Recreation Fees on National Wildlife Refuges by Nell Prior Baldacchino Each year, approximately 25 million people travel to the wilder sections of our country to hike, birdwatch, hunt, fish or otherwise enjoy nature on one or more of the over 420 national wildlife refuges scattered throughout the United States. Comprising nearly 90 million acres, the National Wildlife Refuge System exists primarily to provide habitat for wildlife. Public uses are permitted when they do not interfere with the primary wildlife purposes of the refuge. In keeping with Fish and Wildlife Service policy, most refuge recreational activities are wildliferelated. Such activities include wildlife observation and photography, hiking, canoeing, fishing, hunting, and environmental education. Refuges often have facilities for the public, such as visitor centers and exhibits, special study areas, interpretive trails and drives, wildlife observation towers, and photographic and/or hunting blinds. Although there are presently no entrance fees on refuges, some visitor services are provided on a fee basis. Concessionaires operate on a few refuges (eleven in 1983) and provide such services as boat rentals, fishing supplies, wildlife tours, guide services and occasionally camping facilities. Under authority of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, the Service also charges recreation fees for special recreation programs and facilities on national wildlife refuges. A reservation fee system provides a means of limiting the numbers of recreational users and helps ensure a high quality recreational experience. In most cases, the fee system is used when the type of activity, frequency, or volume of demand would not be suitable to a concession operation. Of the nineteen refuges charging recreation fees in 1983, thirteen charged for services associated with hunting, such as blind rental. Fees are also charged for special wildlife tours provided by refuge staff such as seasonal elk bugeling tours at Wichita Mountains Refuge, Oklahoma, and night boa swamp tours at Okefenokee Refuge in Georgia (season and water levels permitting). A nominal reservation fee is also charged at Okefenokee for overnight use of primitive campsites along canoe trails. Ottawa Refuge in Ohio collects a fee for use of an old hunting lodge located on the refuge. Organized school groups, and conservation groups may make overnight reservations in conjunction with various educational programs. Camping facilities are provided on a limited basis on a few refuges, such as Wichita Mountains Refuge. In general, camping is only permitted on refuges when it is related to wildlife-oriented recreation, and it is usually of a primitive nature. Service fees are not based on a fixed-rate schedule, but, in general, are comparable with other Federal and non-Federal public agencies and the private sector providing similar services and facilities in the area. The Service honors Golden Age and Golden Access Passports on all fee areas. Decline in Number of Fee Areas Nineteen refuges collected recreation fees in 1983 as compared to 27 in 1981. This drop in the number of fee areas is largely a result of language in the 1983 Appropriations Act which abolished special recreation fee accounts and provided that fee collection revenues be conveyed to the Land and Water Conservation Fund Account for support of any and all activities authorized by the fund. Consequently, there is a lack of economic incentive of Service personnel to collect fees, since they are no longer able to directly recoup these funds to benefit the refuge. The Service has proposed to amend the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act to provide for the creation of a special fund for recreation user fees and to authorize appropriations from the fund for various recreational purposes on national wildlife refuges. Revenues derived from this account would be available primarily to repay field stations for fee collection costs and help defray operational and maintenance costs of the activities and facilities generating recreation fees. Revenues could also be used to upgrade existing facilities to make them eligible for fee collection, and to expand public use benefits where fees may or may not be collected. Commercial Activities It should be noted that in addition to recreational fees, the Service also collects fees for a variety of refuge uses including grazing, timber harvest, cooperative farming and similar revenue-producing activities conducted under special use permits and other agreements. Many of these commercial activities have wildlife management bene fits (e.g., controlled grazing maintains short grasses for goose browse, timber harvest provides diversity of habitat, and farming provides food for migrating and wintering waterfowl). The Refuge Administration Act of 1966 requires all such activities to be compatible with the purposes for which the refuges were established. Nell Baldacchino is a staff biologist for the Division of Refuge Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser vice. Nationwide Study Documents: State of the Art in Park and Recreation Finance by Sarah M. Jones While the public continues to resist higher taxes, governmental park and recreation agencies will continue to experience financial constraints. As traditional funding sources diminish, agencies are challenged to find alternative sources of financing and to devise more efficient and creative means to maintain and expand services. The technique most widely used to augment sagging tax bases has been fees and charges. However, with the uncertainty of future public allocations, agencies are forced to develop new funding alternatives to offset rising costs. These shifts in financing public park and recreation programs raise a number of philosophical, operational, and policy questions. As a result, it will take a concerted effort on the part of private and public institutions to provide the answers to these questions. This study is only one of many efforts to collect data on the current status of public agencies providing recreation services. Study Purpose In 