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PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING

 

How is your snowmobile trail fund spent?
Lewis County Area Snowmobile Association
http://lcasa.org/funding

Purpose of this brochure
We want you to learn all the facts of the Lewis County trail situation in a fair manner, not from an Internet forum.
Note: the following three sections were to be checked by NYS OPHRP, however they failed to respond. It is as accurate as far as LCASA can confirm.

How much of your registration fee goes into the fund?
You pay $45 dollars to the State Trail fund. $10 of this goes into the processing of your registration by the DMV. Now multiply that by the number of sleds in New York State. By law, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYS OPRHP) can retain up to 30% to maintain the trails inside NYS OPHRP and to administer the trail fund. NYS has never taken the complete 30% they are allowed. It is more like 15%-17% to complete those tasks.

In 2006-2007, this left 2.8 million to disburse among over 11,000 miles of trails. $63 per mile is taken out for mandatory trail insurance.

How much does each club get currently?
Trails are classified into four categories: Corridor A, Corridor B, Secondary A and Secondary B. There is also a special high snow classification based upon an average 130 inches of snow fall for the past 30 years.

During the 2006-07 season, the OPRHP set the Corridor trail A mileage at $300 per mile, Corridor B trails at $200 per mile, Secondary A trails at $125 per mile and Secondary B trails at $100 per mile. The NYS OPRHP also took money from the fund and designated high snowfall miles to get $150 per mile.

This means that a club in a high snow area with Corridor A trails would get $450 per mile for each mile of trail they have. If a club has 100 miles of trails, they would get $45,000 to maintain the trails for the entire year.

When do clubs get money?
The Fund is broken into two payments. One payment in the fall of 70% of the estimated yearly grant. The second payment in the spring includes the remainder of the grant monies and the high snow money. For clubs in the high snow  area, approximately 40% of the total grant is received in the fall and 60% is received in the
spring.

One club in Lewis County had to borrow money to keep their groomers from being repossessed before the Spring payment was received.

How much does it cost to groom Lewis County Trails?
Some clubs' fuel bills for the 2006-07 season were over $11,000! Another clubs total hard costs over $50,000 and they only are entitled to $30,700 in funding.

In Lewis County last year, it cost over $500,000 to maintain the trails. We received less than $300,000 from the trail fund. The average cost per mile in 2006-2007 season was $1,013 per mile.

How clubs get reimbursed from the fund?
As with all grant applications, there are allowed expenses and disallowed expenses. There are usage fees for anything from chainsaws to track hoes. Some things that are allowed are groomer usage fees between $65/hour and $35/hour. Labor while working on trails at $7.15 per hour per person is also allowable.

What are the problems with this method?
There are a few problems, ranging from improper claiming of usage rates, to usage rates for large grooming equipment having extremely longer payback periods than lighter duty grooming equipment.

Auditing of any multi-million dollar fund is always a problem. Some of the things that go wrong are Class C groomers (snowmobiles with drags) being claimed at Class A groomers (like the ones you see on Tug Hill). Last year there was almost $6,000 of fraud detected by one club alone. There is not enough man power to conduct thorough audits happening at the state level for all clubs.

Payback periods are also excessively inaccurate. A Class A groomer can be used at $65 per hour and a Class C groomer can be used at $35 per hour. A Class A groomer costs $150,000, where a Class C groomer costs about $15,000. If you look at a basic payback period, it takes 5 to 6 times longer, about 2400 hours, to just payoff a Class A groomer, without figuring any other expenses. A Class C groomer gets paid off in about only 428 hours.

Another of the many problems is that clubs are getting paid for trails in areas that get little or no snow. It is estimated that 30-40% of the trails get less than 14 days of riding each year.

How can it be changed?
After studying the issues surrounding this problem, LCASA has come up with a few suggestions. OPRHP could:
- Create a high traffic area, which would include approximately 600 miles of trails in Lewis, Oneida, and Oswego and parts
  of other Counties.
- Reduce the reimbursement rates of Class C groomers so that payback periods are proportional to Class A groomers.
- Put in place an auditing program for groomer hours, or use a GPS tracking system to track each groomer's usage.
- Pay actual expenses spent by the clubs before reimbursing for donated equipment, time and labor.

Who can change how the funding is spent?
OPRHP can... make a high traffic area to fund 80% of the trail expenses, and adjust the reimbursement rates to be fair and in proportion to the cost of equipment.

NYSSA can...fully support making the trail fund disbursement fair and make that support known to the NYS OPRHP.

What can you do?
Join clubs in Lewis County, Support their fundraising efforts, and donate money to the clubs that maintain the trails you ride.

You can call the offices below to express your concern about this situation, and let them know that you support fairly distributing your trail fund money.

