Group raps loss of gas tax funding to motorized recreation

[Lee Borgersen]

 

Group raps loss of gas tax funding to motorized recreation
 
 
Should millions of dollars in gas tax revenue be spent every year to support motorized recreation in Minnesota?

That’s one of the key questions raised in a new report issued this week by Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation, a Duluth-based organization that has worked to bring more environmental and financial controls to the development of publicly-funded trails for snowmobiles, ATVs, dirt bikes, and other types of motorized recreation.

According to the analysis completed by MRR, a total of $18.5 million in public gas tax funding is annually diverted from the state’s roads and bridges to promote motorized recreation.

In a press statement issued this week, MRR indicated it had worked with the Minnesota Departments of Revenue, Transportation and Natural Resources to document all past, present and projected diversions of public gas tax revenue to motorized recreation.

“A total of $350 million in public gas tax revenue has already been diverted to motorized recreation, much of it in the past ten years,” said MRR Executive Director, Jeff Brown, of Duluth. Over the next ten years, says Brown, Minnesota’s Legislature will divert an additional $200 million in public gas tax revenue to motorized recreation unless Minnesotans intervene. “With our state’s traveler safety and infrastructure priorities unfunded, it is time to put the gas tax back into the care and maintenance of Minnesota’s roads and bridges where it belongs.” Brown said most Minnesotans are unaware of the amount of state gas tax funding that has been diverted to motorized recreation.

“Our state is in a financial crisis. Our roads and bridges are falling apart,” he said. “If you look at MNDOT’s 20-year plan they identify many unfunded high priority needs. This is the moment for Minnesotans to go to their legislators and tell them to end the $18.5 million dollars in annual gas tax diversions to motorized recreation.”

Brown said there are questions about the constitutionality of the diversions, and about how much should be diverted.

While the state’s constitution requires that gas tax dollars collected on vehicles used on public highways be used for maintenance of roads and bridges, legislators have reasoned that money raised from the sale of gas for motorboats can go towards boat landings, and taxes generated from the sale of gas used by snowmobiles and ATVs can go for maintenance of trails for such vehicles.

And Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Pike, said he doesn’t see the Legislature changing its mind on the matter any time soon.

“I can tell you this. Nobody is going to change that formula. You’ve got all these different groups involved.”

Rukavina said some funding source is needed to provide for trails. He said most of the funds from snowmobile, boat, and ATV license fees go towards DNR enforcement efforts, leaving little left for trail development or maintenance.

“I just can’t see any overwhelming support for this idea. It’s been brought up before by legislators, and it hasn’t gone anywhere. You’ve got to have some money to have a trail program,” he said.

State Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, chairman of the Senate Tax Committee, said the system works fine.

“It’s based on the number of machines and the average number of gallons of gasoline consumed; or it’s based on some survey,” said Bakk, who owns an ATV. “You have to base it on something. I think it’s pretty fair.”

Bakk said the tax diversion system has provided Minnesota with high quality boating opportunities and motorized recreational trails that benefit the rural economy.

“It really is an industry that’s kind of stood on its own, with registration fees, with the in-lieu-of-payment of gas taxes,” he said. “They’ve built an incredible trail system, and they’ve paid for a lot of enforcement.”

Brown said he doesn’t necessarily disagree, but argues that it’s time for motorized recreation to actually stand on its own. “If the industry is so healthy, it’s time to end the subsidy,” he said.

Some MRR members say it’s a matter of fairness.

Minneapolis resident and MRR member Scott McLaughlin said: “Not one of the 1,500 households in my neighborhood appear to even own ATVs, dirt-bike motorcycles, snowmobiles or mudder trucks. It’s just not right that we are all paying into accounts to promote machines only a few are using while siphoning needed funds away from our deteriorating roads and bridges.”

MRR officials note that the influx of gas tax funds to accounts earmarked for motorized recreation has frequently exceeded the need for funding, which has resulted in large surpluses in some of the accounts even as the rest of the state budget faces large shortfalls.

In fact, says Brown, one result of the study was the finding that a DNR ATV fund had been shorted $1 million by the Department of Revenue, but that no state officials had ever noticed.

The DNR, which lobbied for the public funds two years ago had not accounted for, missed, nor apparently needed the unmissed million dollars in gas tax revenue, MRR’s report states.

Gubernatorial race

MRR is hoping to raise the issue’s profile in the ongoing gubernatorial race. The group is running newspaper ads in the district of DFL-endorsed candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher as a way to pressure her, and others in the race, to support a phase-out of the gas tax diversion.

Minnesota Public Radio News’ Bob Kelleher contributed reporting for this story. You can hear MPR at 101.7 FM in Ely and at 92.5 FM on the Iron Range.