B.C. Parks fee increase

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
Depending upon the levels at the park - an increase in campers can require more staff - keeping the office open longer hours - increasing the size of the sewer system - adding restrooms - etc.

Costs can be budgeted on X number of camper nights per year. If you get 1.5 X camper nights per year - it can actually raise fixed costs.

With all due respect meant most sincerely:

I can appreciate that as with most businesses, but an increased demand means an increase in revenue, which typically equates to a larger spread of costs so that additional revenue should mean higher profitability, albeit one may need to provide a portion of those increased profits to reinvestment for more support staff/equipment/services.

If anything I've always found generally the more customers we can sell our service or products to usually the cheaper the cost of production per item/service up to maximum capacity. Then most businesses look to more automation or higher output machinery/systems to produce even more product/service at less cost per item so more profit.

So in general, I'm struggling to get my head around how increased revenue wouldn't more than cover any expansion or additional support staff needed without an increase in purchase price? We've personally evidenced a 300% increase in the past 16 years in some CG fees, but not seen our salaries go up 300% in the same period.

Or is it more a case of the head honchos getting too greedy for their six and seven figure income salaries for very little contribution we see, in way too many public sectors of today. Usually it is never the right answer to throw people at problems or more dollars it's usually a case of assessing without prejudice the processes, systems and procedures and enforcing the expectations/accountability from employees they should of been made aware of and agreed to at hire date.

10000 camp nights at $30 = $300,000 15000 camp nights at $30 = $450,000 thats an extra $150,000 towards an additional staff member, some extra sites and water/sewer expansion, why the need to increase the per usage base cost because of higher usage demand. It would make more sense if they were getting reduced people leading to less revenue to cover the fixed costs.

There'll come a time when they do price themselves out of the market, and by then it might be too late to retrace in a timely manner. We are already hearing of folks that have stopped supporting these higher prices for little facilities, and the younger sets coming behind will have to watch their dollars stretch very far when interest rates eventually start rising to more commonly seen rates of yesteryear and that's just one of many things that could change how people have to reallocate their spending habits.

A lot of government controlled entities at National, Regional and Local levels might find before much longer they've all shot themselves in the foot. Change is inevitable, we just don't have the crystal ball to know when.

Does $30 per night cover completely the costs of running the CG, or is the campsite being subsidized at a few dollars per camper night from the provincial government? Or is the camping fee supposed to also supplement the costs of building new parks, expansion, etc.

Do the fees collected stay with the park, do they get lumped into the entire park system budget, or do they get dumped into the province general fund?

Over and over in the US, I've learned that the government entity running the CG subsidizes the operation of campgrounds. Raising the camper nights from 10,000 to 15,000 could require an increased subsidy from the province government. I don't know how BC runs their parks.

And provincial parks have been hit by the same inflation of costs for supplies as have all of us.

Texas ran into that issue several years ago - and the state legislature actually cut the subsidy to the state parks 'Because they have more income'. The legislature cut TPWD funding by approx. 2 1/2 time of the increased income - i.e. for ever $100,000 of increased income - the legislature reduced their TPWD funding by $250,000.

TX state parks camping fees try to cover the direct cost of camping only - and are not setup to cover the costs of running the park, staffing, major maintenance or improvements. That is where TPWD had to find a way to cover cost with what was actually reduced income.

RV Parks are not like retail business which buy and resell goods.

They are like hotels - which have a very high upfront investment, and try to get a ROI to cover operational costs and repay the investment. Luckly for us - government run parks almost never have to cover the investment costs of construction and installation. Also government run parks almost always are not allowed to build up cash to pay for improvements or expansion.

The PP's are beautiful but the the land is paid for and they pay no provincial or municipal taxes. Getting to be a lot of money for sites with no services.

Somebody gets paid to do what no one else does like clean up and remove garbage or maybe maintain roads and lay down gravel. The fees would be covering all PPC facilities and would have some for uniform price structure. I know around Kelowna and area in the summer you can't camp anywhere for $30 dollars no matter the condition of the campground.

As near as I can tell from this report

BC Parks generated $15,782,805 from camping fees in Fiscal Year 2012/13 - out of a total revenue of $20,706,925.

