State parks board considers higher fees
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The Colorado State Parks Board is considering raising fees for entrance passes, some campgrounds and other facilities to make up for declining state funding.
The board is meeting Thursday in Basalt. Members are looking at raising the daily entrance fee by $1 and camping fees at a dozen of the most popular parks by $2 for five months of the year.
Those and other increases would raise about $1.3 million a year, or half the amount parks received from the state general fund in the 2009-2010 budget. The department won’t receive any money from the general fund in the 2011-2012 budget.
Already, some state campgrounds and picnic areas have been closed, staff has been cut and vacant positions haven’t been filled.
One Response to “State parks board considers higher fees”
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September 16th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I have no issue with raising the fees. The parks are for the people, and so long as people are using the service we should be paying the ever-increasing costs of upkeep and improvements. The fact it’s nearly impossible to get a camping spot at 11-Mile on a summer weekend; and most parks are booked on holiday weekends, should indicate there is more demand than supply. We should be sizing our parks commensurate with the needs of the people. So long as we don’t find other agencies taking from the state parks coffers, I don’t mind paying more money to keep it going.
On the other hand, when the state lottery was introduced in the early ’90s, wasn’t that one of the promissed functions? Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I thought the lottery money went to the general fund and was paid out to the parks through the general fund.