Fee Demo Collections in Wenatchee District

[catbirdseat]

They are claiming $23,436 (4.9%) cost to collect $477,488 in Northwest Forest Pass fees. That seems better than some of the figures I have heard recently.

 

Recreation Fee Accomplishments 2003 -- Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests ( 2-page 178kb Acrobat file )

[HRoark]

They are not actually very diligent about reporting the TRUE cost of that collection. There was a report out sometime in the past few months talking about the fuzzy accounting that many districts are doing.

[catbirdseat]

For example, are they including Larry the Tool's salary in the cost of fee collection?

[HRoark]

Exactly, they don't amortize all that IS involved in collecting those fees. Also, they hide some costs under other ledger headings, so it appears as if what is being spent on Fee Demo Collection is less.

[vegetablebelay]

Fee collection on that page could be an entirely different category than enforcement which would be the bulk of any expenses.

[Mtguide]

Not only are they "not very diligent",there's been a lot of outright lying and deception regarding the actual costs of the program;the report you might be thinking of came out in May.(The report isn't specific to the Wenatchee district,btw).Scott Silver of Wild Wilderness.org sent it out from his website on May 24 this year.Log on to GAO for the full report,or GAO for the highlights.Also see Scott Silver's website at wildwilderness

 

What's going on is being done with malicious intent;these are not nice people.The goal is the privatization of public lands with the motorized and theme park recreation interests in control.We all need to really wake up and get more fully educated as to just how serious this threat is to our continued freedom of access to outdoor recreation on the public lands.