Missouri Park and Recreation Association led the charge in 1995 to pass a Parks and Storm Water Sales tax option for communities. This reduces the amount from a cities general fund to next to nothing for parks. Parks are then relient on sales tax of up to 1/2% which generates on average the same or even more than what they were getting from the general fund. Since 1995 107 communitites in Missouri have passed this sales tax and over 1/4 billion dollars have gone directly to parks and storm water issues.

The strategy that Missouri has taken is enlightened. The time frame of passage of the sales tax option was probably crucial to its being enacted. Sales taxes are consumption taxes and if they are directed (to recreation or some other worthy publicly funded service) much like an excise tax so politicians cannot get the hands on it. Well you get the idea...

Here in New York State (NYS), politics and the economic environment would never permit this strategy to see the light of day. We in NYS do enjoy a high level of services but they are primarily directed at the disadvantaged. It is in our Constitution as an integral element of our values.

Also, we have a very fragmented governmental structure, so no one entitiy has a tax base that can support a range of recreation services. We have basic recreation services and parks but by and large they are very contrained by a lack of funding. Up state (anywhere north & west of the "City") is very conservative and see's government's role as minimal. Here in the Rochester area for example the YMCA is providing many recreation services.

Here in NYS we continue to lose population. We lost representation in Congress as a result of the 2000 Census and we expect to lose more in 2010. Additionally, we have been experiencing an economic contraction for a dozen years but we never had a housing bubble (although our economic plight is not as bad in other regions). Here in Rochester 80,000 jobs have been lost over a dozen years at Kodak alone.
So finding other revenue sources is a difficult proposition.

But, to get back to an important part of Gary's statement, lobbying is a very important aspect of what we do. Lobbying directly to your state legislature or to Congress (e.g. continued funding of the LWCF and other grant programs through the NRPA). Developing "Friends" groups to perform their own lobbying efforts but at the municipal and county levels, can prove to be very beneficial.

That's my two cents, for what it's worth.

Arthur Graham...
Lecturer
The College at Brockport
State University of New York