And total expenses of $64,123,414. - a deficit of approx. $43 million

With $15.8 million in camping fees and $47 million in park operating costs - it appears to cost the BC government/tax payers $2 for ever $1 collected in camping fees. Camping fees are the major source of revenue for BC Parks among user fees - $15.8 million out of $16.3 million collected.

A really interesting document.

FULLTIMEWANABE wrote:

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
Depending upon the levels at the park - an increase in campers can require more staff - keeping the office open longer hours - increasing the size of the sewer system - adding restrooms - etc.

Costs can be budgeted on X number of camper nights per year. If you get 1.5 X camper nights per year - it can actually raise fixed costs.

With all due respect meant most sincerely:

I can appreciate that as with most businesses, but an increased demand means an increase in revenue, which typically equates to a larger spread of costs so that additional revenue should mean higher profitability, albeit one may need to provide a portion of those increased profits to reinvestment for more support staff/equipment/services.

If anything I've always found generally the more customers we can sell our service or products to usually the cheaper the cost of production per item/service up to maximum capacity. Then most businesses look to more automation or higher output machinery/systems to produce even more product/service at less cost per item so more profit.

So in general, I'm struggling to get my head around how increased revenue wouldn't more than cover any expansion or additional support staff needed without an increase in purchase price? We've personally evidenced a 300% increase in the past 16 years in some CG fees, but not seen our salaries go up 300% in the same period.

Or is it more a case of the head honchos getting too greedy for their six and seven figure income salaries for very little contribution we see, in way too many public sectors of today. Usually it is never the right answer to throw people at problems or more dollars it's usually a case of assessing without prejudice the processes, systems and procedures and enforcing the expectations/accountability from employees they should of been made aware of and agreed to at hire date.

10000 camp nights at $30 = $300,000 15000 camp nights at $30 = $450,000 thats an extra $150,000 towards an additional staff member, some extra sites and water/sewer expansion, why the need to increase the per usage base cost because of higher usage demand. It would make more sense if they were getting reduced people leading to less revenue to cover the fixed costs.

There'll come a time when they do price themselves out of the market, and by then it might be too late to retrace in a timely manner. We are already hearing of folks that have stopped supporting these higher prices for little facilities, and the younger sets coming behind will have to watch their dollars stretch very far when interest rates eventually start rising to more commonly seen rates of yesteryear and that's just one of many things that could change how people have to reallocate their spending habits.

A lot of government controlled entities at National, Regional and Local levels might find before much longer they've all shot themselves in the foot. Change is inevitable, we just don't have the crystal ball to know when.

While demand does rise and fall with pricing (at least in Econ 51 class) there is much more to consider. First demand for RV sites is not that elastic (meaning price is not a primary driver). No one is sitting at an RV park in the Great Smoky Mountains saying they would have went to Yosemite if the RV sites there were $3.00 less. Demand for RV sites is much more driven by location, season and even weather. You could give the sites away in most locations and not draw a substantially greater crowd (other than taking guests from one local park to another). Since the selling features of private parks and government parks are often very different, private parks are not really in competition for business with the public parks. Public parks also are not in competition with each other since the monies end up in the same coffers. There is really no competitive element to public park pricing, hence they don't have to make a pricing decision based on business they might lose to a competitor. One of the major goals of public parks often might be to make enough money to convince the appropriate governing entities that it is not a serious drain on the governments limited resources to keep those parks open. As someone has already pointed out, apparently in BC, there is $2.00 of public money supplementing every dollar of park fees. That is a subsidy that budget officials could easily decide is too much subsidy for too few users and lead to cut backs in those parks. Sometimes paying a little more is good policy both for the individual user and the public as a whole.

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
As near as I can tell from this report

BC Parks generated $15,782,805 from camping fees in Fiscal Year 2012/13 - out of a total revenue of $20,706,925.

And total expenses of $64,123,414. - a deficit of approx. $43 million

With $15.8 million in camping fees and $47 million in park operating costs - it appears to cost the BC government/tax payers $2 for ever $1 collected in camping fees. Camping fees are the major source of revenue for BC Parks among user fees - $15.8 million out of $16.3 million collected.

