As inflation strains Michigan parks, DNR budgets, lawmakers weigh fee hikes

• With inflation rising as revenue stagnates, state parks and natural resources officials say they’re bracing for cuts unless the Legislature approves a budget boost
• A bipartisan Senate proposal would raise hunting and fishing fees and make state parks passes mandatory at vehicle registration
• The proposal faces long odds in the House, where top Republican lawmakers have blasted the DNR and vowed budget cuts

Last summer at Mears State Park in Pentwater, a piece of the electrical grid melted. Several campsites and a bathroom lost power, which meant no lights or hot water for two days.

Frustrating as it was, it wasn’t an anomaly. Brownouts happen at Mears “anytime it's 80 degrees or hotter and slightly muggy,” said Manny Valdez, who supervises the park on the central Lake Michigan coast.

But upgrading the park’s ancient electrical system would take $1.6 million that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources doesn’t have in its budget. 

The same goes for updating the 1960s-era bathrooms at Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area and the half-century-old tractors that are still being used to tend fields at Michigan’s state game areas. 

“All we can afford to do right now is duct tape and WD-40 to keep those things running,” said Taylor Ridderbusch, the DNR’s executive policy adviser.

Now, agency officials want state lawmakers to give them a budget boost they say is needed to avoid further deterioration of the system and programming cuts. But the proposal, which hinges on raising hunting and fishing license fees and making drivers purchase a state parks pass for every vehicle registered in the state, faces opposition from House Republicans who have long complained about the agency’s enforcement of state fish and game laws. 

“It’s a public embarrassment that we fund an institution that openly targets Michigan families for simply trying to find joy in the great outdoors that we’ve been blessed with,” said Rep. Ken Borton, R-Gaylord, and the leader of the House committee in charge of the DNR’s budget. 

“Every ridiculous fine, fee, and charge they issue to Michiganders should be another line item slashed in their budget.”

Stagnant revenue, rising inflation

Among the smallest state agencies, the Department of Natural Resources receives just 0.5% of the state’s general fund budget. Much of the rest of its $534.5 million budget comes from user fees.

Parks visitors, hunters and anglers pay for the privilege of partaking in Michigan’s outdoors, and in turn the DNR uses the money to clean campground bathrooms, stock fish for anglers to catch, manage game areas where hunters can pursue deer, waterfowl and other species, fight forest fires, enforce hunting, fishing and boating laws and conduct scientific research with the goal of maintaining healthy fish and game populations. 

But while inflation has skyrocketed in recent years, the department’s revenue has stagnated. Hunting and fishing license prices have been locked in place since 2014, while costs for everything from fish food to toilet paper have risen by an average of 37%. 

Related:

• As GOP targets Michigan DNR, Ted Nugent blasts agency’s ‘insane’ regulations 
• Michigan eyes hunting, fishing, boating fee increases, change to park fees 
• Michigan parks are popular, but underfunded. They want some COVID money.

The price of a state parks pass has risen with inflation to $14 today, but state officials have long acknowledged Michigan’s Recreation Passport doesn’t bring in enough money to operate and maintain 103 parks and recreation areas that get about 30 million annual visitors.

Visitation has skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic, a boon for the parks system that also puts stress on aging toilets, roads and electrical systems that weren’t built for modern mega-motorhomes.

“The changes that we’ve seen to campers and the way that people use our campgrounds, they're looking to run a TV and an air conditioner and their Starlink, and that's very different than accommodating a pop-up camper or a tent,” Ridderbusch said.

The DNR received $273 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds between 2022 and 2023 to help drive down a maintenance backlog that had been growing for years. Department officials had hoped to complete about 200 projects with the money, but rising construction costs dashed those hopes.

“Our list of 200 kept getting smaller and smaller,” said Kriss Bennett, development unit manager for the parks system.

Ultimately just 181 projects have received a cut of the funding. Bennett estimated there is $2 million or less left in the budget for a list of roughly $300 million in infrastructure needs. 

