Oregon adds 30% surcharge for non-residents at State Parks

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Tom and Margi

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https://kpic.com/outdoors/oregon-adds-30-surchage-to-state-park-camping-fees-for-nonresidents?fbclid=IwAR0OOy-f51w3m8E7BS-DUTE01HMAM-OEP_hpzj0gn2GUbJrRKMU3vgs9Nm4
 
The surcharge is supposedly to encourage residents to stay home, and to help recover funds from the State's loss of revenue - all due to the Wuhan virus. How much do you want to be that the higher fees stay in place when the virus is no longer a problem.

Kev
 
Kevin Means said:
The surcharge is supposedly to encourage residents to stay home, and to help recover funds from the State's loss of revenue - all due to the Wuhan virus. How much do you want to be that the higher fees stay in place when the virus is no longer a problem.

Kev

I can see how collecting more money from out of staters helps make up for lost revenue, but I dont see how that gets Oregon residents to stay home. Unless you mean it would maybe keep the out of staters from coming to Oregon, and make more room in Oregon campgrounds for Oregonians.

Paul
 
PJ Stough said:
I can see how collecting more money from out of staters helps make up for lost revenue, but I dont see how that gets Oregon residents to stay home. Unless you mean it would maybe keep the out of staters from coming to Oregon, and make more room in Oregon campgrounds for Oregonians.

Paul

They want residents to camp at Oregon Campgrounds, not stay home.  Over the years, we've been turned away from several Oregon State Parks during the high season.  If you include all of August, the order is estimated to generate on average $100,000 a month thru the end of the year.  At $9.00 a pop, that's 11,111 out of state campers per 30 day month.  They have 170 state parks so just over 2 out of staters a night per park.  Other than at their very popular ocean front campgrounds, can't imagine it's going to make much of a change for residents.  However, my guess is many out of state RVers, are retirees and full timers, and may look elsewhere rather than pay the extra $9.00.  If so, the States revenue raising approach may backfire. 
 
Rhode Island increased their out of state rates significantly last year. After 15 years of enjoying RI parks, we?re done.
 
Many state parks do the same thing by requiring daily fee passes to even enter state parks. Either the out of state fee is higher than the resident fee, or residents don?t pay at all. I can?t really complain. After all, it is mostly the local residents that paid for the parks. There is some point at which I wouldn?t go to an extra-fee park, but it would depend on the park. I still would pay extra to stay at some of the coastal sites in Oregon,
 
HappyWanderer said:
Rhode Island increased their out of state rates significantly last year. After 15 years of enjoying RI parks, we?re done.

There's no question, the cost to play has increased.  Sometimes considerably.  One example is Oroville State Park in California.  When we began RVing 12 years ago, a night at the park was $17.00.  That was after a $2.00 discount for seniors.  No half price deals for California seniors.  Today Oroville changes $45.00 for that same park.  Is it worth it?  Absolutely if you're a seasonal camper and are only going to be there for a few nights every year.  For seniors on fixed income, it more likely becomes a choice between a lower cost private park with no reservation fee, a BLM or Forest Service campground if they can find one, or boon docking. 
 
Born in Oregon and still here, going on 68 years.

Many of you may not know that the OSP's are not funded by taxes in any way. Funding is by user fees, Lottery proceeds, vehicle fees, and donations and by lots of volunteer help.

I used to joke that we got paid $38/day ( or whatever the going site rate was) for working six hours/day.

  Oregon ranked 30th in the nation in state park acreage per 1,000 people. At the same time, it ranked second nationally for the number of park visitors per acre, indicating that the state?s limited area of parks are intensively used.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Parks_and_Recreation_Department
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_State_Parks_Foundation

Now I don't like sticking the out-of-state people with extras because it leads to retaliatory fees in other states. But I also feel that residents should get a little benefit from our parks. It is a catch-22 situation.

As one of our Governers so famously said,
"We want you to visit our State of Excitement often. Come again and again. But for heaven's sake, don't move here to live. Or if you do have to move in to live, don't tell any of your neighbors where you are going." (1971)
https://www.ohs.org/education/tom-mccall-better-oregon/quotes.cfm
 
From a prior post of mine (my views haven't changed because of the surcharge):


Another vote for Oregon state parks. All the ones we've stayed at have been very nice.

Some friends didn't want to stay at state parks when we made a joint trip to Oregon & Washington a couple of years ago because "state parks don't have sites long enough" for his 44 foot motorhome. One day, while our friends accompanied us in our car, I took a detour to a state park, pulled up at the kiosk and asked "how long are your typical sites?". The answer, that I already knew, was "80 feet".
 
Tom

It isn't the length of the sites but the the lack of width at the approach. I swear that if the site approach was 80' deep and 80' wide some people couldn't back their Yogo into it without being on the grass or complaining about the tree that is six feet off the pad.
 
It isn't the length of the sites but the the lack of width at the approach...
We obviously didn't visit all Oregon state parks in the 80's, 90's and 2000's, and I don't recall which ones we visited. But I don't recall any issues with width at the entrance/approach to sites. We were driving motorhomes towing a car or SUV. If we were towing a trailer or 5W I might have noticed.
 
John From Detroit said:
Many State and county/city parks have two rates one for residents one for non-residents.

I recall a few years ago when the powers that be in NY State had a heated debate over whether an out of state surcharge was better than an state resident discount.
 
RRR said:
Many of you may not know that the OSP's are not funded by taxes in any way. Funding is by user fees, Lottery proceeds, vehicle fees, and donations and by lots of volunteer help.

I, too, was born there many years ago ... left long ago, but visit often ... funding is complicated there where there is no sales tax ... a sales tax is the third rail no one is willing to touch ... so, other sources and methods are used to raise funds.  I hope the additional fee keeps the parks open and well maintained. 
 

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