COMMENTS INVITED ON PROPOSED FEE CHANGES

With the current financial challenges confronting us, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks is searching for ways to ensure the future of outdoor recreation. By combining reductions in operating budgets in the current and next fiscal years, as well as devising strategies to enhance revenue, the department is working to meet the needs of Kansans who hunt, fish, boat, and visit state parks.

Department staff are studying a variety of ideas to generate adequate operating revenues. User fees provide about 80 percent of the department's annual revenues, and changes in those fees are proposed to provide part of the solution. Proposed fee changes are summarized in this spreadsheet, and public input will continue to be sought in the coming months. What is your opinion relating to the proposed fee changes?

STRIPED BASS HYBRID MANAGEMENT PLAN

They're known by various names: striped bass hybrids, wipers, palmetto bass, or sunshine bass. The artificially produced offspring of a striped bass and a white bass, this species grows fast and fights hard, making it a popular quarry of Kansas anglers.

Fisheries biologists for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks have developed a plan to help guide management of the species. The wiper has become an important tool for biologists by providing a predator to help manage abundant gizzard shad populations and to provide fishing opportunities for anglers.

The Striped Bass Hybrid Species Management Plan traces the history of the species in Kansas, as well as management methods for assessing its populations in Sunflower State waters. It also defines the management actions employed by KDWP biologists to ensure that wipers are a good fit for Kansas lakes and anglers.

You're invited to review the plan and submit comments here.

OPEN ADMISSIONS FOR KANSAS STATE PARKS?

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has proposed a plan to allow open admission to Kansas state parks, effective Jan. 1, 2009. The Governor has also proposed creation of a permanent funding source to finance capital improvements for state parks, as well as a one-time appropriation to finance flood repair and the development of green space in communities affected by natural disasters.

To finance open admissions to parks, the proposal would allocate $1.6 million in State General Fund dollars, to replace vehicle admission fee revenues. (Camping and other special use fees would still apply.) The intent of the proposal is to increase state park visitation and to generate greater public participation in outdoor recreation.

The Governor's proposal also would provide a permanent, dedicated funding source to finance capital improvements in state parks. The plan would allocate $3 million annually from the Expanded Lottery Act Revenue Fund, which is supported by licensing of state-owned casinos and licensing of slot machines. That same revenue source would provide an additional, one-time appropriation of $1.5 million to finance repair of state park facilities damaged by the floods of 2007 and to assist communities in developing green space. The Local Government Outdoor Recreation Grant Program would be used to distribute a portion of this appropriation on a one-to-one matching basis to applying communities, with priority given to those affected by natural disasters.

What's your opinion of this recommendation?