A really interesting document.

Hopefully Canadians don't play the same money games the US Government does with some of their park operations. I was told years ago by a campground host at a Corp of Engineers campground that the costs for building and maintaing the campgrounds came directly out of the Department of Defense budget, but all the camping fees went directly into the General Fund. So on paper COE campgrounds always run a deficit, and in recent times many of them have been closed down as a result.

In 2009, the BC gov't. laid off almost 1/2 of the park rangers. CBC story.

BC Parks grossly underfunded, CBC (2011)

Funding cuts (2011) article here. In 2011, Christy Clark (our current premier) promised to "eliminate fees in provincial parks to encourage families to explore B.C. parks." Gee, glad to see that's been the case.... The article says "These deep cuts are today manifested in the dozens of park closures and reduced seasons, countless closed trails, decaying infrastructure, and the elimination of provincial park interpretive services..."

In March 2014, Bill 4, The Park Amendment Act, 4 was passed. As this article says, "The passage of Bill 4 will make way for industrial incursions into provincial parklands including energy extraction, construction of pipelines and industry-led research."

The BC Wilderness Committee on BC Parks (from 2013). Some of their points:
- operational budget $10 million less than 2001.
- only 12 full-time park rangers for 1,000 parks.
- funding per acre of parks in Alberta is approx. 10 times higher.
- 60% of seasonal park ranger jobs cut.
- Some parks permanently closed and others have reduced periods of season duration.

The Government announcement makes no mention of improved service levels, increased staffing levels, campground improvements, etc. It only talks about the fee increases and their justifications for it. Their news release says the increase will generate $1.3 million in new revenue, yet this appears to fall waaay short of what the operational budget was a decade or so ago.

The BC Liberal Party loves to balance the books by sucking funding out of areas like education and residential care for seniors - off the backs of those that don't have a voice and/or where there's no immediate observable effect of cuts. Now they are going to suck money out of park users, yet they have opened the door for industrial use and industrial development which obviously will lead to more money in the provincial coffers. You just can't believe much of what the gov't says.

Washington and Oregon State Parks are wonderful. Sure they have suffered funding cuts too, but the camping experience is still pretty darn nice. I'd go camping in a State park over a BC park anytime.

Isn't it wonderful how we are all so different in our thought patterns, and how we all interpret or perceive things differently, and how much we can learn from looking at things from so many different angles that others share?

We actually bid several years ago on a local PP we had a true love for having camped there for many years prior. It was to run for a 5 year period, and with full knowledge from the folks that had run it for the previous 15 years (3 x 5yrs) whom we knew very well and did an awesome job. They shared what costs and profits were being made and believe me it was a good chunk of change, which we felt we could have reinvested a portion of, tweaked a few systems, added a few extra $'s generating certain supplies, activities, and benefited the park for the people further whilst at the same time making a decent living doing something we had a true passion for. Being farming family backgrounds we are used to hard work and very long days, so no underestimation there of what would be needed effectively and to benefit a win-win.

It was about hour and half from Calgary (million pop approx) in the middle of the prairies with a lake - kind of a little oasis in the dessert. No hook ups, issues with septic dump station area, we'd need to address and so on but still this older couple were making very good income, travelled south for 5 months in winter and they maintained it wonderfully.

I have no problem whatsoever with the paying "a little more" "IF" it's to the benefit of the people and the tax payers that are already paying towards it indirectly, but it rarely ever is, and the amount of our wasted dollars is an absolute sin. Besides which what they say are their reasons for increasing fees rarely gets applied to that at the end, but gets diverted elsewhere has been most experience.

As it turns out, looking back, we aren't sorry we lost out personally but like untold others we were very appalled that at least one of the other local Albertan residents bidding didn't get it for sure, being familiar with the area, what would benefit it, and who would spend most of their profits back into the local communities most likely. It was awarded to an out of province company that runs several other campgrounds in their domicile province, and was definitely a situation of who you know not what you know. Have no problems with anyone making a "fair" income to operate successfully but we are talking about supposedly the lands of the people here that rightly or wrongly we feel are starting to be exploited for large corporate gains.

