintanence and repair.

"The maintenance and repairs account was used to do timely repairs to things like this (vandalism)," Dixon said.

"The damage is unfortunate but when there's no one there, it can happen; hopefully ... (we) won't have more for a while," he added.

n.lynch@theday.com