A lot of people outside our community have no idea how this works-we aren't like lots of organizations asking the state to pay for this or build that. We try to ge that word out, but still not a lot of people understand that we are self-supporting and self sufficient.
We are all taxpayers too and don't want tax money spent on us-we do want New York State to keep their promises to us and not spend committed funds in the tax barrel with everything else-treating our trail fund as just another pot of tax money.
If New York can't make their budget on money they collect for that purpose, then NY State needs to learn some fiscal restraint-maybe a couple less NY State owned planes and helicopters-maybe make the lottery people drive their personal cars instead of us buying cars for them-there's lots of waste out there that could be cut before they need to attack dedicated funds-what they did to our fund is unconscionable.
Please note, this fund does not contain any tax dollars. We snowmobilers have asked the state to raise our registration cost several times over the past decade to raise money for the trail fund. The DMV currently keeps $10 per registration to cover their administrative costs. The rest goes into the snowmobile trail development fund for use in building and maintaining snowmobile trails that are open to the public. The money also pays law enforcment, safety education and the salaries of state employees who run this program. Of all the special interest groups in New York State, we are one of the only ones that pay our own way without asking for money from the state. I repeat, these are not tax dollars and the taxpayer is not funding snowmobiling. These are funds that New York State Governement agreed to hold for us and to distribute back to municipalities and the clubs who build and maintain trails.
The snowmobile trail fund is a dedicated fund and New York has broken their promise by moving these funds to the general account to balance the budget.
Posted on June 30 at 6:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
A lot of people outside our community have no idea how this works-we aren't like lots of organizations asking the state to pay for this or build that. We try to ge that word out, but still not a lot of people understand that we are self-supporting and self sufficient.
We are all taxpayers too and don't want tax money spent on us-we do want New York State to keep their promises to us and not spend committed funds in the tax barrel with everything else-treating our trail fund as just another pot of tax money.
If New York can't make their budget on money they collect for that purpose, then NY State needs to learn some fiscal restraint-maybe a couple less NY State owned planes and helicopters-maybe make the lottery people drive their personal cars instead of us buying cars for them-there's lots of waste out there that could be cut before they need to attack dedicated funds-what they did to our fund is unconscionable.
On Snowmobilers: Restore depleted funds