THE WISDOM OF THE ORG TABLE

Montana’s Stealth Park Fee, a Sequel

By Bill Schneider, 9-13-09

The other day during my early morning shift downtown at the coffee shop at the ORG (Old Retired Guy) table, we turned our attention to how Montana funds its state parks system. Conversation at the ORG table is normally quite intellectual, by the way, and a lot of politicians could benefit from sitting in on our sessions. They’d sure find out what the ORGs really think about things.

We frequently discuss taxes (surprised?), and on that day I happened to mention I was riding my bicycle down to the clerk and recorder office after my morning IQ-boosting session to renew my vehicle registration.

I brought out my renewal card, and we analyzed it to death. I’ve been paying vehicle registration fees for a long time, and now, finally, thanks to the ORG table, I sort of understand what’s going on. And the ORGs say, this might be a good deal, but we don’t like the way the government does it.

Firsts off, even the ORGs think vehicle registration fees are fairly reasonable in Montana, so no issues there, but all theses other fees? How many people understand them?

Not many people, which is, obviously and regrettably, by design.

I wrote about this issue three years ago (click here), but nothing happened, so I thought I’d hit it again. Perhaps this time some state legislator will pick up this ball and run with it, introducing a bill to do it right and consequently increase the amount of money going into Montana’s parks system.

Your vehicle registration renewal card has four fees not really related to your vehicle.

First, you pay $5 to help out the Montana Highway Patrol (MHP). This is not optional, and I doubt anybody complains. The clerk who helped me said she never had a complaint on it, but that’s partly because very few vehicle owners even know about the fee, unless they’re sharp enough to decipher “MHPFEE,” which is how it’s stated on the card.

Ha, the government actually thought they could slip that one by the ORGs.

Even if people knew about the MHP fee, I suspect almost everybody would happily pay it. Who doesn’t appreciate having a highway patrol officer around when involved in an accident? Actually, we ORGs wouldn’t mind bumping that up to ten bucks.

Second are the $1 fees for the Organ Donor Awareness and Brain Injury Education. Nobody opposes these causes, of course, but these are “opt-in” fees, so you have to make a special effort to make sure you pay them. If you just read the total off the bottom and write the check, you don’t make these contributions. And the clerk isn’t going to ask if you want to donate. Consequently, according to my clerk anyway, almost nobody does it. When I did the earlier commentary on this, the Missoula-based Brain Injury Association said less than 0.5 percent took the time to opt in.

Lastly, we have the $4 park fee. No doubt this is a tremendous deal for Montanans. Out-of-staters still have to pay on-site fees when using Montana’s state parks (unless they’re in a vehicle with a Montana license plate), but we Montanans can use our wonderful park system all year as much as we want for a measly four bucks.

If you don’t agree how good we have it, go to most other states like Oregon, for example, which is hyperactive in collecting fees for everything. You can hardly drive by a state park on U.S. 101 and look at the ocean without having to pay $5 for the privilege.

So, what to do? I’ve already covered this with the good folks at the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP), who lobbied this through the legislature back in 2003. They say, it ain’t broke, Bill, so don’t try to fix it, but I say make the park fee mandatory, and while we’re at it, make it a nice round $5. I like parks just as much as highway patrol officers.

I understand why FWP doesn’t want to risk opening up this issue in the legislature and taking a chance they might lose a secure funding system, but I have to believe the legislature is mostly happy with this small park fee tacked onto vehicle registrations, but might be embarrassed by how their predecessors back in 2003 decided to make it a stealth fee.

Right now, roughly 10 percent of Montanans, at least according to my clerk, opt-out of the fee, and more might if they knew about it because the current system is, in a word, sneaky.

Let’s be straight up with people and make everybody pay the fee. Who doesn’t visit a state park once or twice per year or have family members who do? We all pay the MHP fee, even if we haven’t seen a patrol officer in years.

When I went to the clerk and recorder, I decided to opt-in both dollar fees and opt-out of the park fee. Instead, so I won’t feel like a freeloader, I’m sending a copy of this column and a $4 check to Joe Maurier, director of the FWP. Perhaps if he gets a few such letters, he’ll call up a friendly legislator and ask him or her to introduce a bill to make the state park fee mandatory, so we can all feel better about how government does things.

Footnote: Here’s the address: Joe Maurier, PO Box 200701, Helena, MT 59620-0701. You can email him here.

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