In the broader DNR system, declining hunter participation numbers exacerbate the budget pain caused by inflation. With fewer people purchasing licenses, revenue from license sales has declined from $65.6 million in 2020 to $63.7 million last year.

A plea for more funding

Proponents of a DNR budget boost first floated the idea of generating new revenue from parks passes and license and permit fees in December, calling for fee hikes and automatically charging drivers for state park passes at vehicle registration unless they opt out (drivers currently must opt in).

Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s 2026 budget proposal still favors that plan. It would also devote $21.4 million from the state general fund to the DNR to remove or fix aging dams and update information technology systems.

Senate lawmakers have responded with a similar proposal. Senate bills (SB 276-277 and SB 280-281) would raise the price of various fishing and hunting license fees and require future increases to keep up with inflation, while requiring Michigan drivers to purchase a parks pass when registering their vehicle, with no opportunity to opt out.

The cost of a base hunting license for residents would go from $10 to $15, while a deer license would go from $20 to $25 and an all-species fishing license would go from $25 to $30. License prices for out-of-staters would also go up. See other proposed changes here. 

Those fee changes would raise an additional $28.8 million annually for the Game and Fish Protection Fund, which pays for DNR fish and wildlife management, law enforcement, habitat improvement and other activities. 

The price of a parks pass would dip from $14 to $10 for passenger vehicles and $7 to $5 for motorcycles. But state officials estimate they’d still realize a $43.5 million revenue boost because every registered vehicle-owner in Michigan would be required to purchase one.

Sen. John Cherry, D-Flint, is cosponsoring the bipartisan packages with Sen. John Bumstead, R-North Muskegon.

“We can shut down hatcheries. We can reduce the level of conservation work that we're doing. We can stop providing the great access we have to public lands,” Cherry said. “Or we can work on addressing the revenue situation that exists for conservation.” 

The Senate’s budget plan is based on the assumption that the bills will pass, along with a yet-to-be-introduced proposal to hike boating fees for another $11.9 million in revenue.

But the House has yet to release its own budget plan, and Republicans in the chamber have spent considerable time this session airing grievances against the DNR while pushing for cuts to its budget. 

Nearly half of the House Weaponization of State Government committee’s meetings have functioned as forums for DNR opponents (including 1970s rocker Ted Nugent) to air grievances against the agency’s policies, while House leadership has appointed longtime DNR critics to lead the House committees in charge of natural resources policies and budgets. 

They argue the agency is too aggressive about ticketing, suing or otherwise punishing people who violate DNR policies, including a ban on deer baiting that’s designed to slow the spread of disease.

“Why are we pushing for fee increases when we're literally pushing hunters out of the system with overbearing regulation and overbearing enforcement?” said Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River, who sits on the House Natural Resources and Tourism Committee. 

The agency’s defenders contend the DNR is being unfairly targeted with complaints that ignore the agency’s virtues. 

“Reducing their budget doesn’t mean all of those laws and regulations (that some lawmakers dislike) just go away,” said Amy Trotter, CEO of the hunting and fishing advocacy group Michigan United Conservation Clubs. “We’ll just have less data to actually understand their impact or see whether or not they should be changed in any way.”

Bracing for cuts

With days left before the Legislature’s self-imposed timeline to pass a balanced budget, DNR officials say Michiganders can expect reduced services if funding doesn’t materialize.

Mears almost didn’t open up this season, Bennett said, and could close if its electrical grid doesn’t get fixed.

Ridderbusch fears outdated pumps and generators at hatcheries could give out, causing a whole yearclass of fish to perish. 

Longer-term, he said, one or more of Michigan’s six hatcheries could close. They’re among the most expensive line items in the DNR budget, costing about $1.8 million apiece to operate.

State forest campgrounds could shut down due to lack of staff. State game areas could see fewer plantings of corn and other crops that attract game for hunters. 

“I would say all of that's on the table,” Ridderbusch said.