Bottom line is since then we've seen the prices go up exponentially (not at the same rate as inflation!), and more sites added to accommodate higher demand (right now!) for more profit.

Knowing how the figures work out behind the scenes to a large degree at park level, number of staff employed and salaries, it's not about what's best for the people and future generations of the lands whom pay the taxes and accommodating them, it feels to us that it's all about how much more money can we bleed out of folks.

Consider Kananaski's Country, it's supposedly PULZ (Public Lands) yet there's no random motorized style camping allowed even if you are the general rule of 1km away from a CG, nope you have to pay the $33 to just park on a piece of gravel in their MacLean Creek overflow area, and they will for sure make room for you at that rate! There's tons of suitable pullouts and places that would accommodate random camping, so that seems very unfair don't you think? USFS and BLM manages to allow it why don't we? $$$$$'s. Sure there are other public lands in way out places, but we have lost public access to more and more for random camping over recent years as they see another way to make yet more money at the expense of the people's enjoyment.

All the creative accounting in the world which we can all do in any situation to show positive cashflows versus deficits, depending what we are trying to achieve, and their reasonings for hiking rates doesn't bode well with the locals that have done the appropriate research and realized where much wasted dollars are going.

As someone else mentioned above they don't have to pay for the land, or property taxes, and due to size can bid lower rates on ancillary services, so how come the private CG owner that has to pay all those extra escalating costs can now more than compete on price we are seeing today and still survive with a small percentage the number of sites? I'm just struggling to get my head around it all no matter what figures or stats they throw at us.

Bottom line is it's all down to the governments and what they decide we have to abide with or do without. Rightly or wrongly it just feels to us minions that, they just want to increase their salaries at the upper end to ridiculous figures, yet not gain a true handle on operating more efficiently, as I said before by implementing more accountability at local level through to various tiers upwards by encouraging better systems, processes and procedures.

When it comes to governments or public bodies it's always their decisions in one form or another and the little guy on the street has no say, all we can do is pay our money and let the government make our choices.

Would we make different assessments and assumptions if we were the fat cats at the top making these decisions which really wouldn't have much impact on our enjoyments at that salary level? As my father always said "words are cheap, actions speak louder than words".

I can't help it, but all I can visualize in all of this is the single mother with two children, working a regular job, trying to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and food in their stomachs, whilst trying to scrape together enough money to afford a family weekend fun camp a couple of times in the summer, to create childhood memories, and miles of smiles that seemed to be a given way of life a couple or so decades ago in our National and Provincial Parks. We'd lend her our RV to help out but she wouldn't be able to afford the CG's fees to do it, when it costs her more for the night to camp in the wilderness than she pays rent per night for her all inclusive of utilities apartment.

We all have 'x' amount of dollars to spend and will do so, it just makes a difference who's pockets and what country we will put it in at the end of the day.

As always, this is just my probably totally wrong 2cents, which with inflation probably is not even worth a halfpenny today (LOL).

bob_nestor wrote:
I was told years ago by a campground host at a Corp of Engineers campground that the costs for building and maintaing the campgrounds came directly out of the Department of Defense budget, but all the camping fees went directly into the General Fund. So on paper COE campgrounds always run a deficit, and in recent times many of them have been closed down as a result.

I don't think that's been true for many years.

The 2015 budget for the Corps of Engineers estimates the Corps will receive about $44 million in 'Special Recreation User Fees' which includes campgrounds, day use and leased operations. Page 4.

COE 2015 Budget Request

While the individual campground receipts are usually deposited into a general Treasury Department General Fund account - the Corps keeps track of the amounts and most of the money counts as a direct appropriation to the district which operates the campground.

The National Parks get to use 80% of their collected user fees for user beneficial items within the parks. I can't see why the COE would be treated differently by the Congress.

Our Congress for years has made forcing users to bear the true costs of the benefits they receive from things like recreation a major priority - and it will only get more emphasis with the new congress.

There is also an agenda item among the new majority in Congress to turn COE recreation over to the individual states, to contract out or close all campgrounds not accepted by the states and get the Corps out of the recreation business.