NYS OPRHP (Parks)
Stephen Lewis – 518-474-3827
stephen.lewis@oprhp.state.ny.us

NYSSA
Jim Jennings – 518-624-3849
jimjennings@nyssnowassoc.org

What we don't need you to do.
We do not want you to offend OPRHP or NYSSA. If you write or speak to them, please be considerate and polite.

Who is LCASA ?
Is an umbrella organization of the Lewis County snowmobile clubs. LCASA contracts with Lewis County to maintain all the trails inside Lewis County. It works with the individual clubs below to keep the trails as enjoyable and safe as possible.

Clubs in Lewis County

Barnes Corners Sno-Pals
http://www.sno-pals.com/ 		 
Brantingham Snowmobile Club Inc.
http://www.brantinghamsnomads.org/		 Club Cedar Pine, Inc.
http://www.snowmobilingusa.com/
Long Pond Sno Sled Club,Inc
http://www.longpond.freeservers.com/ 		The Lost Trails Snowmobile Club
http://www.losttrailclub.com/
Missing Link Snowmobile Club
http://www.missinglinksnow.com/ 		Osceola Snowmobile Club
315-599-6129
Plateau Riders Inc.
http://www.timberview.com/ 		Southern Tug Hill Sno-Riders Inc.
http://www.southerntughillsnowmobileclub.com/
Turin Ridgeriders
http://www.turinridgeriders.com 		Valley Snow Travelers of Lewis County, Inc.
http://www.valleysnowtravelers.org/

 

To:  All Snowmobile clubs in Lewis County Snowmobile Association

From:  Gary Stinson President LCSA

Date:  July 2007

Subject:  Mailing to all your members

 

REF: Trail Funding

 

The member clubs of the Lewis County Snowmobile Assoc Inc. (LCSA) has initiated an effort to help fellow snowmobilers , NYSSA and NYS Parks & Rec to understand the shortfall in funding for grooming is Lewis County. For more than a year now the LCSA with assistance from our area delegate to NYSSA have been trying to get the method of funding trails in New York changed so that Clubs located in high snow, high traffic and extended season (basically the tug hill region of NYS) would receive more funding to enable the Clubs to keep up with grooming demands and replace equipment.

 

History: Many years ago a statewide trail system was started. That system has grown to more than 11,000 miles of trails. With additional funds from registration increases and most recently the two-tier registrations outlined under the SRRA law, more dollars continue to come into the system for trail maintenance and development. As groomers started to appear the funding was to cover not only maintenance and development but also grooming. But as with the machines and clothing, the funding system needs to evolve and change to keep up with the sport as it is and the weather change.

 

As with almost everything else in the world, global warming is affecting our sport. Snows come later and leave earlier. Tug Hill was “discovered” overnight as a reliable place to find snow and ride. Trails that previously had little or no traffic during the week are now busy every day. Grooming demands increased as the growth on the hill was phenomenal- and it still continues to grow. Many Clubs had to go to a second machine to keep up with grooming demands. Very few miles of trails were added; the second machine was made necessary simply due to the additional pressure of traffic.

 

With all this growth one thing did not change the method of distributing our trail fund revenues. It’s time for a change. During this period of declining registrations the trail fund is being diluted as Parks continues to approve Clubs and trails in non snow or low snow areas. Parks needs to implement a moratorium on new trails and review the status of existing trails and grooming records and close trails where warranted.

 

Facts:

·        523 funded miles of trails in Lewis County

·      Trail funding: a trail in a non snow or low snow area gets the same funding as we do

·         Most clubs had an increase in memberships, but this was wiped out by the $150 cut in funding per mile (funding reduced this past season from $500 to $300 plus a $50 increase in high snow funding to $150.

·        Average cost per mile of the LCSA was $1013

·         Number of sleds counted by DOT counters from 1/1/07 to 3/26/07 – 177,567

 

As of now both Parks and NYSSA have not agreed to provide additional funding needed by the Clubs. Currently Clubs cannot afford to set aside funds for new equipment or replacement equipment as adequate funding is not available.  The funding needs to change.

 

A move is underway where Clubs will be reducing grooming or in some instances even stopping grooming when funds are depleted.

 

What you can do:

·        Renew your snowmobile registration through:

          NYS Dept of Motor Vehicles

      Lewis County Clerk

      7660 State Street

      Lowville, NY  13367

  • Support the effort by the Lewis County Association to get more funding by contacting:

                               jimjennings@nyssnowassoc.org                                                   

                                                      And

                              James.mcfarland@oprhp.state.ny.us                                                  

  • Let your fellow snomobilers know that the demands for more grooming is higher now than ever before and that the clubs are totally staffed by volunteers