Pat Erwet buys a $25 seasonal sno-park permit at Powder House in Bend on Jan. 4.

The windshield of a Central Oregon outdoors enthusiast could easily get crowded, with a sno-park permit stuck in one corner and a Northwest Forest Pass or Oregon State Parks pass hanging from the rearview mirror.

Permits and fees are common for some of the most popular recreation sites in the region, typically starting at $5 for day-use sites. And with increasing operations costs, some agencies — including the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department — have raised fees in the last year to keep up.

To set fees for parking, camping or access to a picnic site, state and federal agencies use a variety of calculations and estimates, often incorporating how much it costs to provide services and how much similar recreation options cost elsewhere. And the agencies have different ways of putting the fees to use, often directing them back to the site they were collected to pay for improvements and upkeep.

ODOT’s sno-park program gets all of its funding from the sales of permits, said Karen Morrison, maintenance services coordinator with the state agency.

“It has to be a self-supporting program, we can only spend the money we generate from permit sales,” she said. “It’s every bit of the challenge that you would expect it to be.”

The fee is set based on advice from the Winter Recreation Advisory Committee, a citizen group, that estimates how much revenue it would take to provide a “modest service level in an average snow year,” she said.

Last year, ODOT raised its fees from $20 to $25 for a season sno-park permit, from $3 to $4 for a one-day permit, and from $7 to $9 for a three-day permit — an increase driven in part by increasing fuel costs, she said.

Of the money collected, which typically adds up to about $1.2 million, about $98,000 is spent on enforcement, Morrison said. The rest goes to plow out the state’s 100 or so sno-parks, she said, adding that none of it pays for overhead.

State parks

Costs to use state parks that charge fees went up in 2010 for the first time in more than a decade, said Chris Havel, spokesman for Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Day-use fees went from $3 to $5, he said, while the annual pass increased from $25 to $30.

“The share that the visitors paid has been declining, as our costs have been going up,” he said.

At its peak, the visitor fees paid for about 70 percent of the cost to keep parks open day-to-day, he said, but now visitors pay about 50 percent of that cost.

For the 2009-2011 period, the state park system is funded by about $37.4 million in visitor fees, $22.8 million in recreational vehicle registration fees and about $86.5 million in lottery dollars, he said. The visitor fees and RV fees pay for the operations budget, which includes day-to-day maintenance as well as office costs associated with operations, Havel said, while the lottery dollars go both toward operations and for bigger projects.

The state charges fees at parks with “significant facilities,” he said, which could include major trails, picnic shelters or concessions with boat rentals. Of the 190 state parks, 26 charge a day-use fee, including Smith Rock and Tumalo state parks in Central Oregon.

And the increase was set based on the amount needed to keep the budget stable, he said, as well as by looking at what other areas are charging.

“We look at the recreation market, not just what we charge in Oregon, but what gets charged across the West and across the U.S.,” Havel said, noting that they looked at what other sites charge for someone to come and spend the day, or camp overnight.

BLM, Forest Service

The Bureau of Land Management has three different fee levels, said Michael Campbell, spokesman with the agency’s regional office. There’s a standard fee, for things like a picnic area or developed trailhead, an expanded amenity fee, for something like a campground with service hookups or a site that offers interpretation or tours, and then a special recreation permit for events or other more involved activities on BLM land.

The agency uses a rating form to determine how much to charge at each site, he said, a kind of checklist to determine fees based on what amenities are offered at a site. How much other sites are charging factors in as well, Campbell said.

“Most of the money is kept at the site for maintenance, repair of the signs … the trails work. All of those things do take an incredible amount of upkeep,” he said. “We try to keep the fees at the place where they’re collected.”

The regional U.S. Forest Service also looked at the other recreation site fees when it last overhauled its fee system in 1999, said Jocelyn Biro, developed recreation coordinator with Region 6 of the Forest Service, headquartered in Portland. At that point, different sites were charging different fees, but the agency decided to make it an across-the-board $5 for day-use sites, and $30 for a Northwest Forest Pass that would cover the region, she said.

“The whole point was to consolidate all these different fees that were happening, level it out at one price, and then have an opportunity to create a regional pass,” she said. “The fee hasn’t changed since 1999. That doesn’t mean our (operations) costs haven’t gone up.”

All but 5 percent of the fees collected goes back to the forest where the money was collected, Biro said; that 5 percent goes to the regional office.

The Deschutes National Forest collects between $250,000 and $300,000 in day-use fees a year, and will spend the money at the sites that charge that fee, said Mark Christiansen, recreation program manager for the forest. It could be spent cleaning toilets, updating bulletin boards, cleaning a picnic site, or other activities to maintain the site, he said.

“We take a look at the work that needs to be done at all the day-use facilities, and then take that money and put it where it’s most needed,” Christiansen said.

Some oppose fees

But some people remain opposed to fees in general. Scott Silver, executive director of the Bend-based group Wild Wilderness, said that fees are a way for the agency to commercialize and privatize recreation on public lands. Fees allow more concessionaires to start operating at sites, he said, and are a way of commodifying recreation.

“The whole concept of pay to play is wrong,” Silver said.

However, Christiansen with the Forest Service said he doesn’t get many comments on fees from members of the public, he said.

“They may not like it, but I think they’ve accepted it,” he said, noting that the prices of many types of recreation have gone up over the years. “I’d still prefer to pay $5 when I go to the movies.”

Permit fees

ODOT sno-park permit: $25 seasonal, $9 three-day (consecutive), $4 one-day

Oregon State Parks: $30 annual, $5 day-use

Forest Service: $30 annual Northwest Forest Pass, $5 day pass

BLM: varies