At first, I was excited to see the title of Senator Ralph Okerlund’s (R – Monroe, District 24) SB 60 – Voluntary Search and Rescue Funding. I often complain that it is unfair to us non-outdoorsie types that we have to pay to pluck people off the side of the mountain every time they purposefully go off trail or stupidly run off into an area that is far beyond their skill level. Now, I am not cold-hearted, I don’t think we should just let people freeze to death out there by not rescuing them, but it is a little aggravating to hear on the news that a person is trapped in an avalanche that they caused by being stupid and that we all collectively have to pay to get them out.
Well, that is where SB 60 comes in. This bill would allow vendors to create a voluntary “Utah Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue Card” that people could buy and carry around with them, costing $3 for a year or $12 for five years. Now, if you don’t buy a card, the state will still come and get you, but this is just a little something extra to pad the budget for search and rescue.
Now, here is where I have the problem – the bill specifies that the vendor will either get $1 or $3 if they sell a card to you (depending on how long the card will be valid). I assume Senator Okerlund’s logic on this is that the vendor will offer some sort of discount program to those that buy the card and that this would offset the cost – but there is no guarantee of this. In theory, the vendor is making money without any sort of product being produced: Making a card is cheep and a person will be rescued regardless of being a “card carrying member.” Granted, it is not a lot of money, but it is still something.
Imagine if we sold 20,000 of these things across the state – that is anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 that will not go towards search and rescue – to put it another way, that is (I would be willing to bet) the cost of rescuing one to three people.
I think it makes much more sense to raise the cost of hunting, and fishing licenses by, say, a two dollars, raise the registration fees of snowmobiles and off-highway vehicles by five dollars and have those additional fees go towards search and rescue – heck we can even tell people when they are getting their registration and licenses that this is the case.
My other problem with this bill is how it distributes the funds gained from this card. The money will be distributed not based on the number of search and rescues a county conducts, but by where the person bought the card. Now I am sure that this will short change those living in southern and eastern Utah as they have a low population base but a high number of people visiting the outdoors.
This is a bill with a good idea and a bad execution.
It’s funny that you should post this just as I was reading the bill. This bill will cost the state more money then it will bring in if Colorado’s execution of this is any indicator. This is based on Colorado’s search & rescue card which cost the state of Colorado around $120,000 to administer, sold about 12,000 and only brought in around $62,000. This creates a loss for search & rescue.
I don’t see a benefit in purchasing the card other then I feel good about donating to search & rescue and I’m sure that most people will see it this way. Why donate if Grand County is going to charge you one way or the other if they have to rescue you?
There are better ways to raise revenue for search & rescue, one being as you mentioned above, raise fees. They could also add a donate check box on licenses or registration cards or they could sell search & rescue pins where the proceeds then go to help fund search & rescue.
Have any updates come from this proposed bill? I think a lot of the people who frequent the Utah backcountry would pay a higher fee for this card. Maybe $20 – $25. I also agree that an additional fee could be added to OHV, hunting and fishing licenses and that would include the issue of the card to the license holder. The problem is it seems that most people who need to be rescued are not frequent backcoutry users, but rather inexperienced once in a great while users who wouldn’t posses this card.