South Dakota’s state parks charge all users the same fees: $8 to enter a state park, $4 to hike or bike the Mickelson Trail, $36 to put a sticker on your car or motorcycle for a full year of park entry, and $11 to $25 for a place to pitch your tent or park your Rv for the night, regardless of where you’re from. The only distinction we make between residents and non-residents is that we don’t charge South Dakota residents the $7.70 per campsite non-refundable reservation fee.
Representative Phil Jensen (R-33/Rapid City) would like to change that park fee equity. With House Bill 1133, Senator Jensen contends South Dakota residents should pay 25% less for an annual park sticker than Minnesotans, Wyomingians, and other outsiders.
Minnesota follows South Dakota in charging residents and nonresidents the same for park entry; our socialist neighbors just charge less: $5 for a daily group permit, $7 for a daily vehicle permit, $30 for a yearly motorcycle pass, and $35 for a yearly automobile pass. So maybe Representative Jensen is just trying to keep South Dakotans from drifting east for cheaper recreation.
Some states, like Wyoming, Indiana, Maryland, and Massachusetts, do charge visitors more to use their state parks. Iowa and Montana don’t charge residents anything to enter their parks; only non-residents pay. Their thesis could be that residents provide ongoing support with their taxes… or it could just be the good-old philosophy of “Visitors are only here once, so let’s soak ’em while we have the chance!”
Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania charge nobody entrance fees.
Given all the differing state park fee structures across the region and the country, House Bill 1133 could provoke some interesting and useful discussion about how we fund our parks and how we treat our residents and our visitors. Should residents pay less to use public resources? If so, given that our Game Fish and Parks Department gets ten times more funding from its own fees than from our general fund tax dollars, should our resident discount really be 25% or a more fiscally proportionate 9%? Given that federal dollars contribute more than four times as much support to our GF&P as our own state general fund dollars, could visitors from other states argue they’ve already contributed more than their fair share of tax dollars for our state parks and deserve a discount themselves? And given our keen dependence on visitor dollars (so desperate we’ll ignore pandemic sense, spend coronavirus relief dollars on tourism ads, and sacrifice hundreds of lives just to keep visitors coming), do we dare leave visitors with the sour taste of paying extra to visit our humble parks?
Well since a South Dakotan’s vote has more weight than most other states they should pay less. Particularly since they earn less money.
Discount for low wages? I’d like to hear Jensen enunciate that justification in committee. ;-)
Since South Dakota sucks off the teat of blue and purple states by taking more in federal taxes than they pay in, maybe it should be the other way around. Since, for example, Wisconsin residents pay in to keep South Dakota’s budget in the black, we should get that 25% discount.
Donald Pay, your name says it all to a South Dakota pub. No seriously, our new Florida senator Scott hates that argument. He wants New York to recieve less covid money because they do more for their citizens, they also pay much more to the feds than the taker red states. He also pleaded the fifth about 75 times when his hospital system was fined a record amount by the feds, so you know he’s just another pub schemer.
well…this proposal would have to be a negative to the Game Fish and Parks budget.That Department tends to pay its way with fees of various types. Would like to see more money spent on Game and Fish as well as Parks.The privitiization of Pheasant hunting is a South Dakota tragedy.
Yes, sock it to the out of state tourists. I have heard of out of staters talk about being surprised how exensive it is to vacation in SD. A guy I knew said forget it, he wan’t going to pay the increased fee for a three day fishing weekend in the Hills. Just keep passing those anti-gay bills and increasing your state park fees and you will get ever increasing boycotters and people that want to come enjoy your state but figure it’s just not worth it.
Taking a vacation is hard enough for families economically in today’s paycheck to paycheck world. Exorbitant fees for hotels/national monuments/fishing/hunting are expensive enough. SD Republicans that supposedly pride themselves on conservation shouldn’t have a problem with paying their dues to keep the state parks up.
YEAH BUT!!!! Jenny, we might have to pay a little more in taxes, and you know in SD it’s all about paying less tax and insuring less government for those who have most and want more!
Ya know we are ALL Bezos ‘wannabes’!!!!!
Jensen is just buying votes.