A new bill was presented to the Wyoming State House of Representatives last week that would redirect 25 percent of the revenue that Wyoming State Parks receive to a special revenue account.
The bill is sponsored by the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Interim Committee. According to the bill, the saved revenue would be spent on, “capital construction projects, major maintenance and site interpretation such as exhibits, signage and displays as approved by the legislature.” However, this cannot happen until the piece of legislation passes and goes into effect. The bill would not take effect until the fiscal year of 2017.
This bill has its benefits and its drawbacks. It gives a lot more flexibility to the state parks by allowing them to use user fees for operating and maintenance costs. “Providing basic operating and maintenance at state parks and historic sites has been difficult for the parks division in the wake of increased costs and diminishing budgets. This legislature would help shore up that aspect of the parks sivision’s budget,” Milward Simpson, the director of the Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources, said.
Along with the benefits of this bill, there are definitely some costs. The drawbacks to this bill include a proportional decrease of the amount of fee revenue available to allocate toward capital construction. This could negatively affect the ability of the parks to perform major maintenance on certain areas of parks.
According to the bill, there will be an interest placed on the funds in the account. For the fiscal years of 2015 and 2016, no more than 25 percent of the funds in the account can be expended for general operations and maintenance of department facilities as approved.