1982, in preparation for the Fourth National Outdoor Recreation Plan, the National Park Service (NPS) in conjunction with the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) conducted a nationwide survey of public park and recreation departments. The primary objective was to determine the current status of the departments in the following areas: administration, financial information, fees and charges, private sector involvement, areas and facilities, and personnel information. This was to serve as trend data for the urban portion of the National Outdoor Recreation Plan. However, NRPA and NPS funding cuts halted the project. In the fall of 1983, the Revenue Sources Management School (RSMS), Wheeling, West Virginia, received the surveys to compile and interpret. The NPS, NRPA, and the RSMS are sharing the final results with interested persons and organi zations. Methodology NRPA mailed the "1982 Public Parks and Recreation Services and Program Survey" with a cover letter explaining the purpose of the survey to 700 departments within the United States. The sample was randomly selected from NRPA's chief administrator mailing list, a nationwide data base containing approximately 3500 entries at the time of the mailing. A total of 305 questionnaires were returned representing a 44 percent response rate which is above average for a selfadministered questionnaire. The survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points, which means that if the survey were repeated under similar conditions, in 95 chances out of 100, the results would not vary by more than plus or minus 2 points. Finally, because some respondents did not answer all questions, survey results are expressed in terms relative to the number of total responses to that particular question. Distribution of Respondents The distribution of respondents was recorded according to geographical region, population size, organizational type, and governmental jurisdiction. The majority (50%) of the park and recreation departments serve a population less than 50,000 with the fewest (6%) serving a population greater than 1 million. The majority (64%) of respondents providing services function under a combined parks and recreation agency. This response pattern is very consistent with a 1975 NRPA survey of parks and recreation agencies (66%). The predominant form of jurisdiction under which parks and recreation agencies function is the category of local government (64%). Survey Findings The following report contains only the financial aspects of the survey-sources of funding, budget cuts, fees and charges, and innovative funding techniques-as reported by the responding agencies. Additional information may be obtained from the National Recreation and Park Association. Funding The structure of parks and recreation financing is complex and varies from agency to agency, but general fund appropriations provide the major source of financing for all agencies. Fees and charges represent an average of 19 percent of the various funding sources. This represented a 4 percent increase since 1979, according to a National Science Foundation study. The remaining six funding source categories contributed approximately 10 percent collectively. The average percentage of budget funding sources is shown in Table I. Budget Cuts Forty-seven percent of the responding agencies indicated that their operating budget had been cut or frozen in the fiscal year of 1981. Although no region was free of budget cuts, only 12 percent of the responding agencies in the Southwest region, representing only 7 percent of the total respondents, reported budget cuts. It is interesting to note that the frequency of a "yes" response rose as the population size increased. The responses from those agencies whose budgets had been cut or frozen appear to contrast with the figures reported in the operating and maintenance budgets. Less than 16 percent of the respondents reported actual "cuts" in operations and maintenance budgets between fiscal years 1980-1981 and between 1981-1982. According to 22 percent of 256 of the agencies reporting, the operating budgets increased above 20 percent between the fiscal years 1980-1981. However, 18 percent of 272 reporting agencies indicated that the difference between the fiscal years 1981 and 1982 increased above 20 percent. The effect of budget cuts for parks and recreation agencies varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. However, when respondents were asked to choose from a set of responses reflecting how cuts may have affected their programs, 49 percent indicated that they had experienced a manpower freeze on new hiring. Also, ranked significantly high was the reduction or elimination of facility maintenance (40%). Table II illustrates how respondents, on a nationwide basis, classified the major effects of budget cuts on their respective programs. Innovative Funding When asked to describe a new source of innovative funding developed as a result of a reduced budget, 59 percent of the respondents indicated that they did find new revenue sources. Table III shows how agencies due to budget cuts attempted to recover lost revenue. Although the literature Percentage 70.9 19.4 1.1 .8 3.1 2.2 .6 2.8 suggests that select agencies have utilized those techniques shown in Table III for many years, this study shows that the techniques are being adopted across the country. Private Sector Involvement As Table III indicated, a vast majority of the innovative funding techniques directly involved the private sector. As the necessity to develop cost-cutting strategies increases, park and recreation departments are beginning to utilize the full potential of the private sector's resources. Ninetytwo percent indicated that a cooperative relationship existed between their department and such organizations as local businesses, fraternal organizations and clubs, non-profit groups, neighborhood associations, governmental agencies, and volunteers. Obviously, various opportunities for mutual benefits exist for both the parks and recreation agency and the private sector organization. Over one-half of the adminis |