Illinios – ATV riders need to prepare to start chipping in to help the grossly underfunded DNR budget after January 1, 2014. That’s when a new law requiring a $15 permit for four-wheelers is expected to go into effect pending the outcome of a hearing next month by a special panel of lawmakers who are reviewing the proposed rules.
The “DNR Sustainability Act” that attached a $6 Water Usage Fee to all “non-powered watercraft” earlier this year is getting ready to reap similar benefits for dwindling IDNR coffers when most ATV riders will be expected to pay for the $15 permit to operate their machines in Illinois when this law takes effect on New Year’s Day.
Back in July, Disclosure News Online lent a hand to a movement called Keep the Rivers of Illinois Free when the DNR flexed the new muscles provided to them under the DNR Sustainability Act a little too much and announced that they expected the $6 Water Usage Fee to not only apply to “any canoe, kayak, kiteboard, paddleboard, or watercraft not propelled by sail, canvas, or machinery of any sort” but then they unwisely tried to sneak “float tubes” in there too. Floaters were not too happy about being expected to pay the same $6 as canoers, kayakers, or any of the other paddle-pushing overachievers.
Floaters, a generally peaceful species, were outraged after learning that it would cost them $6 to float on Illinois waters.
Instead, Floaters with the help of their facebook page, a well-timed article, keenly written by Disclosure staff, and the simultaneous launch of two separate petitions protesting the IDNR for trying to attach a “fee-for-floating” to the “paddle-pass,” made so much fuss that it only took a couple of days for the IDNR to scratch “float tubes” off of their list of “non-powered watercraft” expected to pay the new Water Usage Fee.
“The new ATV fee, which could raise as much as $800,000 per year, is similar to programs already under way in Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky,” said IDNR spokesman Chris McCloud.
McCloud also explained that funds generated by the new permit would go to improving off-road trail areas and would fund law enforcement… presumably to police ATV riders who haven’t got the permit and no-doubt hit them with a hefty fine.
So don’t assume that ATV riders can expect any similar loopholes or grassroots movements on this one. There might be some scratching of heads at some of the wording though:
Not all ATV owners need the permit though.
People who ride on property where they reside are exempted. However, those who ride a four-wheeler on property they own but don’t live on would be required to pay the $15 fee.
A flotilla of golf carts
“We’re trying to exempt businesses from this law,” McCloud said.
Golf course owners will not be expected to have permits for their flotillas of golf carts. Ranchers and farmers will be exempted on their own property as well.
Following more than 10 years of crippling cuts totaling over 50% of the DNR’s budget, the ATV permit is part of a “sustainability” measure that went into effect January 1st, 2013. The DNR has seen their personnel cut in half over the past 12 years, and its general funding has gone from $107 million in 2002 to $45 million this year. The DNR also reports a maintenance backlog within its jurisdictions that has grown to $750 
million, while Illinois lawmakers continue squeezing dollars from the budgets of already-struggling agencies in response to the continuing Illinois pension crisis.
If this news disturbs your recreation budget, then you might be shocked to find out what other facilities the DNR Sustainability Act gives the agency the power to assess fees upon. While the ATV permit and Water Usage Fee are the first fees to have appeared at this point, the DNR has been granted the power to charge access fees in other areas of its jurisdiction; including, but not limited to: beaches, bike trails, horse trails, and any other types of trails.
Maybe it’s time to demand that our governor and elected legislators start bringing some meaningful, constructive ideas to the table and engaging each other in productive dialogue on how to fix the pension crisis before it gets too expensive to enjoy that mythical pension anyways.
