Date: March 6, 2008
Senator John Marty, Chairman
Senate Committee on Health, Housing and Family Security
Room 328 Capitol Building
75 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
Re: Increase in the gas-tax diversion from the highway fund to the DNR's
ATV fund
Dear Senator Marty:
The League of Women Voters Minnesota supports your amendment to eliminate the
increase in the "unrefunded" gas tax receipts for ATVs from 0.15% to 0.27% of one
percent. This would almost double the amount of money diverted from our highway
fund to the DNR's fund for motorized recreation.
The formula used to arrive at this increase was contained in data presented in
a report to DNR by an independent consultant, but analysis of this data was not
completed. Two examples of the problems in this study:
- Gas tax revenue is taken from approximately 275,000 ordinary riders for
the benefit of the 10,000 ATV club members. The 275,000 ATV owners who
do not ride on public lands should not be counted in the gas tax formula.
Their riding has no relationship to riders who use public lands.
- The 275,000 ATV owners who do not ride on public land, often do ride in
road-side ditches where they do enormous damage. Transportation budgets
at the township, county, and state level are being eroded because ditches must
be repaired over and over, again. The gas taxes that these ATV riders
pay should go into the Highway Trust Fund to help state and local governments
pay for the necessary repair to these ditches and the roads the ATVs cross.
In addition, the program that receives funding from the gas tax, the Grant-In-Aid
program, is fraught with controversy, as highlighted by the Legislative Auditor's
2003 Report:
State-Funded Trails for Motorized Recreation. The DNR gives monies to
localities, which then disperse those funds to ATV clubs. "DNR reports illegal
state forest trails" in the
Star Tribune
on March 19, 2006 stated that DNR oversight had not improved. Nothing since
indicates progress on this front.
LWVMN is a good government group and good government begins with fiscal responsibility.
We are facing a large budget deficit; our highways are many years and billions of
dollars behind in maintenance and construction. This is not the time to increase
funding for any recreational group at the expense of our highway funds.
Thank you for your amendment,
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