Please listen to our little “Jingle” that we hope will help people in a “call to action”. We need the snowmobilers of Maine to call their elected officials and ask them to raise the snowmobile registration fees starting next season. The clubs of Maine are woefully under funded and with skyrocketing fuel costs many clubs will stop the grooming process well before the season ends. Informal polls have indicated the vast majority of snowmobilers are willing to pay higher registration fees as long as any increase goes back into the Snowmobile Program and NOT into the general fund. The Maine Snowmobile Advisory Council voted unanimously to ask the I F & W committee to raise resident registration fees from the current fee of $33 to $50 and to raise nonresident fees from the current fee of $68 to $100 (New Hampshire residents pay $77 to register in their home state yet can ride in Maine the entire season for $68 which doesn’t seem fair to us).
Here’s how the money breakdowns currently:
Resident Registration Fee: $33.00
- Snowmobile Program (Trails): $13.24
- Capital Equipment Grant Program (for buying grooming equipment): $5.00
- I F & W General Fund: $5.61
- I F & W Administration: $2.53
- Municipality: $6.62
If the registration fee was increased to $50 as the Advisory council requested, the funding formula would remain unchanged and of the $17 increase, the Snowmobile Program would only gain $6.76. To “soften the blow” to the “poor snowmobilers” who are bound to complain about a fee increase, the legislature could raise the fee to $40 and give the Snowmobile Program ALL of the increase. This would make everyone happy, except of course, I F & W who desperately needs the money.
Thanks,
Rick LeVasseur,
Chairman, Maine Snowmobile Advisory Council
President, Jo Mary Riders Snowmobile Club
Recipient, 2007 Groomer of the Year from the Maine Snowmobile Association
207.723.5045
Members of the I F & W (inland fisheries & wildlife) committee:
Troy Jackson ; Bruce Bryant ; Joe Perry ; Jackie Lundeen ; Jane Eberle ; Walter Gooley ; Walter Wheeler ; Thomas Saviello ; Ralph Sarty ; Everett McLeod ; David Richardson ; Sheryl Briggs ; Edward Finch
LYRICS:
Come and listen to a story about clubs for snowsleds
They’re non-profit orgs, just to satisfy the feds
Always working on the trails (only God knows why)
Just waiting for the stuff to fall from the sky.
Snow that is, White Gold, Raise the fees!
Well the next thing you know the clubs are all broke,
Ask the State for money? What a joke!
Mr. Baldacci says, “No, we can’t raise taxes”,
So now it’s time to send him our emails and faxes…